Tesham Mutna

Tesham Mutna is what remains of an old fortress in southern Toussaint, south of Francollarts. It is tied to one of the darkest chapters of the duchy’s history: according to legend, vampires who settled here after the Conjunction of the Spheres used the fortress to keep humans as a living blood supply.

The most notorious of them was Khagmar, a vampire so bloodthirsty that he was said to drain whole villages in a single night. When the locals began hiring witchers and mages to deal with the problem, the other vampires sealed Khagmar in a cage beneath the fortress, where he spent some two hundred years slowly going mad within reach of the scent of the humans kept nearby. The fortress was eventually abandoned, but the cage survived, and in Blood and Wine it gets used again.

In The Witcher 3

Tesham Mutna is the setting of two main quests in Blood and Wine. In La Cage au Fou, Regis needs the blood of an agitated elder vampire to brew a potion that can read Dettlaff‘s memories, and the only elder vampire at hand is himself. He opens a hidden door into the ruins, has Geralt lock him in Khagmar’s cage and lay scavenger baits in the tunnels, then lets the scent of blood and the hordes of ghouls, rotfiends and scurvers drive him into a frenzy. A fleder and a katakan join the fight before Geralt can take his sample.

Later the ruins host the showdown that gives the quest Tesham Mutna its name. Dettlaff has demanded that Syanna meet him here, and how the meeting goes depends on Geralt’s earlier choices:

• If Geralt went to the Unseen Elder in What Lies Unseen, the Elder forces Dettlaff to come, and the two of them fight.
• If Geralt brought Syanna back from Beyond Hill and Dale…, Dettlaff tries to kill her. With the ribbon from the Little Flint Girl she is whisked to safety; without it she dies, and the story continues in Burlap is the New Stripe.

The fight against Dettlaff’s vampire form has three stages, ending with a phase where Geralt must destroy three pulsing hearts while blood clones attack him. Defeating Dettlaff also counts as a proof of valor for There Can Be Only One.

Good to know

• Tesham Mutna gear: on the way to the cage chamber in La Cage au Fou, three containers hold the Tesham Mutna heavy set: armor, boots, gauntlets, trousers, a mask and a steel sword. Wearing three or more pieces restores a little vitality with every kill.
• Before the boss: save first, since the game does not autosave during the fight. Keep Quen up, and don’t count on Axii or Vampire Oil, neither of which affects Dettlaff.
• The ruins have their own signpost and appear on the Toussaint interactive map.