Going to the witch is the first overall thing I did in my game after hitting up everyone around town. I did accidentally turn on the "killed bosses" cheat but i tried with a clean new game and it still happens. If you go downstairs, you can do the battle that is meant to happen when you softlock, and properly "meet" the witch after. On my locked save (after beating the dude early) I then did the forest/fire areas before getting the "we should go talk to the witch" part, which is where im locked out at. I linked my saves, 6 is the softlock and 7 is the clean new game where you can fight early which causes the softlock.