- a side quest to find a halfling apprentice herbalist who had gone missing. The quest led you to a pool of blood in the forest, the trail of which led to a village, abandoned bar an old couple. A quick chat with them said that he had come there but insisted he needed to finish collecting his herbs so had left again. I was then given the option to go back and hand in the quest. Usually I follow the quest instructions but this just seemed odd: What, I have to find him, but the trail goes cold at this village? And why are these two old Edwins the only ones here?
I went back and talked to the old bag again, and her husband got quite agitated. I smelled a rat.
Wandering around the deserted village, my witcher senses started noticing things - a bloody interior to a hut, something else that I can't recall. Cue another chat with the old buggers, who came up with glib explanations but now I REALLY thought something was up.
I kept looking around, only to find a smell of rotting meat. I followed it to a stack of crates, made short work of them with Aard, and found a trapdoor to an underground meat locker containing.... a butchered halfling. The old codgers were cannibals.
When I confronted them, they begged for mercy, they were too old to pull the plough or farm, it was that or starve to death, but the meat locker was too grim for me to take the easy option of insisting they take an oath to never eat flesh again, and I slaughtered them.