Witcher 3 A Dark Legacy Treasure Hunt Guide – Count Romilly’s Figurine

TL;DR

• A Dark Legacy is a missable Hearts of Stone treasure hunt – you can only start it by winning Count Romilly’s Figurine at the auction in Open Sesame!
• The figurine costs 300 Crowns. Win it, then take it to any blacksmith or armorer to dismantle it.
• Dismantling gives you Count Romilly’s Will and an Ornate Key – reading the will starts the quest.
• Travel to Arnskrone Castle Ruins in Deadwight Wood, northeast of Heddel.
• Defeat the Ancient Leshen (level 37) and pack of wolves outside, then descend into the cellar.
• Use Aard on the damaged door, kill the three Wraiths inside, then unlock the chest to finish the quest.

A Dark Legacy – Quest Overview

A Dark Legacy is an optional treasure hunt quest in The Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone. It is one of the easiest quests in the DLC to miss entirely because it does not appear in your journal until you take a specific action with a specific auction item that most players walk past without a second thought.

The quest leads Geralt to the ruins of Arnskrone Castle, the long-abandoned home of the Romilly family, where a fortune is said to be buried in the crumbling underground passages. Getting there is straightforward. What is waiting outside the entrance is not.

Quest type: Treasure Hunt – Hearts of Stone DLC
Suggested level: 34+
Location: Arnskrone Castle Ruins, Deadwight Wood (northeast of Heddel)
Enemies: Ancient Leshen (level 37), Wolves (level 34), Wraiths
Prerequisite: Win Count Romilly’s Figurine during the Open Sesame! auction

How to Start A Dark Legacy – The Missable Step

This quest cannot be started any other way. You must win Count Romilly’s Figurine at the Borsodis’ Auction House during the Open Sesame! main quest. Once the auction ends and you leave, the figurine is gone permanently and the quest is locked out of your playthrough.

Witcher 3 A Dark Legacy Treasure Hunt

How to Win the Figurine at the Auction

During the Open Sesame! auction, three items come up for bid. Count Romilly’s Figurine is an eagle statuette and goes for a final bid of 300 Crowns. You will need at least that much in your wallet when the auction starts.

One important tip: do not tell Vivaldi that you are not participating in the auction. If you do, he will not lend you 100 Crowns and may also compete against you for the figurine, potentially driving the price up. Just stay quiet and let the auction proceed normally.

The other two auction items are The Starry Night Over the Pontar Valley (a painting, wins at 20 Crowns – can be sold to a bookseller in Novigrad for profit) and The Professor’s Spectacles (wins at 350 Crowns – mostly cosmetic, not worth it). If you want all three items, bring at least 670 Crowns to the auction.

Win the eagle figurine, complete Open Sesame!, and keep the statuette in your inventory. Do not sell it.

Need more Crowns before the auction? Our Witcher 3 Remastered best money and Crown farming guide will help you stack up fast.

Step 1 – Dismantle Count Romilly’s Figurine

After you have the figurine, take it to any blacksmith or armorer in the game. The level of the craftsman does not matter – even a basic amateur will give you the same result. The dismantle cost is as low as 29 Crowns.

Open the craftsman’s menu, switch to the Dismantle tab (L1/LB on console, or the tab at the top of the crafting screen on PC), and find the figurine in the list. Select it and confirm.

Dismantling the eagle statuette gives you two items:

• Count Romilly’s Will – a letter containing the last testament of Count Romilly
• Ornate Key – a heavy key that unlocks the treasure chest in Arnskrone Castle

Open your inventory and read Count Romilly’s Will. This officially starts A Dark Legacy and marks Arnskrone Castle Ruins on your map.

The will reveals that Count Romilly hid the family fortune beneath the castle before the Romilly line died out. Geralt, as practical as ever, decides this information is worth following up on.

Step 2 – Travel to Arnskrone Castle Ruins

Arnskrone Castle Ruins are located in Deadwight Wood, northeast of Heddel, on the eastern edge of the Velen map. Set a custom marker or use the quest tracker to navigate there.

As you approach the ruins through the forest, the atmosphere shifts. The sky darkens and the woods go quiet. This is the telltale sign of an Ancient Leshen territory. Be ready before you enter the area.

Also look for a corpse near a log and a skeleton under a nearby tree before entering the ruins. This is where you can pick up the start of a related quest, The Secret Life of Count Romilly. Picking it up now lets you complete both quests in a single run through the cellar, which saves time and avoids a known bug (more on that below).

Step 3 – Deal With the Ancient Leshen and Wolves

Guarding the entrance to Arnskrone Castle is an Ancient Leshen at level 37, accompanied by a pack of wolves at level 34. If you cleared this area previously for another reason, they may already be gone. If not, you have two options.

Option A – Fight the Ancient Leshen

Ancient Leshens are among the most dangerous creatures in the game. Here is how to fight it properly:

• Apply Relict Oil to your silver sword before the fight. This is the Leshen’s primary weakness.
• Use Igni to set it on fire. Fire deals significant damage and disrupts its attacks.
• The Leshen will summon crows and wolves during the fight. Ignore the wolves and stay focused on the Leshen itself. Use Igni or Aard to scatter the crow swarm when it becomes an issue.
• Watch for its root attack where it slams the ground and spikes erupt around Geralt. Dodge sideways, not backwards.
• Keep moving constantly. The Leshen can teleport and attack from unexpected angles.
• Once the Leshen is dead, the wolves become much easier to deal with individually.

Option B – Bypass the Leshen Entirely

If the Ancient Leshen is too high a level for you right now, you can approach the ruins from the hill on the other side and enter the castle walls without going through the main entrance where the Leshen patrols. Once inside the walls, head to the southern part of the ruins to find the tower with stairs leading down into the cellar.

Inside the ruins you will still face two wolves and a Warg before reaching the tower, so be prepared either way.

Step 4 – Enter the Castle Cellar

In the southern part of the ruins, look for a tower. It has a spiral staircase leading down into the underground passages beneath the castle. Descend the stairs into the cellar.

Activate your Witcher Senses as soon as you are underground. The cellar is dark and the paths are not obvious without them.

Step 5 – Break Through the Damaged Door

Follow the passage until you reach a damaged wooden door. It is locked and cannot be opened normally. Use the Aard Sign to blast it open. This reveals the room beyond where the treasure is hidden.

Step 6 – Kill the Wraiths

Through the broken door, three Wraiths attack Geralt. Fight them with your Silver Sword and use Yrden to slow and trap them. Wraiths become partially corporeal when they step into a Yrden trap, making them much easier to hit and significantly reducing the fight’s difficulty.

Clear all three before trying to loot anything. Trying to open chests while Wraiths are active is asking for a hit from behind.

Step 7 – Find and Unlock the Treasure Chest

With the Wraiths dead, use your Witcher Senses to locate the chest. Walk around to the northeasterly chamber on the other side of the wall in this room. The chest is there, locked.

Use the Ornate Key you received from dismantling the figurine to open it. Loot everything inside.

The chest contains:

• One or more Runestones
• Crafting components
• A random weapon or armor diagram
• A random alchemy formula (if you have not already learned all available formulae)

Opening the chest completes A Dark Legacy.

The Secret Life of Count Romilly – Do Both Quests Together

There is a second treasure hunt in the same location called The Secret Life of Count Romilly. It is activated by finding a corpse near a log by the ruined castle, which contains additional pages of Count Romilly’s journal.

Both quests require opening chests in the same cellar area. Do them both in a single visit. This is important for two reasons:

• It saves you from making two separate trips to a dangerous area.
• There is a known bug where a tree can grow to block the cellar entrance after you complete A Dark Legacy. If this happens, you cannot go back to finish The Secret Life of Count Romilly. Doing both in one run avoids the problem entirely.

Pick up the second quest before descending into the cellar and make sure it is tracked as an active objective while you are looting the area.

Known Bug – Quest Not Completing After Looting

Some players report that looting the chest does not complete A Dark Legacy, leaving it stuck in the journal permanently. This most often happens when A Dark Legacy is not your currently selected quest objective at the moment you open the chest – the game sometimes does not register the completion if you are tracking The Secret Life of Count Romilly instead.

To avoid this:

• Make sure A Dark Legacy is set as your active tracked quest before opening the main chest.
• Save your game before opening any chest in the cellar.
• If the quest does not complete, reload and try again with A Dark Legacy tracked.
• If you looted the skeleton by the Ancient Leshen before getting the quest, reload a save from before that point, start the quest first, then return to loot.

Tips for A Dark Legacy

• Do not miss the auction. The figurine only appears once, during Open Sesame! If the quest ends without you winning it, A Dark Legacy is permanently locked for that playthrough.
• Bring at least 300 Crowns to the Open Sesame! auction specifically for the figurine bid.
• Use Relict Oil and Igni against the Ancient Leshen. If you are under level 35, consider bypassing it via the hill and dealing with the interior wolves instead.
• Pick up The Secret Life of Count Romilly near the entrance before going underground to do both quests in one trip.
• Set A Dark Legacy as your active tracked quest when opening the treasure chest to avoid the completion bug.
• Any blacksmith or armorer can dismantle the figurine. The cheap ones cost as little as 29 Crowns.

For gear upgrades using your new diagrams and crafting components, see our Witcher 3 Remastered gear reforging guide.

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• Witcher 3 Remastered Skill Tree Guide
• Witcher 3 Remastered Bestiary Guide – All Monster Weaknesses
• Witcher 3 Remastered All Monster Trophies Guide
• Witcher 3 All Quests in Order – Complete Main Quest List

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