Contract: Devil by the Well Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Quest
Suggested level: 2
Group: Witcher Contracts
Location: White Orchard
You can start this quest by reading one of the notices posted on the White Orchard Notice Board or by talking to Odolan directly.
In White Orchard Geralt happened across a notice posted by a certain Odolan residing in the village. The man wanted someone to take out the monster who was haunting the area around an old well - and doing so required a professional. This was as typical of witcher work as they come, so Geralt decided to talk to the man.
Related points of interest
White Orchard Notice Board
White Orchard
Odolan
White Orchard
Devil by the Well
White Orchard
Tomira
White Orchard
Quest stages of Contract: Devil by the Well
1. Ask Odolan about the contract.
Odolan's house is located in the western part of the village. Go there and talk to him. He will explain to you what his problem is. You will be able to bargain with him about how much he will pay for your work.
Malicious beings usually haunt the ruins of castles, fortresses or, as a last resort, towers. The wraith of White Orchard, however, chose a much more quotidian site for its haunting: a well. A White Orchard peasant by the name of Odolan wanted someone to chase off the phantom and Geralt accepted the job.
2. Find the spirit that haunts the well.
Go to the abandoned village. If you arrive during the daytime, you'll see the Devil by the Well circling around the well. However, she won't attack unless you get too close.
2.1. (Optional) Find evidence of the spirit's presence using your Witcher Senses.
When you get there after dark there will be no ghost and to find out what type of monster you are dealing with you will have to examine the scorched grass around the well and the burned corpse of the animal.
3. Read the entry about noonwraiths in the Bestiary.
Open the bestiary and expand the specters category. You'll learn that it's best to use Moon Dust bombs, Specter Oil and Yrden Sign against noonwraiths.
4. Find out what binds the noonwraith to the ruined village.
The evidence you are looking for is in the largest house, located on the eastern side of the village. It's the Yellowed diary and a corpse lying on the floor.
4.1. Read the diary from the ruined house.
Read the Yellowed diary.
27 III 1250
It's happened. Volker sent a petition of our grievances against the lord to the court at Vizima. Listed all the harm he's done us. How he killed Johann for not taking off his cap quick enough. How he trampled our fields when drunk with nary a thought of repayment. How he barged in during Pieter's wedding and demanded his right of the first night. Now we've finally got what we begged Melitele for in our prayers for so long - the judge recognized our grievances and waived all our bonds and duties to the lord. We can finally strike out on our own. At last, we can live as free men!
12 IV 1250
The first day of our freedom. Hovel's not much of a village yet, but to my mind it's better than the most fantastic palace. Volker fumed our home with hazel wood smoke to drive out evil, buried a marten under the gate, to make sure no thieves cross our threshold. And then he gave me a bracelet - loveliest I've ever seen. Mother said it's foolish to spend so much on a bauble when we haven't ploughs nor hoes and that we ought return it to the merchant. Over my dead body! I'll never take it off. It'll always be there to remind me of Volker - of how happy we were that day.
23 IV 1250
They say the lord is coming to see us. That he wants to make a deal, to beg us to return to the village. They say he's calmed since his son died, that he's not as quick to anger about small slights. Well, we'll see. One way or another, I've no intention to move one inch from here.
4.2. Follow the drag marks using your Witcher Senses.
When you examine the man's body, Geralt will notice further blood traces of someone else that go towards the house entrance. When you examine the doorframe, Geralt will conclude that they are the tracks of the woman someone dragged towards the well.
4.3. (Optional) Defeat the noonwraith.
If you come too close to the wraith, it will attack you. Damage it a little and it will flee and you will be able to investigate the well.
4.4. Use your Witcher Senses to examine the well.
Check the bucket rope tied to the well. At the end of it you will find a woman's skeleton.
5. Go down the well and look for something that belonged to the dead woman using your Witcher Senses.
Jump into the well, dive and find the woman's arm with the Ornate bracelet.
6. Find a way out of the cave. / Leave the cave.
Climb out of the water, then dive in another pool of water and swim through an underwater tunnel to a nearby lake.
7. Prepare to fight the noonwraith and light a fire near the well. / Light a fire to destroy the noonwraith's bones and bracelet.
Get ready for the fight. Craft and apply oils, potions, etc. When you are ready, go back to the well and burn the skeleton and bracelet and then the wraith will appear.
8. Defeat the noonwraith. / Take a trophy from the noonwraith.
Make sure to use Yrden sign trap to keep the wraith vulnerable to your hits. When it splits, quickly take the copies down. When you kill it, pick up the trophy.
Noonwraith trophy
5% Bonus experience from humans and nonhumans
9. Return to Odolan for a reward.
Go back to Odolan. Collect the reward from him (20+ crowns) or tell him to keep the coin for his daughter. In the second case, he'll give you amethyst. Odolan will also tell you that he once heard Tomira mention the name of a girl who was a ghost.
It turned out the devil haunting the well was a noonwraith: the ghost of a young woman who had died a sudden and cruel death. The witcher found her body hanging from the well's bucket rope and, nearby, a bracelet that must have belonged to her while she lived. Destroying this object broke the tie binding the poor woman's ghost to this world and allowed Geralt to chase it off once and for all.
The quest will end but you can now visit Tomira and speak with her about Claer. That way you will not only learn a little more about Claer's story, but you will also get additional experience points, 10 crowns, 4 x Saltpeter, 8 x Berbercane fruit, 8 x Hellebore petals, and 6 x Cortinarius.
Though Geralt had rid the village of the noonwraith, he could not stop thinking about the unfortunate woman the phantom had once been. Who was responsible for her untimely death? What had she done to bring this upon herself? Just who was she? Thanks to the dedication inscribed on the bracelet he found in the cave, Geralt was able to get answers to these questions from White Orchard's herbalist. She recounted to him the story of the area's troubled past.