Overview
Open Sesame! is a main quest in Hearts of Stone. As one of his three wishes, Olgierd von Everec asks Geralt to bring him Maximilian Borsodi’s house. It is not a building but a treasure locked in the vault of the Borsody Auction House in Oxenfurt. The result is one of the best-loved heist stories in the series.
The auction
Entry to the auction is by invitation only, but the banker Vimme Vivaldi brings Geralt in as his guest and introduces him to his friends. Each has a small challenge worth taking:
- The art dealer tests Geralt’s eye. Pick the Portrait of a Merchant, and he tips you off about a painting by the unpopular van Rogh. Buying it is the only way to unlock Avid Collector.
- Countess Mignole collects witcher gear. This is the only chance to buy all four Viper School armor diagrams from her.
- Robert Hilbert challenges Geralt to gwent and pays out with the unique Gaunter O’Dimm card.
Three lots go under the hammer: the van Rogh painting, an eagle statuette that unlocks A Dark Legacy, and the spectacles of an assassin known as the Professor. At the intermission, Vivaldi introduces Geralt to Horst Borsodi, and Geralt is thrown out. After a scuffle with the guards, a masked stranger invites him to a meeting at the Herbalist’s Hut outside town.
Planning the heist
On the way, Geralt deals with a boar and a band of Fallen Knights at the herbalist’s door. Below the hut, the Stranger lays out his plan. He needs two more accomplices and a cook who will spike the guards’ stew. This opens three subquests that must all be finished first:
The heist
For the job, Geralt wears the New Moon armor set and cannot change gear until the vault fight. He carries a wooden sword so no one dies by his hand. Once the cat burglar Eveline has scaled the tower, the crew finds the building is not empty after all. A fight with the guards ends in a standoff, with guards outside and Horst locked in his vault.
What follows depends on the safecracker. With Quinto, clever negotiation keeps the guards out, but Geralt falls into a pit of arachnomorphs on the way down. With Casimir, an explosion brings the guards in for a fight, but also wrecks the floor trap. Either way, Eveline decides this is not what she signed up for and flees.
Brothers
At the vault, the Stranger unmasks: he is Ewald Borsodi, Horst’s disinherited brother. Horst offers Geralt a better deal, and Geralt has to pick a side. The safecrackers take sides too. The prize turns out to hold the brothers’ father’s will, which neither of them will give up. Geralt can fight for it, or strike a deal and take the house but leave the papers. Loot the vault well before leaving, since the chests hold the Viper venomous steel sword diagram and a relic Ofieri crossbow.
Geralt then escapes through a secret passage and reports to Olgierd.