The Fall of the House of Reardon is a secondary quest in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
- Good people!
- My ancestral farmstead, Reardon Estate, is infested with monsters. The manor house and all the surroundings have been occupied, leaving one most dreadfully afraid even to take a peek, let alone live therein. That manor is all that I have left to cherish in this life, so I plead for mercy - whoever can find the charity in their soul to help an old woman in need, come see me, and in return you shall receive my eternal gratitude.
- -Dolores Reardon
Note: this quest will fail if not completed before starting The Isle of Mists.
Walkthrough[]
You can start this quest a few different ways:
- meet Dolores Reardon as she's being kicked out of someone's hut in Lindenvale
- find the notice on Lindenvale's notice board
- find the manor while exploring
The rewards don't change here if you talk to Dolores first or not (as there's no way to haggle) but can save a trip of having to return to the manor if you talk to her first. She'll reveal she's returned to the area as her husband has passed away, but her family estate is infested with monsters. Agree to help and she'll give you a key to use to unlock a box at the manor as your reward.
The events that unfold at the manor are dependent entirely on whether you either spared or killed Letho during The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings.
- If you chose to spare Letho, Geralt arrives at the manor to find that there are no monsters in the area. What he does find are traps around the area and someone hiding in the barn, activating the quest Ghosts of the Past. Note that the initial conversation with Letho here will change slightly if you managed to evade his traps or not.
- If you killed Letho, there will be no traps and the estate is instead filled with wraiths, which Geralt has to kill.
Regardless of the above, once the wraiths are dealt with (whether by you or Letho), you get the objective to return to Dolores and this is all that's required to complete the quest. However, unless you came here before you met Dolores, remember that she gave you a key for a lockbox with your reward, and there's more to be earned as well. Note: if you haven't talked to her already, that's fine - you can get all rewards even after the quest completes.
To find the lockbox, you'll first need to find a sturdy barn key, so enter the most northwest house and loot the chest in the corner for it. Then make your way to the main building and unlock the door here. You should immediately see red writing on a wall with your Witcher Senses. Examining it will uncover the lockbox just below it. If you talked to Dolores first, you can then unlock it here for 50 and 100 florens (otherwise you'll need to talk to her afterwards to get the key). There's also two more things you can examine in the other buildings, but aren't really needed - a painting of Dolores and her twin brother Humbert, as well as her diary.
However, if you want to earn more and learn what happened to her brother, head outside to the back of the barn to find a hidden stairway that leads down into a cellar. Note that if you didn't kill all the wraiths, some will spawn here as well. Make your way to the furthest room in the cellar to find a weak wall and destroy it, then enter to find a skeleton you can examine and some paper nearby. With that, head back to Dolores at the Lindenvale tavern.
If you found and examined the skeleton, Geralt will automatically reveal this to her and, while she'll be sad knowing her husband killed her brother, she'll thank you nonetheless. Regardless of what you did so far, you get 25 here and the quest completes. However, if you fully investigated, you'll also get 80 and 50 for finding and revealing what happened to Humbert. Also note that if you found the manor first, this is when Dolores will give you the lockbox key.
While the quest may be finished, if you return to the manor later, you'll find Dolores has moved back home and can be talked to. If you didn't open the lockbox yet, she will remind you of it, and you can still do that and/or find the skeleton in the cellar. You still get all the optional rewards and can return to her for an update if you wish.
Journal entry[]
- Continuing his tour of rural Velen, Geralt stopped by the village of Lindenvale. There he came across a grief-stricken old woman. The cause of her woe? She was homeless, a monster having made its nest in her family manor and forced her into a rental situation elsewhere that had recently proven unaffordable. When Geralt approached her, she asked him to rid her manor of this beast. In return she gave him a precious token - the key to the chest in which she claimed to keep her life savings. Geralt couldn't refuse to help an elderly person in need, especially not one so eager to reward him handsomely for it, and so decided to do as she asked.
- If Geralt let Letho live:
- When Geralt arrived at the Reardon family manor, he found that Letho had long ago rid the place of the beasts that once prowled it. All that was left for him to do was to tell the woman that her former home was now safe. When Dolores heard the news she was beside herself with joy, as the place was closely tied to her fondest childhood memories - to the days when she was young and beautiful and lived there with her brother and parents.
- If Letho was killed:
- Geralt rid the Reardon family manor of its monstrous dangers. When Dolores heard the news she was beside herself with joy, as the place was closely tied to her fondest childhood memories - to the days when she was young and beautiful and lived there with her brother and parents.
- If Geralt finds the skeleton in the cellar:
- Speaking of that brother... while in the manor, Geralt happened across a most unusual find - the body of a young man bricked up behind a wall. It seemed this was no macabre bricklaying accident but a grisly murder - the man was Humbert, Dolores' brother, and his murderer Dolores' first husband, Roderick. He returned to Dolores and told her of this, and, though learning the truth froze the old woman's blood in her veins and undoubtedly took years off the already short time remaining to her, she was grateful to Geralt for the information.
- Dolores moved back in to her family manor and lived there in peace and comfort to the end of her days.
Objectives[]
- Ask Dolores about the monsters in her manor.
- Find the Reardon family manor.
- Kill the monsters in the manor.
- Return to Dolores. (25)
Notes[]
- If Letho is alive and Geralt goes to the manor before talking to Dolores, Letho will claim the manor was overrun by ghouls instead of wraiths.
- Humbert Reardon's diary was also supposed to be found during this quest, in the same house as the barn key, but whether due to a bug or intentionally it doesn't spawn.
Trivia[]
- The name of the quest, as well as the subject of the hidden crypt beneath the manor, are a reference to the Edgar Allan Poe short stories, The Cask of Amontillado and The Fall of the House of Usher.
- The brother's name is Humbert, and the sister's name is Dolores, probably a reference to the novel Lolita by Nabokov.
- Additionally, Dolores Reardon is presumably a reference to the late Dolores O'Riordan, lead singer of The Cranberries