Forum Member Max Killen is the winner in the race for discovery of the fabled Gothic swamp witch! Today he sent it a most interesting bit of news about how he stumbled upon the witch during a lengthy expedition of the swamp. What's even better - he also has the pictures to prove it… But I'll let Max speak for himself now:

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"I will have to admit that I haven't played Gothic in some time now. Wizardry 8 has got my interests now. But, over the weekend I loaded up a saved game in Gothic just to get the feel of the game again. (I believe I loaded a game in chapter 3 or 4). Yes, the controls are awkward, I forgot how clumsy they are.

Anyway, I was walking around and slaying some monsters, just to get the feel of the game again. I went walking around in the Sect Camp, past Shrat, killing swamp sharks, etc. I came to the barrier and started turning shades of blue. I started following the barrier around the swamp, careful not to stay blue too long (lose health after a while) I don't know what I was looking for but, I came to a small island that did NOT have a tree on it (there are small islands all over the swamp and I think they all have trees on them).

Anyway, I got up on this island and was walking back into the swamp when it started to thunder and lightning. I don't know how it happened but I noticed that when the lightning struck, for a brief moment, I would know longer be blue. I stood on this island for about 25 minutes (real time) timing the lightning with my watch until I could predict when the lightning was going to strike again. I don't know if the timing is as critical as I am implying or not, but at the exact moment that the lightning lit up the sky, I pushed forward THROUGH the barrier.

I didn't think anything happened at the time, I was still turning blue if I got to close to the barrier, until it dawned on me that I was on the OTHER side of the barrier! I was turning blue by trying to get back into the prison area. After I realized what was happening I pressed on through the swamp, which ended rather shortly there-after. I came to a mountain that I could not climb, so I just started walking, first to the right, which went to an ocean scene; then back to the left. I couldn't tell you where exactly I found the trail, but one appeared and I followed it.

There was a wide open desert type area, with what looked like hay stacks on fire scattered here and there. I kept on walking and finally came upon some people. There were several people (no one would talk to me) that, when I came close enough to them, had the word "Sklave" above them, one character in a red coat had the word "Bürgermeister" above him and one character, dressed in a brownish-tan outfit with a top hat like Abe Lincoln would wear had the word "Bischof" above him, there were crates all around this area, a lot of junk and stuff laying all around and some track-work??.

I assume that these characters are in the German Version, I have an idea what Bürgermeister and Bischof mean; but don't have a clue on what Sklave means. It dawned on me that I was in a place that hasn't been talked about in the forums, and I tried to take a screen shot to show everyone. I don't know what happened, but my computer locked up, I guess in the excitement I must have hit the wrong key, but my screen froze and none of my keyboard keys did anything.

Well, I rebooted my computer and gave it another try. The only problem was that I had no idea where the island without trees had been… so I plodded around the swamp for about another hour, but I just did not find that island again. That was when I finally decided to call it a day and leave the game; I was just in the process of hitting the escape key when I noticed a shadow in the swamp, pretty close to where I was… at first I believed it to be a templar, but the shadow was hunched, just like an orc, and by all means, orcs have not to be in the swamp. This time I made very sure that my finger hit the right key. You can see the figure here:

After that, the hunched figure turned and walked away, and I was just preparing for a little chase when it decided to wander into my direction instead (we ought to be used to erratic scripting by now). You can hardly imagine my surprise at seeing this:

When I made the second shot, though, my screen locked up again! I'm just glad that the screenshot obviously went in the correct directory before the machine died, otherwise I would have had a hard time in showing you this! Personally I believe that the hunched old lady was none other than the swamp witch. What do you think about this?

I promise to try it again, and I just hope that my computer will not lock up this time, as I would love to know if she had something to say (unlike those guys on the other side of the barrier)."

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To pick up Max Killen's question: So what do you think about this? Should one of you have a similar experience to share, speak up and send the proof to either Gorath or me at gorath@rpgdot.com or jaz.tarn@gmx.de !

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