Equine Phantoms

"Equine Phantoms"
Details
Type	Witcher contract
Expansion	Blood and Wine
Suggested level	44
Location(s)	Pinastri's Hermitage Mont Crane Cemetery
Region(s)	Toussaint
Source	Pinastri in front of her hut.
Reward	150 / 60× potatoes

This quest can be undertaken at any time, including after the main questline.

Journal entry

I have oft heard Geralt boast that in terms of monsters, he firmly believes he has seen it all. Yet what he encountered on this occasion demanded that he revise that view. While travelling through Toussaint, he happened on a female hermit who claimed she an invisible specter was tormenting her and would be her end. The witcher was skeptical, not least because he could not imagine how he might defeat something invisible.
The woman's suffering seemed so intense, however, that he resolved to try to help her.

To be able to track the hermit-haunting wraith, Geralt imbibed a dose of a brew the woman prepared. The concoction had a highly surprising side effect – for Geralt began to understand the speech of his trusty steed, Roach.

Geralt does not drink the brew:

Yet Geralt decided he shouldn't devote his attention to a specter that he could not see. After a time he returned to visit the hermit, only to learn that Roach herself had proved quite the witcher, having resolved the crisis on her own.

Geralt follows the elusive specter:

Together, the witcher and his mount tracked down the nightmarish ghost. It proved to be the spirit of a knight, Pinastri's former lover, who had committed a terrible crime when in anger he had attacked his own horse and beat it to death. He remained restless in the afterlife for the hermit had refused to forgive him for the deed.

Geralt asks Roach to forgive the knight:

Yet the story ended happily thanks to Roach – namely, the mare decided to forgive the ghost on behalf of the horse he had murdered.

Geralt cannot forgive the knight:

The story did not end well, for Roach, too, refused to forgive the ghost on behalf of the dead horse. Geralt defeated the knight spirit, but he believed this was only temporary, that the specter would ultimately return to demand forgiveness from the hermit.

Geralt fails to catch up to the elusive specter:

Yet instead of pursuing the elusive specter, Geralt turned his attention to other matters.

Alas, Geralt's worst expectations came true, as he learned when some time later he tried to pay the hermit another visit. He found her dead, and the marks on her body suggested that Marcello had returned as an umbra and sucked all the blood from her body.
Geralt grew pensive, considering the nature of human stubbornness and ill-conceived pride. Yet if I know him at all, I would say he devoted little time to these thoughts. For the witcher is a man of action, not a philosopher, and as it did every day, the Path beckoned.

Walkthrough

• Use your Witcher Senses to investigate the area and find out what's tormenting the hermit.
  • Formula: Lesser mutagen transmutator - red to blue in hut on bedside cupboard.
  • The Flagellant's Manifesto in hut on table.
• Use your Witcher Senses to examine the area.
• Use your Witcher Senses to examine the moths by the window.
• Talk to the hermit.
  • Common graytop brew (only transient in inventory).
• Help Roach investigate the area.
• Chase the spirit to find out where it comes from. (this can fail!)
• Defeat the restless spirits. (178 , apparition ×4)
• Examine the gravestone.

Geralt asks Roach to forgive:

• The spirit is gone for good.

Geralt does not forgive the knight:

• Defeat the spirit. (2 , the spirit may return)

• Return to the hermit. (150 , 60× potatoes)

Notes

• When Geralt starts talking to Roach after drinking the Common graytop brew a few strange things come up:
  • Roach has a manly voice, and not that of a female.
  • When asked how the whistling for Roach works over continents, but Roach still gets stuck on low "barriers"... the answer to that is obscure. (The devs having some fun and breaking the 4th wall.)
  • Ironically, a game bug may get Roach stuck on a few logs, breaking any progress in the quest. Hopefully you have a save to fall back to, to fix this, i.e. one before Geralt drinks the brew.
• While under the influence of the Common graytop brew Geralt can talk to other animals around Pinastri's hut besides Roach. This includes a cow (who sometimes answers in Nilfgaardian), two goats, two cats, two dogs and a wolf.
• Pinastri will sell some herbs, but has no gold.

Gallery

• 

  The hermit Pinastri seems to be haunted by a specter.

• 

  The specter watching Geralt and the hermit.

• 

  Geralt drinks a special brew, the common graytop brew, to be able to see the specter. Side effect Geralt understands what Roach says.

• 

  With "detective helper" Roach the elusive specter can be found.

• 

  A chase to the Mont Crane Cemetery occurs and then Geralt has to fight off several apparitions.

• 

  At the grave stone of a knight, the source of the specter apparitions.

• 

  Marcello Clerici is asking for forgiveness. The hermit could not forgive him, but Roach might.

• 

  The detective team successfully solves the case. The hermit finally is rid of the specter, and Geralt earns quite a few potatoes.