Overview
Contract: The Beast of Honorton is a level 25 witcher contract in the Mire, a stretch of southern Velen. It arrived as one of the free DLCs released in July 2015. The ealdorman of Honorton wants a witcher to deal with a monster his people have given the not very helpful name of “spook”, which is said to haunt the woods around the village. What Geralt actually finds there is a much grimmer story, and the contract is really the opening act of Where the Cat and Wolf Play….
Getting the contract
The notice is posted on the boards at Crow’s Perch and in Oreton. Honorton itself is an unmarked village between Claywich and the Boatmakers’ Hut. You don’t have to read the notice at all: simply walking into the village works too, although the quest may then never appear in your journal. If you want it logged, grab the notice first.
The investigation
There isn’t much of one, and that is the point. As Geralt gets close he comments on how quiet the place is, or on the stench of corpses. There is no ealdorman waiting to greet him. Instead, a pack of alghouls is feeding on a body next to one of the huts. Kill them and the contract is done.
The real detective work starts right after, in the follow-up quest. Inside the nearest hut lies the severed head of a leshen, the actual Beast of Honorton. If you read the notice, Geralt remarks that someone got to the job before him. Who that was, and why the village ended up full of bodies, is what Where the Cat and Wolf Play… is about.
Fighting the alghouls
Alghouls are the bigger, smarter cousins of the common ghoul. Their scream stuns you, and when they get angry, spines rise along their backs that punish you for hitting them. Coat your silver sword with necrophage oil, keep Quen up against the lunges and spikes, and use Axii to calm an alghoul whose spines are out. Keep moving so the pack can’t surround you, and finish one before starting on the next so they can’t all regenerate at once. Full tactics on our Alghoul page.
Rewards
The contract itself pays nothing: no fee, no trophy and no listed XP, because there is no one left in Honorton to collect from. The payoff is the follow-up quest, which starts the moment the last alghoul drops and, depending on how it ends, can lead on to Take What You Want.
One known bug: the contract sometimes vanishes from the journal instead of completing, even when it was taken from a notice board. The follow-up quest still starts normally.
