The Whispering Hillock is the quest behind the hardest choice in The Witcher 3’s first act. Under an ancient oak near Downwarren, a spirit is trapped in the roots of the tree, whispering to anyone who comes close, and people keep dying around it. Geralt can free it or kill it, and either way, people pay the price.
How to start The Whispering Hillock
Most players reach it through Ladies of the Wood, when the Crones send Geralt to solve Downwarren’s problem. You can also stumble on the hillock earlier, in which case it shows up as a secondary quest. It is a level 5 quest.
The heart under the oak
As Geralt approaches the oak, a voice tells him to stay away. On the western side of the tree, a werewolf guards a cave entrance next to an Igni Place of Power. Inside, a flooded tunnel (with a couple of chests underwater) leads to a heart beating among the roots. The spirit talks to Geralt. If you came through the main quest, it has a lot to say about the Crones and offers to save the orphans of Crookback Bog from them if Geralt sets it free.
Free it or kill it
To free the spirit, Geralt needs three things: a raven feather, the spirit’s own bones (which do not look human) and a wild black horse calmed with Axii. Ride the horse into the cave, and the spirit moves into it and gallops away as Black Beauty. At the last moment you can still trick it and let it die, or change your mind and fight it.
To kill it, refuse its offer. The spirit summons waves of endregas, and you have to cut through the roots around the heart before you can destroy it.
What your choice means
The outcome only plays out later, in Return to Crookback Bog, but it is one of the most talked-about choices in the game:
- Free the spirit: it saves the orphans from the Crones and later leaves them with Marabella in Novigrad. But it also slaughters most of Downwarren. The Crones punish Anna by turning her into a water hag, she dies when Geralt lifts the curse, and the Baron takes his own life.
- Kill the spirit: Downwarren survives, although the witch hunters later hang some of its people. The orphans are taken by the Crones. Anna lives but loses her mind, and the Baron takes her far away in search of a cure.
There is no happy ending. If you want the Baron’s story to end with him alive, kill the spirit.
Tips
- If you free the spirit before you have spoken to the ealdorman in Ladies of the Wood, the consequences get muddled: Downwarren is attacked, Anna is not cursed, and the orphans are not saved after all.
- You may already have the raven feather from the nest Johnny sends you to.
- If you kill the spirit, it can drop diamond dust and glowing ore, which no other monster drops.
