After the first main quest of The Witcher 3 Hearts of Stone expansion, Evil’s First Soft Touches, two tasks are assigned to Geralt. One of these tasks is the Open Sesame quest that requires Geralt to set up a plan to bring Maximilian Borsodi’s house to the previous opponent, Olgierd von Everec. As this Open Sesame quest contains a lot of choices, here is a complete guide on how to complete it successfully.
As soon as you get the quest, you’ll get the prompt to visit the Borsodi Brothers’ Auction House in Oxenfurt. As you reach the doors of the auction house, you’ll be stopped by two guards. The dialogue options don’t matter here as soon Vimme Vivaldi will accompany you to take you inside.
Once inside, he introduces some of his friends: an artist, a countess, an art collector, and a Gwent card player. As Vivaldi stops talking, you have the option of either moving forward with the quest or talking to all three friends to get some XP.
Countess Mignole: Armor dealer
The woman by the window is Countess Mignole, and she sells the armor diagrams, including the Viper School gear. Next, she will ask you to help her find her earring. Accept to help her, and after the last conversation, you’ll get some XP.
Yaromir: The Art Dealer
Yaromir is by the paintings and would test you, in the beginning, to know if you have any knowledge about art. Answer correctly by choosing the Portrait of a Merchant. He would then tell you a secret about the painting that is going to be auctioned. That painting, if bought at the lowest price, can give a nice profit by selling to a merchant in Novigrad.
Here you can either choose to tell Vivaldi or not. If you do, he would try to increase the bid which wouldn’t give you much profit in the end.
Hilbert: Gwent player
Lastly, you can play against a Gwent player. Hilbert. If you know you can win against him, go for the challenge. If you win, you’ll get a Gaunter O’Dimm card. You’ll also receive XP as usual.
When you are done talking to all three, the auction will start immediately. If you don’t talk to anyone, you can wait for a while, and the auction will start.
Should you buy everything from the auction?
The auction offers three items. All three of these items have a specific purpose. Although none of these serve any purpose, you can buy them if you want the following benefits.
| Item | Crowns | Purpose |
| Starry Night Over the Pontar | 20 Crows (60 if Vivaldi intervenes) | Can be sold in Novigrad |
| Statue of an eagle | 300 | Unlock Dark Legacy quest |
| Special Spectacles | 350 | Can be used to make a concealment kit |
The choice of what or even if you should purchase from the auction is up to you. None of the items have an impact on the completion of Open Sesame quest in TW3. But I will still recommend purchasing the painting so you can sell it at a profit later on.
After the auction, Vivaldi introduces Geralt to Horst Borsodi, who would have you thrown out after you ask about Maximilian Borsodi’s house from him. None of the options matter here, as all lead to Geralt being kicked out.
Plan to break into the auction house
Outside the auction house, the two guards will start a fistfight. You can either defeat them or be defeated. Either way, both would be out of the picture. This will then trigger a cutscene that shows a stranger talking to Geralt. He will then tell you to find the Herbalist living near Oxenfurt and ask him for yarrow extract.
Go east from Oxenfurt and look for the Herbalist Hut. It is marked on the map so you can find it quite easily. Defeat the guards outside the hut, and a dwarf will open the door. Tell him the password of the yarrow extract, and he will lead you to the hatched. Go down, and the stranger from before will greet you.
The conversation will lead Geralt to join the stranger in the quest to break into the vault of the auction house so both can have what they want from the property. He would also fill you in on the details of his plan. In the end, you’ll be tasked to find a suitable team to help you complete the heist.
This begins a series of three subquests for Open Sesame in The Witcher 3 that you need to complete to assemble your heist team.
Open Sesame: Breaking And Entering
There are two options for break-in specialists in Open Sesame: Hugo or Eveline. But in reality, you don’t have a choice here. The first option is to find Hugo. If you wish to get some XP, you can go to his house and follow the trail. This will lead you to some thugs. After killing them, you’ll find that Hugo is dead, and his body can be found in the water nearby.
You can skip Hugo and go directly to Eveline in the circus. The circus is present on the southeast side of Oxenfurt. Find the circus and look for Eveline sitting on a cart. Talk to her, and she will agree to help if you
- Pay the civilians back for the loss she may face due to the injured performer.
- Act as part of the circus so civilians would get the show they paid for.
You can either pay her 400 Crowns or display some of the crossbow skills. Once done, she will agree to join your team.
Open Sesame: The Safecracker
For the safe crackers, you have two options: Quinto or Casimir, both of which would work just fine. Your selected safecracker will determine whether you fight guards or spiders once you break in. On top of that, choosing Quinto or Casimir can also potentially impact the boss you fight at the end of the heist.
Quinto
To find Quinto, you just need to go a little towards the southern side of the Herbalist’s hut. Go there and find him trapped in a cage. Hans of Cidaris will come to you and allow Quinto to leave if you can convince him.
- Pay him 200 Crowns.
- Win Gwent against him
- Insult him and defeat him in a fistfight.
Once the condition is fulfilled, Quinto will be free. It’s better to free him first if you want to consider the other option. If not, you won’t get the chance to make Casimir wait and would have to accompany you for the heist.
Casimir
For Casimir, go down towards a couple of houses and find him at the top of his house. To stop him from blowing his village and himself up, Geralt needs to convince him to come down. The dialogue choices you select here in Open Sesame will decide whether Casimir joins you or not
- Really Sorry: Casimir will kill himself.
- Set the torch aside: Casimir wouldn’t agree.
- You’re pathetic: Casimir would come down and start a fistfight. Whether you win or lose, he will listen to you.
- Get down, now: This is the Axii sign option. You can use it for the easiest outcome.
Once he is down and in your control, you can now hire him for the plan. If you don’t answer him or recruit him, he will blow himself up and you won’t have any other choice but to now go with Quinto.
Open Sesame: Witcher Seasonings
As the plan mentioned, you need to add the cleansing mixture to the guards’ food, and for that you need to convince the Redanian army cook to add it to the meal. First, make the cleaning mixture. For this, you need the following ingredients:
- Dwarven spirit x1
- Rotfiend blood x2
- Wolfsbane x2
Go towards the auction house and use the Witcher Senses to eavesdrop on the guards. You can do this for several guards by passing by and waiting for them to start conversing. The main information would be obtained by listening to the third pair of guards present by the edge of the river. They say he would be near the Western gate.
Go towards the marker by crossing through the village and reaching the shore. Look for a dock here to find a man sitting on the end of it. Make sure you arrive at the docks in the morning or afternoon. Otherwise, rest for a while until the sun shines.
Talk to the cook, and he will ask for a fee to help you. You can either give him 500 Crowns as a fee or use the Axii sign on him. Either way, your work would be complete here.
Breaking into the auction house
Once all three of the subquests of Open Sesame in The Witcher 3 are completed, the team will move towards the designated spot. The whole scene would play out in a cutscene, so you don’t need to do anything. The only difference would be made when Quinto or Casimir start to work on unlocking the vault. This would lead to several differences.
If you’ve hired Quinto…
Once Quinto goes away to find the locked vault and open it, some guards will approach your team. The fight will break out, and more soldiers will be called. Here you can either choose to use hostages or not. If you do, simply select the following order of dialogues, and you’ll easily move forward without more fighting.
- Pull back from the auction house
- Bring us a wagon and horses
- Doesn’t matter. Long as it rolls.
- I’ll set one free now. The rest later.
Any other option from the list ends in the soldiers running, and you have to fight many opponents at once. Now, go down to the vault. Just after entering the vault, you will trigger a trap that brings in a lot of spiders for you to deal with. Choosing Quinto’s route means that you have to fight these spiders to progress.
If you’ve hired Casimir…
For Casimir, his techniques go for a loud break-in. In his case, the options don’t matter as the blast will make soldiers barge in and start the fight. If you’ve hired him, it is better to be prepared to fight a lot of soldiers. On a positive note, his break-in also closes the trap door mechanism. This means you won’t have to fight the spiders.
Should you side with Horst or Ewald Borsodi in Open Sesame
Interact with the last door to start the cutscene, where the stranger is revealed to be Ewald Borsodi. After the cutscene, you’ll be forced to pick a side. Your safecracker will also choose a side. Casimir stays with Ewald while Quinto is bribed by Horst and chooses his side. After choosing the preferred side, you’ll have to fight the opponents. This will lead to the death of one brother with one left.
If you choose to side with Ewald, you can either make a deal with him where he gets to keep all the papers while Geralt can leave with the box. Or you can fight him to death and take both. In this case, find the hidden passage by pressing the button on the left pillar.
On the other hand, siding with Horst will end in a similar outcome with only him being alive in the end. You can then make a deal of him keeping the papers, to which he would open the passage for you and give you some gold. If you want the papers too, fight him and get the whole package to leave.
There is no ideal choice here, as whatever you choose will result in you fighting one of the brothers. From a morality standpoint, neither of the brothers are good, so it’s better to have both killed and take the papers out.
Once the brothers are dead, the fortune will be donated to the hospital or orphanages and the auction house goes to Vivaldi, who might be sneaky but doesn’t appear to be an outright bad guy. Check the area for loot before leaving and go back to find Olgierd. He would end the quest regardless of what’s in the box.
