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Cabaret is a secondary quest in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. The quest automatically begins after completion of the main story quest A Poet Under Pressure.

Note: this quest will fail if not completed before starting The Isle of Mists.

Walkthrough[]

After rescuing Dandelion from the clutches of the Temple Guard, head to the Rosemary and Thyme and speak to him. Dandelion explains that he needs money to transform the Rosemary and Thyme into the cabaret that he's always dreamed of owning. He will send you to collect a prop sword from Madame Irina, the leader of the theatre troupe whom you have already met in the main story quest The Play's the Thing.

After collecting the sword, you're to meet Dandelion after dusk in front of Sophronia's house. He then explains his hare-brained plot into getting Sophronia to give him a loan, by pretending to be a valiant crime-fighter while Geralt poses as a brigand and threatens Sophronia, which the witcher begrudgingly goes along with. Dandelion gives Geralt a script with somewhat overly dramatic lines, which you may select, or safely ignore if you wish. You must then pretend-fight Dandelion with the prop sword, and either defeat him (25XP earned based on the Story and Swords! difficulty level) or let him win (50XP earned based on the Story and Swords! difficulty level). To let him win without taking damage, you can parry his blows. This choice has no bearing on the outcome except for Dandelion's immediate disposition towards Geralt. You can also run away, which has different dialogue but the same effect as Dandelion winning.

Note: If enemy upscaling is on it will affect Dandelion, making him a much tougher opponent than expected, especially if one wishes to humiliate him instead of following his plan.

You are then to wait until morning to meet Dandelion at the Rosemary and Thyme. Meditating inside the inn will trigger the cutscene automatically. When you arrive, you find Priscilla and a group of dwarves but no Dandelion. The dwarves are builders hired to renovate the Rosemary and Thyme and will ask Geralt which style the place should be renovated in (theatrical or boudoir). You may pick yourself, or let Priscilla choose, in which case she will decide randomly. Dandelion will be happiest if you pick theatrical. Priscilla then tells you that Dandelion is looking for their choreographer, Polly.

Dandelion can be found banging on the door of the choreographer's house. When you talk to him he explains that her fiancé won't let her work for him. You then have to find the key to the house and either beat up Hubio or make him listen to Dandelion. What you do affects whether Polly stays in a relationship with Hubio, but either way, she goes to the Rosemary and Thyme while Dandelion sends you off to collect some placards from a halfling named Rautlec. (50XP earned based on the Story and Swords! difficulty level)

Go to the artist's house in Silverton, and you'll find it being robbed by bandits who explain he's in a lot of debt and they're debt collecting. No matter what you say, a fistfight starts, but it doesn't matter if you lose as they tell you where Rautlec is anyway - the races near Vegelbud Residence. When you find him there, he receives an offer from Count de Luverten to pay his debts if he wins one last bet. He can't give you the placards without resolving his predicament, so you have the following choices:

  • Offer to win the race for him
  • Pay his debt of 200 Oren3 (20XP earned based on the Story and Swords! difficulty level)
  • Leave him to his own devices, but give up on the placards as well

If you choose to race for him, winning the race yields 25XP earned based on the Story and Swords! difficulty level, 80 Oren3 and a Mastercrafted saddle. Losing only increases his debt as he bets on Geralt, in which case you'll have the option to pay 270 Oren3 (27XP earned based on the Story and Swords! difficulty level) or give up on him and the placards. Regardless, if you relieve Rautlec of his debts in any of the possible ways, an additional 25XP earned based on the Story and Swords! difficulty level is awarded and he goes off to get the placards.

You can finally return to the cabaret and it will have the new interior as decided when you last talked to Priscilla, and it is now named the "Chameleon". The quest then completes after some conversations with Dandelion (70XP earned based on the Story and Swords! difficulty level + 50XP earned based on the Story and Swords! difficulty level), but a messenger brings news that Priscilla has been attacked and you go to the hospital, starting the quest Carnal Sins.

Journal entry[]

Ever since that fateful eve near twenty years ago when my dear friend Geralt and I visited a no-longer-extant cabaret in the once-beautiful city of Oxenfurt, I have longed with every fiber of my being to become the owner of just such an establishment. When Alonso Wily, more commonly known as Whoreson Senior, left me the Rosemary and Thyme in his will, my dreams finally began to assume a more concrete form. When Priscilla lent her support to the endeavor, the scales tipped decidedly towards action and the ball threatened to start rolling. I needed just a few things more to begin my planned remodeling of the Rosemary and Thyme into a cabaret - and so I turned to Geralt, the fiercest fetcher in the world.
With the witcher's help I was able to make my castle in the clouds a heaven on earth - I opened my cabaret and called it The Chameleon. Ah, if you'd only seen the pride in Priscilla's eyes when our hard-working dwarven remodelers hung that reptile-adorned signboard above our doors! What a tragic shame later events did not go at all as we had dreamed...
At last I was free - and never had the nectar of liberty tasted so sweet. No matter how I slurped, I could not imbibe it fast enough. I filled every waking hour, and quite a few sleeping ones, with fevered activity - there was so much to do, and so little time in which to do it! Since the witcher had proven a true and reliable friend time and time again, I asked him for help, and he readily agreed to provide it.

Objectives[]

  • Meet Dandelion at the Rosemary and Thyme.
  • Talk to Dandelion.
  • Borrow a prop sword from Madame Irina.
  • Meet Dandelion near Sophronia house after dusk.
  • Fight the Crimson Avenger. (25XP earned based on the Story and Swords! difficulty level)
  • Meet Dandelion in the morning at the Rosemary and Thyme.
  • Find Dandelion.
  • Look for the key using your Witcher Senses.
  • Open the door to Polly's home.
  • If you decide to fight Polly's fiancé:
    • Defeat Hubio.
  • Find Rautlec and get the placards from him.
  • Deal with Rautlec's creditors.
  • Talk to Rautlec in the Vegelbuds' residence.
  • If you decide to race:
    • Win the race. (25XP earned based on the Story and Swords! difficulty level)
  • Return to Dandelion. (70XP earned based on the Story and Swords! difficulty level + 50XP earned based on the Story and Swords! difficulty level)

Notes[]

  • Make sure you unequip the wooden sword after the fake fight with Dandelion. It does not change back automatically.
  • If you let Priscilla choose the theme and she picks Boudoir, Dandelion will complain at first, but once he hears it was her idea he will love it regardless. However, if the player chooses the Boudoir style themselves, Dandelion will say that he had "something more theatrical" in mind.
  • The blunt sword that you use against "the Crimson Avenger" can be purchased from the Silverton blacksmith at any point in the game. However, you're not allowed to get it this way for the purposes of the quest.
  • The blunt sword cannot be returned to Irina Renarde.
  • Despite Sophronia clearly being black-haired, Dandelion casts her as "flaxen-haired" in his script, perhaps because the protagonists of the romance novels she likes are blonde.

Bugs[]

  • The option to accept the quest from Dandelion may not be available the first time Geralt speaks to him and you'd have no choice but to refuse. Do so and then immediately talk to Dandelion again, and this time the option should be presented.
  • It is possible for the door to Rautlec's house to glitch and be stuck locked with the thugs inside, preventing you from continuing.
    • This can be bypassed by using the debug console. Jump into the nearby harbor and use the command xy(533,1899). This will teleport you into his house and allow you to talk to the bandits. Afterwards, you can teleport out of the house with the command xy(550,1900) and continue the quest as normal.
  • If you agree to race for Rautlec, it's possible when the race starts you'll have spawned under the map in water and immediately get kicked off Roach. The only way out of this is to reload a save.
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