Overview
Without a Trace is a secondary quest in Hearts of Stone and one of its grimmer stories. It starts from the notice board in Brunwich, which sends Geralt to Otto Bamber, the herbalist whose hut stands outside Oxenfurt.
The missing apprentice
Otto’s apprentice Folkert went to gather herbs near Deadwight Wood and never came back. At the marked spot, Geralt examines a wagon and follows a blood trail north to the outskirts of Erde. The village is nearly empty except for an elderly couple. They say wolves attacked Folkert and that he went off into the woods, where the pack must have killed him. The old blood in the hut by the gate is, they say, just where they prepare their meat.
The cellar
Geralt can take that story back to Otto. Or, by the eastern gate, he can follow the smell of rotting meat to a hidden cellar and find Folkert’s body, cut apart. Confronted, the couple insist wolves killed him and they only took the body, because they are too weak to farm and have to eat somehow. There is no way to prove what really happened.
The choice
Geralt can spare them, making them swear never to do it again, or kill them. Back with Otto, he can tell the truth, and Otto swears revenge, or lie. Visiting Erde later shows how things turned out: alghouls feeding there if the couple died, or a grieving husband if they were spared and Otto was lied to.