Treated Like Cattle is a Quests in Divinity: Original Sin II. A pair of cows need your help to restore their human form. Will you help them?
Important NPCs
- Geraldine
- Mabel
Treated Like Cattle Objectives
- Talk to the cows, Geraldine and Mabel.
- Find the Witch's potion.
- Bring back the potion to the cows.
Treated Like Cattle Walkthrough
At a farm north of Driftwood, you will come across a pair of cows that are actually two people who were polymorphed and enslaved by a witch. You will need the Pet Pal talent to talk to them. They want to be turned back into their human form and beg you for help. (The quest can also be started simply by picking up the Witch's House key, which is located on the left side of the house, resting on a large rock.)
The Witch's house is right next to the cows. Enter it and pick up the Witch's Eye, and then unlock the hatch to the cellar (Thievery 4 required). If you don't have the required Thievery skill, you can fight the witch in Cloisterwood for the cellar key. For details regarding the Witch fight, see Corpse of Alice Alisceon.
In the cellar, you will find dozens of rats that will explode in close proximity. Attack the holes in the walls to stop them from constantly spawning. You can also find a lever on the ground that will open the door to the next room.
Pick up the Witch's Potion in this next room. You will also need to kill the giant frog in the cell to find the Witch's recipe book on it, which contains the recipe for making another Witch's Potion. You need two to complete the quest. Having both the Scholar and Mystic tags will allow you to decipher the recipe book for crafting the Witch's Potion.
If you cannot decipher the book, you will have only one potion to bring to the cows, in which case you will be asked to choose which cow to use it on. The recipe for crafting the potion is Augmentor + Boletus + Witch's Eye (the eye is consumed in the process). You do not need to read the book to be able to craft it.
Craft the second Witch's Potion and bring both potions back to the cows to cure them. If you explicitly ask for a reward, you will only receive 8,075 XP per cow, but if you don't ask for anything in exchange, you will receive 13,450 XP per cow instead. The quest will be closed.
Both of them can now be found at Driftwood Square next to the Town Crier after they're cured and the quest is closed. Mabel can be convinced to give you recipe books for free (or they can be bought), and Geraldine can be convinced to tell you the location of his private stash.
Mercenary Alternative: If you have a character drink the Witch's Potion, your character will permanently transform into a cow, and the quest will instantly "close". You can do this on a hired mercenary to not affect any of your party members.
Backpack Alternative: During the dialogue, before feeding either cows the potion, an ally can take the potion out of your backpack. Despite this, you can still feed it to either cow without using it. Afterwards, Your ally (or you) can feed the other cow the potion. (Outdated, no longer works)
New Backpack Alternative: During the dialogue, before feeding either cows the potion, have an ally take the potion out of your backpack; then drop it on the floor. This allows you to feed one cow the potion, then use any party member to pick up the dropped potion; allowing you to cure the other.
Possible Bug: This quest seems to be on some kind of timer. If you take too long to complete it, the cows will disappear and the quest will close saying that the cows ran off.
Serious Bug: There have been many reports that the cows may be permanently missing from their designated area at any given time, or even before meeting them, preventing you from completing this quest. If this occurs, you should follow the Mercenary Alternative above to close the quest on your own.
Key Location
- The key to opening the Witch's house is on the ground outside just south of the house.
- The key to opening the cellar is located on the Witch herself, who is located in northern Cloisterwood.
Rewards:
- 43,325XP for killing the witch Alice Alisceon. (36,100 XP DE Edition)
- You recieve a variable amount of XP per cow cured depending on your actions:
- Asking for a reward: 8,075XP per cow (16,150XP total), Mabel becomes a vendor in Driftwood Square, 10 free recipe books (assuming you succeed speech check) and location of Geraldine's secret stash.
- Not asking for a reward: 13,450XP per cow (26,900XP total) and they do not move to Driftwood Square.
Tips & Tricks
- The frog in the basement can be killed and looted even though it is on the other side of the impassible bars.
- Boletus can be won as a reward for certain quests.
- Boletus can also be found just southeast of the witch house, around X:388 Y:204 near the white tree, Show World Tooltip (Left Alt) for easier searching. Another is at X:555 Y:319.
- If you or any of your companions accidentally drank the potion and turned into a cow, you can undo the effect by drinking the other potion, using Chicken Claw on them or by killing said character and resurrect them with a scroll.
- After curing both, you can pickpocket them easily in the field to get a few nice crafting books.
Anonymousthe game wasn't letting me drop the potion from my inventory, but it did let me send the potion to Lady Vengeance, which worked just as well for duping it. A bit more of a trek to warp to the boat, pick up the duped potion, warp back to Driftwood, then march back to the field, but not the end of the world.
- Anonymous
Enter it and pick up the Witch's Eye, and then unlock the hatch to the cellar (Thievery 4 required)
I have level 6 thieivery, doesnt work
- Anonymous
For people who are looking for an Augmentor but can't find it:
Higher tier Augmentor herbs also does the job when crafting the potion.
- Anonymous
Augmentor near Driftwood gatekeeper bridge at x:466 y:22
They're everywhere later, but kinda useful if you wanna do this quest first thing.
- Anonymous
To make the fight easy, just teleport her to the sea below and away from the totems in order to start the fight (there is no point in talking to her, since all dialogues lead to the same end result of her attacking you). Kill the totems while she runs back, but DON'T end the fight before she joins. This way you will be able to go invisible and keep your distance and once you are ready you can just attack her for free. Blessing her is very useful, but it is not necessary if you can heal yourself. I usually Bless her, but I would imagine that enough points in Necromancer should allow you to self heal enough to avoid dying with a melee class
- Anonymous
Killed the witch at lvl 10 by just teleporting her near Jahan during dialogue with another character. Then I end dialogue and combat starts near Jahan. Once she attacks, Jahan will join and kill her for you lol. Then you get all the exp.
- Anonymous
i found that if you kill a specific rat next to the dozen of rats in the cellar all the other rats will leave and you can loot the rat's body.
- Anonymous
If you're strugling to fight the witch Alice Alisceon, you can start the dialogue with one of your characters and befores ending the dialogue, you can select other companion to attack the witch. Atacking her wont deal damage in her, but will start the fight with your companios that arent in dialogue against the fire totens without the witch. You can easily deal with the fire totens, heal and then finish the dialogue and fight the witch alone against your full party healed.
- Anonymous
just played thru on DE the eye is on right end of the table it just wasn't showing up when pressing alt.
- Anonymous
In the german Version Definitive Edition you must read the book, otherwise you can´t craft the second potion. Maybe it works in the Classic Verion, can´t remember.
- Anonymous
TIP: For those who gave them both potions at once and only got 13450 exp not 26900 exp, drop one potion on the ground and give the potion in your inventory to one of them, then pick the potion you dropped on the ground and give it to the other one.
- Anonymous
"If you don't have the required Thievery skill, you can fight the witch in Cloisterwood for the cellar key, but it is an extremely tough fight and not worth the effort."
The witch fight is one of the most easily cheesable fights, provided you pre-position your group. And in regards to it not being worth the effort? She gives like 36,500XP. Is whoever wrote this suggestion autistic?
- Anonymous
If you have two potion and give them without asking payment, quest give you 13500 exp per person and you can't see them in driftwood. If you have two potion and you ask them for payment quest give you 8000 exp per person and you can see them in driftwood. If you have one potion and ask them for payment quest give 8000 exp per person, and İf you craft another potion and give potion to cow quest give another 8000 exp and you can see them in driftwood and gain totaly 16000 exp. İf you have one potion and give potion without payment you gain 13500 exp per person and craft another potion and give potion to cow you gain another 13500 XP per person totaly 27000 xp per person but you can't see them in driftwood again. Note: they stop field but İf you go center you can see them in center
- Anonymous
witch eye (found in witches cabin on her bench) + augmentor + boletus = 2nd poition without needing a character to read the book. useful for me as a duo lonewolf and none of them were both scholar and mystic.
- Anonymous
You can fin the reward from the cows behind a windmill at 443, 181 u need to dig in.
- Anonymous
After turned them human, I pickpocketed 2500 gold from them. They accused me of stealing but took a 150 gold bribe to leave me alone xD
- Anonymous
If you ask for milk, the guy will make fun of you once you give them the potion. You wanted some guy's milk!
- Anonymous
Be sure to loot the skeletons in the electric frogs cage, I got a high tier blank skillbook from one. You can teleport or tactical retreat your way inside.
- Anonymous
Just got really bad bsod after completing the quest with 2 potions lol
(DE) So, they dissappear if you do not choose a reward? One of the cattles, when you rescue them back to human form, sell papers every restock. If you like to make scrolls, be sure to choose reward so they'd move to Driftwood Square.
- Anonymous
You don't get permanently transformed into a cow. Like most "permanent" statuses, if the affect character dies and gets resurrected, then your character returns back to normal.
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
I sold the witch's eye, and I can't find it again. How can I do it? Another place to find this? Thanks!
- Anonymous
DE april 27th 2019 the quest completes succesfully but the npcs do not go back to town and disappear forever so you miss out on the cow loot chest and the recipe books.
- Anonymous
You can easily trick this quest (Definitive Edition). Start the dialogue on one character, snatch it out of the bag and drop it on the ground with a second character. Switch back to your first character. It will still let you go through with the dialogue and offer the potion. Then simply pick it up the ground and offer it to the second cow.
- Anonymous
Don't drink the potion if you're doing a solo honor mode run for the laugh… You've been warned.
- Anonymous
You only need to make one potion. There's another just sitting in Alice's little workroom in the cellar.
- Anonymous
if u have 2 potions in inventory, put 1 away, so u only turn 1 potion only. because turn 1 by 1 yield the exp twice. turn 2 at 1 time only get 1 time same exp.
- Anonymous
You can pickpocket Mabel for gold after giving the potion, got like 10k from her
- Anonymous
Fly Agaric and Witch's eye can be found inside the witch's house. Augmentor in Driftwood(town) below west gate at x:263 y:10 (thanks anon)
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
Definitive edition and this quest is still bugged lmaooooo, they really are amateurs.
- Anonymous
turned them back to humans, then killed mabel and took her 10k gold lol
- Anonymous
I did as told, gave the potions seperatly to the cows, got 2 times exp and the quest closed....yet they dont show up in driftwood...
- Anonymous
I can't believe this quest is still bugged for real (after years). If you give them the potions at the same time, they won't return to the town and the quest will stay unfinished until act 3. This is some really amateur level scripting right there. Shouldn't expect much from kickstarter games though.
- Anonymous
Fed Mable the potion after some dialogue, crafted a second then fed it to Geraldine, quest then closed and gained exp for both, just save before doing it!
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
To get 2 x 13.450 you have to give them the potion seperately. It also seems the only way to close the quest.
- Anonymous
Gave them the potions, they both turned back into humans and thanked me... quest didnt close and they arent in the town square. Sounds about right for this game.
- Anonymous
I told the cows that I only had one potion so they made me choose who I want to give it to. I made my choice but didnt give either of them a potion because I found out I could make a second one. So i walked away to craft the second potion, came back and gave the cows the potions one by one. They turned back into humans, but the quest didn't close.
- Anonymous
Uhh... I didnt ask for a reward and only got 13.450 xp total for both cows... so whats up?
- Anonymous
Not sure what happened to my comment. Posted successfully, showed on page, and then it disappeared after page refresh. I'll try posting this question again:
Can someone provide the exact coordinates for Geraldine and Mabel in Driftwood after you turn them back into humans and they return to town? I changed them back without asking for a reward, and the quest is still open for me, but I can't find them in town. Wiki says they're suppose to be near town crier, but couldn't find them anywhere closeby.
- Anonymous
Does anyone have the exact coordinates for where Geraldine and Mabel are suppose to be after you turn them back into humans and NOT ask for a reward? The page here mentions they're suppose to be next to the town crier, but I can't find either one of them, and can't close my quest.
- Anonymous
for me they transformed both at once consuming both potions - now i noticed (unfortunately a lot later) that the quest didn't close. they're gone from the farm, not in town either - any idea how i could close that quest now?
- Anonymous
Accidentally sold my Witch's Eye to Mabel after turning her into a human, before I knew I needed it to help Geraldine too. Can't find Mabel anywhere. Is there any other way to get another Witch's Eye?
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
Found a bug, and a possible way to close the quest.
BUG: I had stored my witches eye in a bag, so when I crafted the potion it stored the potion back in my bag. Then when I fed both of the cows it didn't remove the potion from my bag but still turned them both back human. (quest didn't close however)
Closing Quest: To close the quest, I had to drop my second potion on the ground and feed the cows 1 at a time. It seems something about feeding both at the same time caused the quest log to bug out and not "CLOSE" for me. After reloading and doing this I was able to get the quest to close.
- Anonymous
worked for me! had the potions in different characters, dropped the witch potion on the character that wasn't speaking. then I feed both cows and drank the potion with other character. He get transformed into a cow, I killed him and ressurected with spell. 80k XP and the quest was finally closed, thanks!! :)
- Anonymous
Quest was bugged for me. I turned them back to humans and there are back in town but the quest is still not closed. I killed the witch too.
- Anonymous
use dragon blaze to scare rats instead of destroying their holes
- Anonymous
Quest was bugged for me - turned them both back into humans, and they wander around talking about how much they like the field. When I moved on to act 3 the quest closed and said I failed to aid the cows, even though right before that it says we gave them both the potions.
- Anonymous
You need to take both potions. Recipe for the correct potion is on the frog, you'll need witches eye for it. Once you have them, give them both to your companion and then speak with Mable. Start the conversation with your main character, and before you turn in the potions, use your companion to drop them on the floor. They will turn into humans and you will get around 13k exp if you didn't ask for any rewards. Now, take the potions back and drink the one that turns you into the cow. Additional 2k exp will be gained and quest will finish. However, now you're stuck in that form and you cannot drink the other potion in order to reverse the effect. So, use your companions to kill the cow character and then resurrect him (It's best to remove all armor from it as it regenerates insanely when you're out of combat). And that's it! Both cows restored and best exp all-together.
Killing them after the quest (when they are humans already) gives no exp. (there is some nice gold in mabels pockets tho)
- Anonymous
I managed to get them changed back to human but neither of them made it make to driftwood. I checked the field again and they were not there either. Seems to be bugged.
- Anonymous
Tried a save prior to scarecrow fight, still no cows, quest is bugged
- Anonymous
Didn't find no cows (lvl 14), fought the scarecrow before though
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
it's weird that if you take the book from the frog in the cellar, the potion recipe book seems to be disappeared immediately. I tried to reload like 3 times just to make sure that you suppose to read the recipe from the corpse as fane/scholar tag so that the recipe still can be read.
- Anonymous
I got full XP and both turned into humans, but the journal entry does not close and the two wander in their skivvies in the field instead of returning to Driftwood.
- Anonymous
I think I know what causes the quest to fail. I cast Spirit Vision near Ferno (the phoenix-chicken) to check if it leaves behind a spirit, and at the exact moment that I cast that skill, I got the update saying that the nearby cows had run off.
Alas, it was during a co-op session and we weren't going to bother reloading the game to test this, but this does kind of make sense.
- Anonymous
I gotta say the voice acting and script for the cows are fantastic. Their banter is hilarious. Be sure to ask them for some milk.
- Anonymous
You can Brew another potion if u find the witch recepi from the frog in her basement, just teleport the frog out after u kill it and take the book it has.
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
using chicken claw also works on turning from cow to person if you drink it yourselves
- Anonymous
Mabel has 8k gold on her, if you kill her after shes human its on her body for the takez ...... >:)
- Anonymous
This quest has other problems too as time of posting:
When I found the first potion I talked to the cows, but did not give them the potion (I was like I want to cure both of them). Later I got the other too, so went back. When I spoke with them again, they were still in the state there is only one potion, so they have to choose... but I only have option to give THEM the potion. This gave me only half the XP and did fail to close the quest. (The log also gets bugged, saying repeatedly that we only had potion for one cows.)
Solution:
There is a solution suggested to drop one potion while speaking, and then select to give them + drink it, this will close the quest for 75% of the XP.
A good solution is that you drop one potion before speaking, and transform one of them. Then pick up other potion and transform other, which closes the quest with full XP gain (which is 2x13450XP). (The log also properly states that both were saved, unlike in my original case.)
- Anonymous
If you turn yourself into a cow by drinking the potion you’re OP as heck. You can reverse the effects by dying and having a party member res you .
- Anonymous
I was able to close the quest by dropping one potion, and then using the dialog options to give one to mabel, then picking it up and giving it to geraldine
- Anonymous
Since Alice is undead and has relatively low phys armor You may want to have Your healer deal the damage, since my healer was able to nearly kill her in a single turn (when she decided to end her turn next to him).
- Anonymous
It seems if you find one particular rats and destroy it, the other rats will vanish. I cast dragon breath to keep them away at the door and aoe earth damage to one area where the rats were crossing and killed the single and the others disappeared.
- Anonymous
There's one real rat among the exploding rats which if it killed, they won't respawn. It seems they also have fixed moving pattern. You can use rain and cover half of the area with water then use contamination or spreading spider web then ignite them. The real one should be around near center area and easily get caught by the explosion of the fake rats. The fake one won't avoid fire and poison area.
- Anonymous
Follow the wiki entry and craft the second potion. I got stuck feeding it to the cow and she/he wouldnt turn back to human (kept saying it would kick in a minute) so I went to kill the witch Alice, came back, fed the cow the potion again and he/she turned back. The journal entry is CLOSED.
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
Neither of them ever return to driftwood for me. They just wander around the field.
- Anonymous
Alternatively, if you drink the potion, you can kill yourself using your companion and then use a resurrection scroll.
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
Kinda confused, I got the first potion from the house and gave it to Mabel. First playthrough, so didn't know I would need to craft another potion, so I had to come back once I made the second potion. I talked to the remaining cow but no matter what I choose she just says "it will take some time to kick in" and nothing happens. She remains a cow and the quest does not complete. Should I just drink it?
- Anonymous
Edit update: started up a brand new game - third playthrough, rushed through fort joy/swamp and ran to the cows first thing after getting to act 2. The cows are there and the witch also spawned as normal.
- Anonymous
Edit: Alice was found next to Jahan, where I teleported her during the first playthrough. Looks like cheesing her will ***** up your game permanently.
- Anonymous
I have a solution to closed this mission.
when you have 2 potion, talk to them but DO NOT PRESS the button"feed them", change character drop one of the potion, Witch's Potion (DO NOT DROP Witch's Brew Potion).
now finish the conversation by press feed them. they will be change back to human(BOTH).
pick up the potion and drink it . quest closed.
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
They haven't returned to driftwood in my game after changing them back, even after leveling twice.
- Anonymous
I current playing the 2nd playthru after the newest patch and the cows are not even there no matter if i come to meet the cows or the witch in Cloisterwood first, *****ing annoying game breaking bug.
- Anonymous
I accidentally made Alice explode on my third attack from almost full health (didn't have physical armor anymore) by casting the chain healing spell when she had Decay set. It was a great surprise. :D
- Anonymous
I didn't have Pet Pal, and I didn't talk or go to the cows first, I directly went to the house of the witch with the key and procured both potions, then I looked where the cows were, and when I went to their place, there wasn't any cow and the quest closed. Last entry was "The polymorphed cows have fled" .... What the ***** ? Why ? Anyone have an answer ?
- Anonymous
As of the latest patch (v3.0.146.559 on Oct 6th, 2017), the Reapers' Coast quests have all had their experience rewards reduced significantly.
- Anonymous
Seems like no one reads patch notes - with the latest major patch, XP gains were rescaled in Driftwood. Hence, why less XP is received for this quest now.
- Anonymous
I defeated Alice Alisceon in about 2-3 turns by teleporting her all the way to Jahan and have him finish her off. Just have someone (preferably with Far-Out Man) stand on the edge of the cliff on the right-side with the vines and teleport her as far as possible towards Jahan. You will most likely need another character standing on the path to teleport her once more in front of Jahan's house. Reminder that he won't join the battle unless one of your characters is close enough to him. Anyway, Jahan should kill the witch in about 2 turns at most. Hope this helps someone.
- Anonymous
I'm pretty sure they changed it, this doesn't page seem to be accurate anymore. Not asking for a reward I got 26,900XP, and 16,150XP otherwise. Latest patch installed and everything.
- Anonymous
Augmentor can be found west of Driftwood, and Boletus can be found in Cloisterwood. I found my boletus near where Ethnie was located at.
- Anonymous
Only got the 13450 x2 without asking for anything. Didn't matter which cow I spoke to to give them the potion. Only thing I didn't try is to only have 1 potion on me and do them one at a time, but I'm tired of reloading and I figure I'll probably get the same result anyway.
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
I play as a full mage party; to make the fight against the witch easier, I climbed the ruins nearby and managed to teleport her to an isolated platform near the Eastern part of the ruins. Because she's a scarecrow, she can't get off the platform by descending the vine, and her flight ability only seems to be activated when you come close to her. So she basically doesn't do anything on her turn.
If you have the far-out man perk you can more or less snipe her without taking any return fire, and you're also safe from her pain aura. She does cast her infinity damage spell once in a while that fully heals herself though, so once you get through her crazy amount of magic armor (not to mention dealing with high magic resistances), you need to teleport her near your party and nuke her to death. It should be possible to permanently stun her at that point.
Also killing the totems doesn't give any XP so you don't need to bother with them.
- Anonymous
I saved before talking to the cows with both potions, and turned my text log on to compare the xp gain. Seems like the XP you gain depends on your level. If you ask for rewards, the xp awarded per cow is less.
- Anonymous
Current patch, never talked to the cows, didn't kill the Witch, offered the potions for nothing in return and only got 26.9k XP
- Anonymous
No 40k xp here too. Not asking for a reward, having two potions, not talking/killing to the witch before. I haven't Fane in my party so i couldn't read that book with the recipe. Perhaps something doesn't update in the log / quest log and that's the problem?
- Anonymous
who is this witch? does she not have a name?
also the cows fled for me so RIP xp i guess....
You can dig up the treasure and buy or pickpocket her books without sacrificing extra xp. Just get the treasure location from him and reload
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