Overview
Contract: Patrol Gone Missing is an early witcher contract in Velen, recommended from level 7. A Nilfgaardian scouting patrol from the Army Group ‘Center’ camp has vanished in the woods and bogs, and the camp quartermaster, Tavar Eggebracht, wants to know what happened to it. The answer is a wyvern, but if you keep digging after the fight, you find a much uglier story.
Getting the contract
The Army Group ‘Center’ camp sits in the far southeast of Velen. Read Eggebracht’s notice on the board there, or simply ask him for work. He sends you to the patrol’s last camp west of the House of Respite, east of the Velen crossroads. Because the camp is so far out of the way, you may well find the patrol’s remains before you ever meet Eggebracht, and the contract works fine that way too.
The investigation
- At the abandoned campsite, examine the campfire and the tracks nearby: armored boots mixed with bare feet.
- Follow the Nilfgaardian prints until Geralt notices a stench. Following the stench right leads to wolves and green goo that points to a draconid. Following it left is a long detour past more goo, a couple of bandits and some nekkers, including nekker warriors.
- The quickest route is to ignore the stench and stick to the footprints. They lead to a corpse that confirms the draconid, then on to the wyvern and another body.
Fighting the wyvern
This is a straightforward wyvern at a low level. Coat your silver sword in draconid oil, use Aard to bring it down when it flies low, and throw Grapeshot if you have it. When it lunges, dodge forward and to the side so you end up behind it, then get a few hits in. Watch the tail. Full tactics are on our Wyvern page.
Loot the wyvern trophy. Oddly, this wyvern does not drop a mutagen.
Choices and outcomes
You can go straight back to Eggebracht now, or investigate further. Further north from the wyvern, mounds of dug-up earth show where bodies were buried before necrophages got to them. Examine the second body and the blood, then follow the trail to an empty ghoul nest in a cave. The dead inside are not Nilfgaardians. The patrol had not been scouting at all. They had marched Redanian prisoners of war into the woods to kill them and bury the bodies, and the smell drew the monsters in.
- Don’t investigate, or investigate and still take the pay: 10 XP and 50 crowns.
- Investigate and refuse the pay: 35 XP and no crowns. Confronted with the truth, Eggebracht just shrugs.
Uncovering the truth also affects Blood Ties. If you have not finished it yet, Eggebracht will not share his information for free there. You will need to bribe him or use Axii.
Rewards
The wyvern trophy, plus either 50 crowns and 10 XP or 35 XP and a clear conscience. The cave with the prisoners’ bodies also has a chest holding the diagram for the Enhanced Griffin Silver Sword, which is reason enough to investigate.
