Witcher 3 Without a Trace Quest Guide – Best Choice & All Outcomes

TL;DR

• Without a Trace is a dark Hearts of Stone side quest – pick up the “Apprentice Gone Missing!” notice from the Brunwich noticeboard.
• Talk to herbalist Otto Bamber at his hut northeast of Oxenfurt, then track Folkert into Deadwight Wood.
• Follow the blood trail north to the village of Erde and speak with the elderly couple there.
• Do not believe their story – use your Witcher Senses behind the house to find the hidden cellar and discover the truth.
• You can kill the cannibal couple or spare them – neither choice changes your reward from Otto Bamber.
• What you tell Otto and whether you spare or kill the couple determines four different outcomes when you revisit Erde later.

Without a Trace – Quest Overview

Without a Trace is one of the most unsettling side quests in The Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone. It starts as a simple missing person contract and turns into something much darker. What you find at the end does not have an easy resolution, and the choice the game puts in front of you has no genuinely good answer.

It is one of those quests that sticks with you. Short, grim, and well-written.

Quest type: Secondary Quest – Hearts of Stone DLC
Suggested level: 32+
Region: Brunwich / Deadwight Wood / Erde Village
Quest giver: Notice board in Brunwich
Reward: XP + Crowns from Otto Bamber (amount varies by outcome)

How to Start Without a Trace

Witcher 3 Without a Trace Quest Guide

Travel to Brunwich, a small village in the Gustfields area of Redania. Find the notice board and read the posting titled “Apprentice Gone Missing!” This starts Without a Trace and marks Otto Bamber’s hut on your map.

The notice board in Brunwich is the same one used during the Dead Man’s Party quest, so you may already have visited the area. If you have not been to Brunwich before, it is a short ride from Oxenfurt.

Unlike many contracts, this quest does not fail or lock out if you complete the main Hearts of Stone quests first. You can do it at any point.

Step 1 – Talk to Otto Bamber at the Herbalist’s Hut

Otto Bamber is a halfling herbalist whose hut sits just northeast of Oxenfurt. Follow the quest marker to find him. He explains that his apprentice, a young halfling named Folkert, went out to gather herbs in Deadwight Wood and never came back. He wants Geralt to track him down.

There is no option to haggle over the reward here. Just accept the contract and head out. The quest marker will point you toward the Deadwight Wood area.

Step 2 – Find Folkert’s Tracks in Deadwight Wood

Head to the marked area in Deadwight Wood and activate your Witcher Senses. You are looking for Folkert’s trail.

First you will find Folkert’s abandoned cart just off the road. Examine it closely. Your Witcher Senses will then reveal a blood trail leading north through the forest. The dense foliage makes it a little tricky to track, but the trail is consistent if you keep your Senses active. Follow it northward.

The blood trail eventually stops just outside a small, almost deserted village called Erde.

Step 3 – Investigate Erde Village

Erde is barely a village – it is just a handful of buildings and an elderly couple living alone in the middle of nowhere. The place feels wrong immediately. It is too quiet and too empty.

Before speaking to the couple, check the hut to the right of the village gate. Your Witcher Senses will reveal months-old blood stains inside. This is your first sign that something has gone very wrong here.

Now talk to the couple. They will tell you that Folkert passed through, was attacked by wolves, and they tried to help him before he wandered off into the woods again. It is a calm, practised story. Do not believe a word of it.

Step 4 – Follow the Scent Behind the House (Do Not Skip This)

This is the step that most players who rush the quest will miss. If you go back to Otto now and report the couple’s wolf story, you get almost no XP and no proper resolution.

Instead, walk around to the back of the elderly couple’s house. Activate your Witcher Senses. You will pick up a strong scent of rotting meat.

Follow the scent trail. It leads to a pile of boxes stacked against the wall. Use Aard to blast the boxes out of the way. This reveals a trapdoor in the ground.

Open the trapdoor and descend into the hidden cellar beneath the house.

Step 5 – The Cellar

What is down here is not subtle. Folkert’s body – or what remains of it – is here. He has been carefully gutted, salted, and hung up like meat in a larder. The couple are cannibals who have been preying on travellers passing through Deadwight Wood.

Look around the cellar with your Witcher Senses. You will find evidence of more than one victim. There is also a cage here – which the couple claims was for storing dead bodies, but the cage strongly suggests some victims were kept alive.

Loot what you need and head back upstairs to confront the couple.

Step 6 – Confront the Cannibal Couple

Return to the elderly couple and accuse them directly. They do not deny it for long. Their defence: they did not kill Folkert themselves. They only found his body and used it. They claim famine drove them to it and that they had no choice.

Whether that is true or not is left deliberately ambiguous. Geralt now has to decide what to do.

The Choice – Kill or Spare the Couple

This is the central moral decision of the quest. Neither option feels clean.

Option A – Kill the Couple

Geralt draws his sword and kills both of them. They are human enemies with one-handed weapons. The fight is not difficult. You can rush them or use counterattacks to end it quickly.

After killing them, you can loot their bodies for some Strange Meat and a key to the hut, which opens additional rooms containing more loot. You do not need the Witcher Senses to find the key – it is on one of the bodies.

When you return to Erde later, Alghouls will be roaming around what was the couple’s home – drawn by the scent of the bodies and the rotting contents of the cellar.

Option B – Spare the Couple

Geralt makes them swear they will never eat human flesh again and walks away. They agree. What happens next depends entirely on what you tell Otto Bamber.

• Spare the couple and tell Otto the truth: Otto is furious. He vows to find someone to deal with them. When you return to Erde, you will find the couple dead, with Alghouls around the hut. The bodies can be looted for the key and Strange Meat.
• Spare the couple and lie to Otto (tell him the wolf story): Otto has no closure. When you return to Erde, the wife has died of hunger and the husband is grieving alone by the house. The couple kept their vow but starvation took her anyway.

What Is the Best Choice?

Killing the couple is the most straightforward option and lets you loot the hut immediately. Sparing them and telling Otto the truth leads to the same end result – both die eventually – with an extra stop in between. Sparing them and lying to Otto is the only path where at least one person survives, but the wife still dies.

The reward from Otto Bamber is the same regardless of whether you kill or spare the couple. What changes is only the aftermath when you revisit Erde. There is no “right” answer here. The game does not judge you either way.

Step 7 – Report Back to Otto Bamber

Return to Otto at his hut northeast of Oxenfurt. Tell him what you found. Your options at this point are:

• Tell him Folkert was eaten by cannibals – full truth, Otto reacts with grief and anger.
• Tell him the wolf story – if you did not investigate the cellar or choose to conceal what you found.
• Tell him Folkert is dead but leave out the cannibal detail – partial truth.

Otto pays Geralt for the information and the quest completes. The contract reward is modest but the XP is worth more than the Crowns here, especially if you uncovered the full truth in the cellar before reporting back.

Note: If you went back to Otto after only hearing the couple’s wolf story – without investigating behind the house at all – you receive very little XP and no proper quest resolution. Always check behind the house first.

All Possible Outcomes When Revisiting Erde

• Did not find Folkert’s body, told Otto the wolf story: Nothing changes in Erde. The couple remains as normal.
• Killed the couple: Alghouls appear around the hut when you return, drawn by the bodies and the cellar contents.
• Spared the couple, told Otto the truth: The couple are found dead on your return, with Alghouls nearby. Geralt comments that Otto was not making idle threats. You can loot the corpses for the hut key and Strange Meat.
• Spared the couple, lied to Otto: The wife has died of hunger. The husband is alone and grieving outside the house.

Tips for Without a Trace

• Always investigate behind the couple’s house before going back to Otto. Skipping this gives you a fraction of the XP and no real ending to the quest.
• Use Aard on the boxes blocking the trapdoor. Trying to move them manually does not work.
• The couple’s fight is easy but do not get surrounded – use a quick attack-and-dodge pattern to stay safe.
• If you kill the couple, loot them immediately for the hut key before leaving Erde. It opens additional loot rooms.
• The Strange Meat from the couple’s cellar and bodies can be sold to merchants. It has no use in alchemy or crafting.
• Returning to Erde after completing the quest is worth doing for closure, especially if you want to see how your choice played out.

For more on the Hearts of Stone questline, see our full Witcher 3 Whatsoever a Man Soweth walkthrough covering the DLC’s climactic final quest.

You can also check our Witcher 3 Remastered Bestiary guide for everything you need to know about the Alghouls that appear in Erde during the aftermath.

Related Witcher 3 Guides

• Witcher 3 Whatsoever a Man Soweth Walkthrough
• Witcher 3 Dead Man’s Party Walkthrough
• Witcher 3 Evil’s Soft First Touches Walkthrough
• Witcher 3 All Quests in Order – Complete Main Quest List
• Witcher 3 Remastered All Endings Guide
• Witcher 3 How Long to Beat – All DLCs Included

Frequently Asked Questions