Introduction

Every single quest necessary for the The Hero is included into the main quest walkthrough, just do yourself a favor and complete and check them off when I mention them in the story line. Many quests have a very short completion window within the confines of the Main Quest. It's safe to assume that completing the next chapter of the main quest will auto-flag side quests you obtained before completing that as failed and render them inaccessible for the rest of the play through.

And if you don't know where to find a objective out in the world or where to find all the side quests, hit the Quest Map page and check the map there, it'll show all of them!

The End at the Beginning

Just work your way through the tutorial, paying attention to what your main pawn suggests you should do. You'll run into a chimera, your first and for this fellow last mini boss. It's a pretty simple fight but for a new player this can be absolute hell.

The main four things about the chimera is first, take out either the goat head which is responsible for it's magick attacks (A) or take out the snake tail which does a smack that can put your character and pawns into the dirt and preforms vicious poisonous bites (C). When it realizes you're going for its weak spots, it'll do a 360 degree roar (B) that will stagger you and your pawns and causes you to fall down, but keep pressing the attack and the goat or snake will die and it'll cause the chimera to lose it's mind and fall over in panic, which allows you to mount it easily and beat the crap out of it. Once both the goat and the snake die, focus entirely on the lion's head (D) until it dies.

When it finally dies, carry on and go for the nearby exit. This will trigger a cutscene and eventually, your entrance to the character creator.

Once you do hit the creator, create a character that best fits you. Honestly don't worry too much about in-depth stuff such as how heavy characters have bigger equip loads, lightweight characters have best stamina regeneration along with the smallest hitboxes and taller characters have longer reach with weapons. Just create what you think is an attractive and suitable character to play, it honestly won't hamper your ability to play.

Quest Completed

O MQ1 - "The End at the Beginning"

It Begins Completed the prologue. 1 guide

Cassardis Trouble

The very second you get out of the creator, you'll be tasked with trying to take out the dragon... With a toothpick of a sword and no armor. Goodluck with that one, really. Once your heart has been literally stolen from your very chest and you awaken inside of your house, get up and interact with the weapons next to the wall, pick a vocation you like and leave the place for the town centre.

First things first, head into the Inn and access the notice board and grab whats there, then go back out, take a left and spot the medic lady inside the remains of a house surrounded by several injured people. She'll offer you the quest FLORAL DELIVERY, a simple collection quest that just involves you grabbing 5 Sunbright that can be found right outside the town gates near the massive tree on the left side during daytime, then going back into Cassardis and sleeping at the inn 'til midnight. Once it's dark, go for the beach and run into the far back under the rock formation to a second small beach. On the immediate left there's a small purple tinted flower in the rockwall, that's the Moonglow you need. Luckily you only need just one.

Sleep at the inn one more time and head back to turn in the quest. Now go up the main town road towards the church and talk to the priest inside. He'll give the quest LOST FAITH, a simple fetch quest that can be painfully complicated if you don't know where to find the book. Outside the church, there's a boy who is responsible for losing the book - Jump on the roof infront of the boy, near the split of the two rooftops next to a small chimney, the book is right there. Return to the priest and get your reward.

Now try and find a guy called Elvar, most of the time you'll find him wandering from the beach to the centre of town, other times he can be in the inn or in his own house. He'll give the quest GRIM TIDINGS, you're told to find Merin and talk to him about his brother's death; He lives in a house nearby yours up on the hill to the left, next to the destroyed house that the questgiver for Floral Delivery resides in.

Complete the quest and go to the town gates, you'll be greeted by Rook, a pawn. He'll tell you to go visit the Encampment down the road. On the way there, you spot a guy being battered by goblins, this is Reynard - You have to save him or you'll lose access to a quest for this playthrough. It's apparently optional but do yourself the favor and save the guy right now. After saving Reynard, just go on and enter the gates to the Encampment.

Quests Completed

O MQ2 - "Harbinger of Destruction"

O MQ3 - "Newly Arisen"

O MQ4 - "Upon a Pawn"



O SQ1 - "Floral Delivery"

O SQ2 - "Lost Faith"

O SQ3 - "Grim Tidings"

Onward Departed from Cassardis. 2 guides

The Encampment and Cassardis Revisited

Follow the instructions and head for the Riftstone, once there you'll be told to prove yourself and handily enough outside the gates on the east side of the Encampment a few goblins assisted by a Cyclops are attacking. Go outside and kill it, it's weaknesses are lightning and fire and the weakspots to aim for are it's tusks and eye. Turn in the quest and make your Main Pawn.

A New Ally Summoned your own pawn. 1 guide

Once you're done creating him/her, replace Rook with two pawns that compliment your party suitably and go to the notice board and grab whatever is on there. Explore the Encampment some more and find Ser Berne near the noticeboard to initiate the STRENGTH IN NUMBERS side quest, it's a really easy and short quest that just kind of explains the basics of combat. After you're done with that talk to Ser Mercedes and go take a little nap, you should be kicked awake by the arrival of a pleasant little snake. Focus all your fire on one head and it should pop off easily, triggering the next main quest.

Foreign Recruit Enlisted a pawn to your party from beyond the rift. 1 guide

Getting a Head Earned the approval of the Enlistment Corps. 1 guide

Complete it and leave the Encampment through the gate you went in, you'll be stopped by Elvar who tells you to return to Cassardis and speak with the town chief. Head back and find Chief Adaro (white balding hair and beard, can't miss him) to obtain the quest LOST AND FOUND, just keep that in your log for the time being and go to the inn - You'll find Madeleine who requests a escort to the Encampment for the GUARD DUTY quest.

She's a rather annoying escort cause she has the attention span of a sugar ravaging five year old and runs off a fair bit between Cassardis and the Encampment, just wait for her to return to you and carry on. Once inside the walls she'll ask for a 1000G help-'er-out, give her the money and let her be on her way, it's all necessary for the achievement that helps her open her shop.

For now leave the Encampment and head back to Cassardis once more and talk to the guard near the well who asks you to go down there and root out a saurian problem for the DEEP TROUBLE quest; This is a bit of a tough quest but with some effort you can easily kill the saurians in the pit, if anything prepare with some healing items and some anti poison items. Don't forget to turn on your lantern and for another easy achievement, refill it with some oil.

Into Dripstone Cave Entered the azure caverns. 3 guides

The Artisan Combined two materials to make an item. 2 guides

When you're done taking out the saurians, keep trekking through the cave and find the exit on the far end, it'll put you near the Manamia Trail north of the Encampment, go up the west road from the fork (left from the cave exit) and head up the hill - If you're a ranger, fire an arrow at the huge rock trap at the top cause it'll come tumbling down at you otherwise.

Don't be tempted to go to the castle off in the distance, just stick to the road with the many bandits and hug the forested path, at the end you should enter an area called Witchwood. In this area your minimap is useless until you destroy little dreamcatchers that dot the area, there's not much advise I can give you aside from push hard through the area, you can't miss the area you need to end up in. A little bit into the area you'll spot Quina, talk to her and she'll come with you. Head to the center of the zone, a witch occupies the treehouse in the large circular zone in the middle, talking to her finishes this section of the Lost and Found quest. You can also find the Bronze Idol for another quest here so be sure to grab it, it's in Selene's hut.

Follow Quina after she says she's gonna go home, you'll eventually come back outside very close to Cassardis, go back inside and talk to Chief Adaro again to complete it. Also turn in Deep Trouble while you're here. Go to the inn and talk to the keeper, he'll give the quest AN UNINVITED GUEST and asks you to first speak with the victims of the thief and after he comes up with a plan to catch the thief using your help. Rest and talk to him, you'll lose your pawns and have to track down the thief - Simply run after him, hit him once and quickly pick him up. That should be the end of that quest for now so pack up and head for the Ser Mercedes up at the Mountain Waycastle, north of the Encampment and carry on with the Off with its Head quest.

Once you're there, simply walk alongside Mercedes and the cow wagon. You don't have to do a whole lot of killing besides goblins and harpies, and the occasional goblin ambush. You can totally ride the cow, but not the wagon, odd hmm?

At the end of the escort you'll be let into Gran Soren, speak with some of the townsfolk and rest the Inn.

Quests Completed

O MQ5 - "Call of the Arisen"

O MQ6 - "Rude Awakening"

O MQ7 - "Off With Its Head"



O SQ4 - "Strength in Numbers"

O SQ5 - "Lost and Found"

O SQ6 - "Guard Duty"

O SQ7 - "Deep Trouble"

O SQ8 - "An Uninvited Guest"

The Courier Entered Gran Soren. 1 guide

Gran Soren Errands

Once you're allowed to walk to the Pawn Guild but before going in quickly walk past the Guild and head into the smith's shop and grab the REAPER'S SCORN quest which requires you to obtain a Wakestone, now you can go talk to the owner of the Pawn Guild and complete the quest A Matter of Myrmidons. He'll tell you to go down the Pawn Guild's inner structure to see what exactly is happening down there. Upon reaching the bottom and after defeating/fleeing from the Ogre, grab the Wakestone Shard (It's only there if you have Reaper's Scorn active) and investigate the blue crack in the ground. A infinite amount of tentacles will begin to spawn, just leave them be and retreat back all the way upstairs and leave the Pawn's Guild. You should now also have the Wakestone necessary to revive the son for Reaper's Scorn since he already gave two shards and you only needed one more; Use it on the boy and get your reward and snagging the achievement along with it.

Writ Large Received a writ from the castle. 2 guides

The Savior Used a Wakestone to restore the dead to life. 2 guides

Walk around the town square a bit and find the guy in the yellow clothes called Steffen, he'll give A TROUBLESOME TOME when you talk to him. Then find the friendly guy Mason who gave you the run down of Gran Soren when you got to the square and obtain the quest CHASING SHADOWS which is rather important to several achievements so let's get that one out of the way first. While you explore Gran Soren, you may stumble into a heavy set bald man called Fournival, he offers the quest A LAND OF OPPORTUNITY.

Head for the Inn and get a night's rest, then head out for the Castle. A short cutscene commences and you have to tail a blonde haired knight at a bit of a distance, he's easy to tell apart from the rest due to his lantern but beware not to get spotted. He stops a few times to look over his shoulder before going to the Venery area of Gran Soren. Eventually he should lead you to a little store past the Black Cat where a cutscene triggers, head inside the store and talk to Madeleine, which gets you a slightly elusive achievement and completing Chasing Shadows.

The Patron Helped Madeleine open her shop. 1 guide

Rest at the Inn again and make it day, find the three family members for A Land of Opportunity, Sara's near the town square fountain, her husband should be behind the Inn and the son is near the bar plaza across the Inn. Pip runs away and is found on a rooftop of a house near the Pawn Guild, once you catch him the confirmation of the eviction is done. The quest splits here, if you got 80000G to waste you can convince Fournival to sell you the deed to the land instead but the rewards to offset the price are non existent so honestly, just let them get evicted for the sake of your cash. And with that the quest should be completed.

Now go to the Apothecary and talk to Camellia, she'll redirect you to one Rowland whose location on your map should be on the S shaped road north of the Encampment. Head out of town through the main gates and head to the area where you went to Witchwood earlier, you'll find the guy you need to speak to who's under a bit of a bandit assault.

Save him and he'll tell you to go to the castle ruins you spotted when you walked to Witchwood for Lost and Found. Once in the castle ruins, speak to the guy near the campfire for the NO HONOR AMONG THIEVES quest, which now has a second objective since you completed An Uninvited Guest and should be easier to complete that way.

Go up the ruined tower behind him and climb your way to the very top, a chest holding the tome for A Troublesome Tome is sitting right there.

Now travel to Cassardis and find the thief you captured earlier, his name is Pike and is usually found on the road to the inn or near the beach within the town walls. Talk to him and he asks you what he should do, tell him to offer himself up to Maul. There's no real penalties to doing it this manner and it's just easier as well, return to Maul in the castle ruins and watch the cutscene. That's another quest completed.

Cassardis III, Ancient Quarry and the North

On your way back to Gran Soren, return to Cassardis for one more time. There you'll find a few new quests, one by going down the well once more to investigate the voice from beneath which triggers DEEPER TROUBLE but ignore that one for now. First go down the beach and find a fisherman called Merin, he gives the quest DYING OF CURIOSITY. Check your inventory for some Greenwarish, if you don't have any or that many, hit up the local apothecary and buy around 10 to be safe, it's a need for this quest's completion.

Go to the Unusual Beach, you'll find Valmiro half dead on the shore. Give him some Greenwarish and let him carry on his merry way. Now just walk towards the Encampment's gates, you'll find the dude, once again near death. Give him the healing items he requires and leave him. Head back into Cassardis and go into the well, Deeper Trouble finds you burning the nests of the saurians so it would be handy with a pawn that does massive AoE attacks but honestly you can be any class, swinging/shooting at the nests also destroys them. Eventually after destroying enough egg clusters, the mini boss Giant Saurian comes out if it's hidey hole and joins the fray.

Once all clusters are destroyed, the quest will update and you can go back to Rorric. Head out through the back exit and follow the road up the Manamia Trail towards Witchwood, Valmiro is lying within Witchwood itself so keep that in mind. He'll take the last Greenwarish he needs and heads back home to Cassardis, and you should do the same so you can turn the quest in back at Merin.

Now go back to Gran Soren either by Portcrystal/Ferrystone or walking and from the main gates facing away from the doors, follow the path that goes right and take the left path at the Y split that you'll encounter after following the road. You'll come across a bunch of goblins and a few small houses, go left there and kill them. Follow the path to the mountains and you'll find Alon, he gives the quest OF MERCHANTS AND MONSTERS. This quest can be absolutely insanely hard if you're a female character and playing on a higher difficulty, it requires you kill three ogres in very close quarters.

They have no real weaknesses other than the typical humanoid weak to fire and poison stuff but they still got a gigantic health pool. Your weakness here depends on your gender, ogres enrage upon seeing females, increasing their attack speed and damage along with a signature grab-and-carry move that could potentially kill you quicker than you can QTE out of. Popping inside nails you another achievement but like most so far they're just freebies.

Into the Ancient Quarry Entered the ancient quarry. 2 guides

Upon slaying the three ogres, the quest updates and you can go back to Alon. If you come back here later, several merchants will have moved in and one of them sells unique (and pretty looking) armor and weapons.

Now while we're out in the wilds, it's time to go completely north and snag a quest there. Note: If your character is a male and/or have male pawns, go back to Gran Soren first and buy a set of Lady's Garb from the Black Cat for each male character you have in your party. Following the path that you branched off earlier to go to the Quarry, follow it north instead. It eventually crosses a small river with some tougher saurian enemies, be sure to save your game here cause you're likely to run into worse. On the way up the hills you'll first encounter a Chimera and up on the actual hillclimb you'll be greeted by an armored Cyclops.

You see the gates to the Ruins of Heavenspeak Fort, take the small path left from the gate up. Once again; Any male characters with you? Make each of them, including yourself if you are a male too, wear the Set of Lady's Garb. If you don't, the quest giver and her allies will be hostile and fights you to the death. Once you're all dragged up or if you're female, just ready to go on, head up the hills and ignore the female bandits that are there, they're part of Ophis' group. Ophis will be one of the towers, and gives you the THICK AS THIEVES quest. Before you head out, first go across the gate's roof and hit the switch so you can freely pass through, then find the gal called Betiah down on the ground near the gate, she'll give you the sub-quest to Thick as Thieves called CYCLOPS CARE.

Follow the road west towards the objective for Cyclops Care and watch out for yet another Chimera and a boatload of harpies. There's a bunch of goblins near the corral, slay one and carry it's corpse down to the Cyclops. DON'T ATTACK IT! It's friendly, albeit very slow. It's apparently completely neutral and just wants a snack. If it doesn't wanna chomp on the corpse, keep moving the body infront of him until he grabs it, it can happen.

Return to Betiah and turn in Cyclops Care, that should warrant you enough completion credit to turn in Thick as Thieves. If you feel like going the full 100% on this one, there's a massive cluster of male bandits near the Witchwood entrance where Maul is but since you completed No Honor Among Thieves, they're friendly now! So save that butchery desire for the next playthrough.

While you're here, on your way down the mountain, not far past where you defeated the Cyclops earlier, in the U shaped turn there's a grassy area. The entrance to a massive and rather dangerous cave is here, you might as well pop in quickly and leave again for a quick achievement grab. Otherwise later on you'll find some notice board quests lead you back here anyway.

Into Soulflayer Canyon Entered the Soulflayer Canyon. 2 guides

Now back to Gran Soren we go for the last side quest for this stage, so if you have a few spare Ferrystones now would be the time to use one. Once back in town, first go by the apothecary and buy a Flask of Water and save at the Inn, it's incredibly important, I'll explain why in a second. Head up to the Royal Quarters and go inside the manor on the right side of the city gate leading down - It should be called Fournival Manor; Inside you'll stumble upon big property man himself, he gives the quest ESCORT DUTY.

You're now responsible for being the walk-a-long for his little serpent of a daughter. So why did I tell you to buy that flask and save ahead of time? There's three outcomes to this quest, and you want the best one cause it gives you a item you require for a future quest. It's also the most strict set of rules to achieve the best reward you can possibly imagine, from falling slightly behind to being punished for doing as told.

So first the "donts" of this quest; Do not bump into her (as in if she staggers by your doing it's a strike against), do not pick her up and you have to follow up on requests straight away.

She'll start the quest off by walking across Royal District towards the Market at snails pace, so stay close behind her but keep a gap so you won't bump into her. She'll trip over her own feet near the Cathedral, don't touch her, just run up next to her as she brushes herself off. Eventually near the Market she'll tell you through the medium of cutscene that she wants to play hide and seek! For the best outcome, you have to find her straight away. She either hides in the Union Inn behind the keeper, next to the fireplace or simply at the Alehouse.

After this she continues clockwise around the fountain, then she'll spurt off to the apothecary. Don't try sprint after her, instead just pace along and she'll come running back for you pretty much right away after having looked at the stall. She'll carry on walking to the gate near the Craftsman's Quarter, there she'll request a Flask of Water from you. Talk to her and give the flask you got before picking up the quest, handy huh!

Then she'll challenge you to a race, to the city gates at the far end of the Workman's Quarter. You have to lose this race, but barely. Follow Symone, zig zag like crazy and generally just stay right behind her. Finishing a very close (and in her eyes a totally believable) second. Return to Fournival and turn in the quest. Talk to Symone right after the quest, you don't have it automatically awarded. If you pleased her enough as a guide, you'll get the coveted Gold Idol. If you have the cash to spare, have it copied at the Black Cat, just understand that the copy will be recognized as a fake and the rewards are lessened but the quest still is completed. Otherwise you still have the Bronze Idol from before, you don't need more than two Idols.

If you weren't the kick-ass guide but passed, you get the Golden Egg and at worst a Empty Flask. Don't forget to chuck the Gold Idol in your storage along with the Bronze one.

Quests Completed

O MQ8 - "A Matter of Myrmidons"

O MQ9 - "Lure of the Abyss"



O SQ9 - "Reaper's Scorn"

O SQ10 - "A Troublesome Tome"

O SQ11 - "Chasing Shadows"

O SQ12 - "Land of Opportunity"

O SQ13 - "No Honor Among Thieves"

O SQ14 - "Deeper Trouble"

O SQ15 - "Dying of Curiosity"

O SQ16 - "Of Merchants and Monsters"

O SQ17/17A - "Thick as Thieves" & "Cyclops Care"

O SQ18 - "Escort Duty"

The Wyrm Hunt Part I: The Cypher & A Fortress Besieged

Stage three time! You got a Writ about ten sidequests ago after finishing Lure of the Abyss, remember the achievement that popped? Go for the Royal Quarter and talk to Ser Maximilian, he'll offer you four quests. You only have to complete two to continue the main quest but we're gonna finish all four, for the sake of the Hero achievement and getting an absolute boatload of experience.

Pick "Decipher a text", under the quest name THE CYPHER. It's a very simple and straightforward quest that with Dark Arisen awards you with yet another Portcrystal and some very nifty pick-me-ups in the end location. Visit the farmer Josias in the Workman's Quarter who'll say he has no idea what the tablet is about, so try your luck with Montebank at the Black Cat instead. He also claims he doesn't know, the quest should now direct you to Maurin, who usually is found in the Fountain Square. He'll come up with some vague clues and tells you to go for the Hillfigure Knoll, a fair bit up north.

You really can't miss the Hill once you near it, it's got a massive human figure etched into the grassy hillside near the cave entrance. Head inside and talk to the Dragonforged, he'll explain a bit more about your situation. His entire home is littered with fantastic loot so be sure to empty the place out, he sure doesn't seem to mind. Amongst your findings if you have the Dark Arisen version you'll loot another Portcrystal, nifty eh?

Travel back to Gran Soren and hit up Ser Maximilian to turn in the quest, he'll offer the second quest of your choosing. Let's go with the hardest and most lengthy of the four so pick "Rout a monster infestation", A FORTRESS BESIEGED is what the quest actually is called, which has you travel all the way down south west to the Shadow Fort.

Since we did the quest Of Merchants and Monsters, the Ancient Quarry has been cleared and is now populated with a number of merchants! And it gets even better, there's a rear exit that cuts your journey short by a staggering amount, so head straight to the Quarry. Shop if you must and it's pretty advised since the gear these guys sell is superior to most of what you've found so far, otherwise just hit the far end of the Quarry and you'll find the exit.

You'll exit the Quarry into an area called Devilfire Grove, named aptly for the giant red drake that roams the forest to your southwest, so stay clear from that bit for now eh? There's a small camp nearby that you might wanna make use of to procure an autosave and maybe sell/buy some things. If not, just follow the road up north. Beware of the hobgoblin camps along the way, you'll pass through give or take three of 'em. Once there, talk to Ser Robert. The men have dug a hole underneath into the fort's larder, so pop down there and go straight in.

A few goblins and some hobgoblins dot the interior of the fort's gates, nothing too tough for you to handle now. Make your way to the rooftop where you'll find that the bridge connecting the two towers is destroyed, a lightweight character can actually sprint jump across without a problem, so if you are that do it! You have the advantage if you're quick enough to take out the two ballista's that fire at you the entire time. Load up a fire arrow and try to accurately hit the ballista, the fire's explosion should blow off and kill the goblin manning it. If your turret got destroyed, well, bad luck! Head back over the bridge gap and take the ladder down.

Here you might want to prepare before the onslaught kicks off. If you're the healer/support of the party, prepare some buffs to help out preemptively. Otherwise, down some defensive potions against fire if you have any. It's not necessary but this is going to be the biggest fight you've encountered yet.

Take out as many goblins as you can while staying on the move if the ballista's are still alive, don't let yourself get hit by a fire arrow as it'll set you alight and do massive damage. Now comes the biggest challenge of this fight; Two cyclopes at once. If you have a mage with lightning spells, the fight will be easy. Every lightning attack staggers the cyclops and makes it fall to the ground. Otherwise, try your best to make it trip over itself by attacking its feet. Fire works just as well as anything so if you have some Oil Flasks along with some fire based attacks or tools, coat it in oil and set it on fire.

After the cyclopes have fallen, look for a building on the left side of the courtyard with a locked door. It has a ladder around the corner from the door, climb it and tumble in quickly. Go inside and you'll find a few chests in a small jail area, if you got Dark Arisen you'll find yet another Portcrystal in here too. One of the chests has the Shadow Fort Lever, snag it and head back for the tower that you climbed down initially. Put the lever in the slot and let in Ser Robert and his men.

You'll get a bonus objective; Ser Robert must survive the fight. It's somewhat easier said than done, but with the cyclopes being dead it is a heck of a lot easier. It's basically a sure thing if you managed to nail the goblin ballistas earlier too, otherwise you could potentially heal the guys by drinking a flask of Spring Water if you have some.

Keep up with wiping out the goblins in the main courtyard, you have to kill just about all of them. You know you'll be done once Ser Robert and his men stand guard with their shields raised. Take this as your cue to head inside, they'll now be safe from ballista fire too if they're still alive. Watch out when you hit the top of the tower, there's yet another cyclops and this one has the nasty side effect of sending you and your pawns off the side of the tower to your deaths. So beam it to death with lightning or fire based attacks, depending on your arsenal. Once it falls, make sure that all the goblins up here are dead and the ballista's are taken care of, then head inside the other side of the tower and down the stairs and you'll trigger a cutscene after going into the room.

You can now go back to Ser Robert and complete the quest, but we're going down the little guy's hidey hole for extra credit and yet another location specific achievement. When you head out of the tower, on your left there's a hole leading into the ground, follow it down and you'll drop into the Frontier Caverns. If you're quick on the draw you can actually kill the Chieftain that bailed out of the window earlier, otherwise you'll get a cutscene of him escaping, regardless of what happens down here, you can head back to Ser Robert and inform him of your success.

Into the Frontier Caverns Entered the southwestern caves. 1 guide

The Wyrm Hunt Part II: Seeking Salvation & The Watergod's Altar

Head back for Gran Soren, use another ferrystone if you have a few to spare. Find Ser Maximilian and turn in the quest, he'll have a new option in his dialogue now but do not pick it. Instead, chose to "Investigate a cult". This opens the quest SEEKING SALVATION. You'll soon be knee deep in undead, so if you desire go get a mage pawn with holy abilities as it'll make dealing with undead nearly trivial. Fire attacks work as well but it also makes certain types of undead detonate violently so holy is still the better way to go.

The quest tells you to go inquire around town but doesn't mention it's totally optional. You can just simply leave town and start your lengthy journey up north. If you like to get the complete experience, first talk to the Union Inn innkeeper who will direct you to our old pal Mason who wanders the Fountain Square. He'll give you a Salvation's Badge, with this item you can talk to Salvation members freely cause they'll assume you're on of theirs. The map will point you to two new people but only the one near the Inn will cough up useful info.

It'll just pinpoint you in the direction of the Catacombs. So leave Gran Soren and the path that leads directly north, basically follow the path to Hillfigure Knoll again but take a left turn at the Old Garrison past the bridge. You'll eventually stumble upon the hillcrest that the entrance to the Catacombs is hidden in. There's a Rift Stone next to the entrance, use it once so you can reset your pawn's health if they're damaged.

Head inside and follow the narrow corridor, you can loot the sarcophagi even the ones with the purple fog coming out of them. They will curse/poison you with random afflictions so beware, you can either quickly open them as you mash the button and run past so you won't get cursed or just take the hits and have your mage cure you/pop some curatives. At the end you'll come across an elevator, a brief cutscene plays that has your Arisen turn the lever and ride it down.

Ignore the gate ahead, it'll be unlocked in a later side quest. For now, take the left. You'll fight a Phantom here, it gives you some very nice experience and it drops some valuable upgrading items but it is only vulnerable to magicks. And it can possess your pawns and you, and that can make for some quick party deaths. And to complement the Phantom, there's several undeads that spawn around the room. In the next room there'll be Skeleton Mages with some Skeleton Knights, this can be tricky as the Mages possess magick that knocks you clean off your feet. After a few more rooms with skeletons, undead and one more Phantom (if it's night) you'll near a locked door where you can hear a voice preach through. Make your way up the stairs and look over the meeting, the Elysion summons a horde of undead to cover his retreat.

You have to kill all of them before you can continue the quest, but it's nothing some AoE holy/fire magicks and a lot of weapon swinging can't fix. Give chase and you'll run into Mason and a survivor of the Cult. This is a bit of a important sub quest called JUSTICE DONE that'll trigger with the cutscene; Mason tells you to slay the Salvation member and leave. Do not try and be the hero here, it'll only come and bite you in the ass. Simply kill the guy and you reap the rewards, if you decide not to; Mason kills him anyway and claims business with you is done. He'll stop offering quests and help/advice in any quests that might involve him, in contrast to the killing of the Salvation member... Which there is literally no downside to, bar your own conscience. After you kill him, loot the nearby chest and head for the exit.

You should appear under the bridge near Gran Soren, unlocking a neat little shortcut into the Catacombs for later quests and loot runs! Return to Ser Maximilian in Gran Soren and turn in the quest. He'll still offer one more quest aside from hearing the Duke's directive, so let's pick "Aid a research team" and get trucking. The quest's called THE WATERGOD'S ALTAR and boy it'll be a fun one. Drowning pawns and saurians with health pools the size of fridges, it's going to be a pleasant journey! First you need to inquire about your target, like always. Drop by the Cathedral down the road from Maximilian and talk to Father Geffrey inside. He'll say that the survey team made way for the Watergod Altar in the southern regions.

So, make your way down to the Mountain Waycastle, it's the massive bridge where you began the quest that started your journey to Gran Soren. Make use of the Rift Stone if you must and begin going down the steep incline behind the small camp to the two rocky paths that sit on either side of the cliffwalls.

Follow the left side to the end first and make the running leap across over to the right when you hit the end, following the path will lead you to the waterfall with the remaining member of the survey team, Brother Haslett. He'll tell you he's the sole survivor of an ambush and fled the altar but Brother Jean is still somewhere inside. Step through the waterfall which will drench you but no worries, nothing inside has a bonus damage score against soaked targets.

Turn on your lantern and follow the narrow path off to the right, beware of the snake near the lit crates, you'll be under pretty much constant attack by critters such as snakes, spiders and bats. You run into a raised draw bridge, going right is fruitless for now while the water still stands high so head left and loot the chests nearby. You'll wake up some skeletons along the way so defeat them and press on, you'll wander right into a massive saurian nest.

After you killed enough of these bad boys, a room in the back opens up and more saurians pour out to join the party. Kill the last of them and head into the room the last group of saurians came out of and loot the chest in there for the Watergod's Altar Lever. Head back up to the raised drawbridge and pop the lever in the slot and drop the bridge.

Go across the bridge and slaughter the saurians that lie in ambush, now stay left. If you do the jumping way on the right, it'll severely screw with the AI pathing of your pawns and it'll be a one out of two chance they'll fail the jumps and fall to their deaths in the water. You'll lower the water later on so just resist getting the treasure on the right for now. Just head left and follow the make shift path, you'll be under assault from some skeletons and saurians but if you have a ranged pawn with you, those skeleton magi's won't stand up on the platform for long.

Head up the stairs at the end and walk to the bloody mess on the floor in the central part of the room. A cutscene triggers and a lovely little cyclops gets up to crush your head with his mace. It's a standard cyclops fight with the same lightning-dominates-all ruleset, the only thing that'll complicate things is the pillars. But they may just work as well for you as against you cause the cyclops will have huge problems trying to navigate around them. When the big fellow falls, loot him and go loot all the stuff around the room, make sure you obtain the Watergod's Altar Key before you go check up on Jean's smashed remains which updates the quest.

Now you have to go back to Haslett outside, he'll tell you to go investigate the ruins inside and retrieve five tablets. So! Head back in and return to the dead end passage on the right side of the drawbridge, you can insert a key into the wall there that drains the entire area of water. All the locations of the slabs are marked clearly on your map but be warned you'll be encountering the much stronger version of the saurian called the Sulfur Saurian.

You just got to explore the underground previously submerged areas of the Altar and you really can't get lost, just open all the chests around the area and avoid being cornered by the saurians. The same weaknesses are still the key to victory, stunlock them and attack the crap out of their tail. Once you got all five slabs, which weigh a ton by the way so try to evenely distribute them through your pawns for now, return to Haslett and talk to him. Return to Gran Soren and talk to Ser Maximilian about your success.

So now all you got left is meeting the duke! So select the "hear the Duke's directive", giving you the quest COME TO COURT. All you gotta do is head into the massive gates behind Maximilian. There'll be a short cutscene showing a woman tending to her gardens, her name is Aelinore and she will become very vital to your travels very, very soon. For now just carry on into the demesne and watch the cutscene.

After the cutscene's over, talk to Aldous and select "Aid the Corps on a hunting expedition" which opens the quest GRIFFIN'S BANE. We'll do the other one later, for now head back outside and go to Aelinore that's in the garden to the right facing the massive gate.

Talk to her over and over until she takes off your hat and you should win her heart over, which is kind of odd since she only just met you. But who are you to give a damn, right? She seems nice and you'll need to be this kind to open the next quest that's related to her, so why not! After she takes the hat off you and looks at you lovingly, the cutscene ends and the achievement for raising a characters affinity to max should pop.

Come Courting Attended an audience with the duke. 1 guide

Affinity and Beyond Raised a person's affinity to the maximum. 5 guides

Quests Completed

O MQ10 - "The Cypher"

O MQ11 - "A Fortress Besieged"

O MQ12/12A - "Seeking Salvation" & "Justice Done"

O MQ13 - "The Watergod's Altar"

O MQ14 - "Come to Court"

The Abbey and Witchwood Part Deux

So after being done within the Demesne, first talk to ol' pal Maximilian once more and quickly grab the quest RISE OF THE FALLEN from him on your way. Now return to the Union Inn and take a rest there 'til the morning. After you wake up, there'll be a bunch of people gathered near the fountain. Listen in on them and after they're done talking, the quest WITCH HUNT will be added to your quest log. Talk to the merchant called Brice, he's the one with the black and white top with the green belt, he'll give you more information about the quest. But generally speaking, as the name implies, you'll be going to Witchwood and visit the little witch Selene once more.

Now go to the armorer's shop in the Fountain Square, Caxton should give you the quest IDOL WORSHIP. Quickly go back to the Inn and grab the Golden and the Bronze Idol from your storage. I'd suggest keeping the Golden Idol for a later quest and using the Bronze one for this quest, alternatively grab the quest "Put the Eye Out" from the notice board and slay the cyclops in the Frontier Caverns, it'll award a Silver Idol. The reward is that the vendor who receives the best quality Idol will stock stronger, better and more expensive items, and it's strongly advised to keep the Golden Idol for Madeleine. So turn in the Idol of your choosing at Caxton and the quest'll be complete.

You should still have the other Idol that you didn't turn in, go for Madeleine's shop in the Venery. She'll offer the quest SUPPLIER'S DEMAND, which is just like Idol Worship - Get a Idol. Turn in the Idol and turn in the quest, tada!

Return to the Royal Quarter and enter the Demesne, find miss Mirabelle, Aelinore's handmaiden. She's usually either within the demesne itself, upstairs and wandering, or in the entrance room before the throne room. She gives the quest AROUSING SUSPICION. She'll ask you to talk to her at night but this quest is best combined with another quest you'll retrieve soon so let's leave this one for now.

So now it's time to leave Gran Soren and wrap up the non-city quests first, buy some ferrystones if you need 'em to save travel time. First we're going up to Windbluff Tower, which is on your way to Hillfigure Knoll so you should know where to go. Leave Gran Soren through the gate near Fountain Square as there'll be a quest pick up on the outside there, a guard near the gates on the outside has the quest NAMELESS TERROR. A incredibly annoying quest that we'll likely take care of last.

Follow the road north, like before and head inside Windbluff Tower and talk to Ser Daerio. A simple (or complicated, depends on your chosing) delivery and return quest called SUPPLY AND DEMANDS triggers, all you gotta do for the easiest way to complete it is go back to Gran Soren and talk to the designated guard near the castle and return to Daerio. You get a better reward and higher affinity with Daerio if you talk to Lord Julien, the one he pointed out specifically, but he's a tad bit tricky to find sometimes so honestly you're better off delivering the message and bringing the news back to Daerio at Windbluff.

Now it's time to head for the Abbey. When you get to the split towards Gran Soren before the bridge from Windbluff Tower, head right towards the badlands. When you hit the end of this path, past the Catacombs, take a left and cross the small river crossing and head up the hills on your right with the dead trees.

You'll spot a slightly aged Abbey in the distance and inside you'll run into a old friend of yours, Quina! Talking to her gives you the quest TALENT IN BLOOM. It's a very, very simple quest that just has you deliver a flower to anyone of your choosing. It can even be Quina herself, though it'll get you a bit of a nasty reply saying that you're not helping her. After she gives you the flower, speak to Mother Clarus inside and she'll comment on Quina's talents. The best reward is obtained by delivering the flower to Father Geffrey in the Gran Soren Cathedral, but like I said you can give it to literally anyone. Hand it off to Clarus or one of the sisters around the Abbey, or quickly pop back to Gran Soren and turn it in at Geffrey in the Cathedral.

Whoever you end up giving the flower to, once you do it head back to the Abbey and talk to Quina.

After you turn in Talent in Bloom, use the Rift Portal near the main church building in order to reset the area. This is important cause the next quest from/related to Quina is so easily missed, so just use the Portal and return to the real world. Go to Clarus again and take the quest A PARTING GIFT. You have to get Clarus a Pilgrim's Charm.

You can do this in one of two ways, go to Fournival in Gran Soren and buy one for 70.000G. You should have the money required so honestly you might as well! Heck, if at all possible buy one even if you're going to take the freebie route, you'll need it for a quest we do very soon anyway. If you can't... Well, you can score one in Soulflayer Canyon, from the west entrance you'll stumble into a broken bridge almost immediately, it'll be right there.

The "proper" way of doing this quest, though, is going to the Catacombs, where you'll find Quina, and explore the place with her to find the Pilgrim's Charm in a chest guarded by a Specter. Since the Catacombs is a rather straightforward dungeon, just follow the marker and stay cautious as always, there's not much more I can say to make it any easier other than what was mentioned for Seeking Salvation.

Once you have the Pilgrim's Charm, head back to the Abbey and give it to Mother Clarus. You'll recieve a bunch of Ne'er-Do-Part flowers, 5 if you bought the charm or 10 if you obtained it with Quina. Make sure you save these for later so chuck them into your storage at a Inn when you can.

So now you're at the Abbey, travel down to Witchwood for the third time so we can follow up on WITCH HUNT we picked up in Gran Soren at the start of this stage. Not to worry, this'll be the last time we go there so it might be worth dropping by the Encampment quickly to dump wares at the storage and acquire new skills for your vocation. Head back to the part of Witchwood where you found the little witch Selene, a bit of a mob has gathered around her hut and the big ol' party is interrupted almost right away by a new kind of enemy you probably haven't run into yet. A Golem.

It's completely immune to any form of damage, aside from it's little bright spots when targeted directly (A). After you dish out enough damage to the light discs, it should freeze up entirely (B) to "defend" itself and to allow the enrage mode to happen. You should give it all during this freeze, he'll be completely defenseless and you can unleash everything you got on the discs. Beware, there's one on his foot that you'll probably don't get off before he unfreezes, unless you pepper it with AoE strikes as a mage, you'll have to be patient and careful cause when he wakes up, he turns dark pink/purple and the discs glow red (C) as his enrage/berserk mode takes over, he'll begin doing frontal cone light beam attacks along with incredibly vicious sweeps and stomps that can take out a 800HP pawn in a single hit.

When he drops, grab the Magick Medals he drops from shattering the glowing discs and the rest of the loot and give chase to Selene who runs deeper into the forest. She'll run down a winding path without any enemies around so just follow it all the way down to a small graveyard where you'll see Selene with a woman called Sofiah, speak with the both of them. And while you're here, grab all the flowers around the grave called King's Bay Leaf, you probably already picked up a notice board quest that asks you for five of them.

Now head out of Witchwood through any of the exits, if you don't and portal out instead the area won't properly reset so just head for one of the exits. You wanna quickly tour to Gran Soren to change your vocation to a Strider or Ranger, you really want a bow vocation for what's coming so drop by Caxton and buy a level appropriate bow for yourself along with some reasonable attire if you can't equip your old gear anymore. Don't worry about losing progress in your current vocation, it'll remain to be the exact same, you just won't be gaining discipline points in that vocation for now. Good news is you'll be able to use your Augments across any vocation so it has its benefits! Just be sure to hold onto your gear, cause I'm pretty certain you don't want to stay like this if you were anything but a Ranger/Strider before.

If you have a ranger main pawn, you could just switch vocations (I do this often with my Fighter pawn, we just swap armor and weapons in the inventory after changing vocations, only a matter of seconds and you're good to go) and swap out gear, won't have to buy anything! I won't list the achievements here cause well, it's situational. Heck you could ignore this entire segment if you're a Strider or a Ranger already, so! Look for them on the fifth page called Additional Achievements.

Anyway, if you had to switch your vocation, head back to the Guardian's Grave in the newly unlocked area where you've found Selene with Sofiah earlier, there's a tablet at the grave you can interact with, it triggers the quest THE DRAGON'S TONGUE. Rowland who happens to be nearby suggests you take it to a man of the cloth, either in Cassardis or good ol' Geffrey in Gran Soren, but for now keep it in your bags and lets carry on with the meat of this place, golem infestation. Make your way to the lake at the end of the path, beware you don't stumble into the sleeping golems, trust me you don't want to fight anymore than you have to.

In the lake there'll be a dormant Golem, just kind of lying there. The second you strike it, you instigate the quest METTLE AGAINST METAL. Guess what, a quest that totally changes the rules of how-to fight a Golem! You want to avoid this guy after striking him, he's totally immune and of course, the big fellow has no visible discs for you to exploit.

Why? Cause they're scattered all around the lake, including one for which you had to go Ranger/Strider! It's out of the actual explorable world, it's high on a wall that can be only reached with the help of an arrow. Use the map to find all the discs you need to shoot to kill the big guy, your pawns will be mostly occupied striking a unkillable golem but your rangers/striders have an additional bit in their AI that lets them shoot the discs if they're close enough to them, getting the one that's out of reach is still absolutely horrible to try and get by letting a pawn shoot it so honestly, you did yourself a favor if you had to change.

If you still have trouble locating them despite their brightness, they have a small little trail that shows every three seconds that you can trace back to their they originate.

Once you get the last one, the golem falls and the quest will pop up as completed. Return to the big guy and pick up the loot he may have dropped. You're now entirely done with Witchwood, you won't have to come back here anymore. Perhaps for notice board quests but at least you have a choice on those.

If you had to change your vocation, head for Gran Soren quickly and change it back to what you were before.

Cassardis for the Last Time

We go to Cassardis for one last time to grab and complete the last few quests that originate there. Happen to got some Ferrystones left? Use one and teleport to Cassardis and head inside. Find a kid called Tomlin, he usually wanders the beach at day or sleeping at the Chief's home at night. He gives you the quest AN INNOCENT MAN, and asks you to free his father from the Gran Soren jail. So it's a good old fashioned jailbreak and it just so happens that very soon from now, you'll be imprisoned right alongside Tomlin's father! What a happy coincidence huh...

Right while we're at it, we're going to need some Skeleton Keys. You can get one from Montebank at the Black Cat in Gran Soren for 4.220G, you can find another one in a chest at the top of the set of stairs between the Workman's/Craftman's Quarter and the Noble Quarter, you gotta jump onto the ledge but you can easily spot the chest as you go up the stairs. And yet another inside the Gran Soren jail but it's tucked away behind a patrolling guard, so how about not getting that one as of yet.

The most ideal way would be making them yourself, which this far into the game shouldn't be a big problem. All it takes is a Shackle (which drop commonly from Male Bandits) and either a Hammer, a Hunk of Ore, Scrap Iron or Unremarkable Ore. You can buy a bunch of Hammers from Montebank as well and Hunks of Ore are very common Goblin drops as well as Scrap Iron so you should be able to make a few no problem.

Once you got at least three Skeleton Keys, keep them in your inventory so you won't forget them. For now we're just gonna finish the last quest in Cassardis from Valmiro. Remember the suicidal travel happy fool? Yeah with whats coming, we're setting him on sail for absolute fail. He should be staring off at the sea near the path down the beach, talk to him and the quest FAREWELL, VALMIRO triggers. He says he's sick of the idle life and wants to adventure around, like you. Only this time without someone having to follow him and save him three times.

He'll just ask you for some stuff to make his journey less painful. He first requests a Potent Greenwarish. You may already have a few since you've been through areas like Witchwood and the outer regions of Gran Soren where they grow freely and quite commonly. You may also combine a Greenwarish with Sweet Pollen to create one. And if somehow all else fails, they're sold at the Gran Soren apothecary for a mere 300G.

Next on his list would be a Lantern, you can buy these from just about every common salesman including the general store in Cassardis.

The third item is where it becomes tricky... He'll ask for a Sour Ambrosial Meat. There's only one found at a fixed location in the world and the worst part is, food naturally degrades so you might either want to prepare a Ferrystone or an Air-Tight Flask to put it into. It's located within the Ancient Quarry, use the map to locate it. The place's empty of enemies so don't worry about anything. It's inside the boxes in the corner of the open room so smash 'em. When you grab it, head back to Valmiro right away, don't even risk doing anything else on the off chance it might go rotten.

Returning to him, the last thing he wants is a Pilgrim's Charm. Now this can be either difficult, pricey or neither, depending on how you played out A Parting Gift from earlier. If you went down the Catacombs with Quina in that quest, you can still go to Soulflayer Canyon and go through the west entrance (the one past Heavenspeak Fort, south of the Greatwall Encampment on the map) into the Canyon. Once inside follow the path and take a right at the fork and then take the right wooden walkway all the way to the end, it should be lying to the right in the corner.

If you already snagged it there, you'll have to go to Gran Soren and buy one from Fournival for 70.000G.

Go back to Valmiro for the last time and give him his last item. He'll have one last request, haul the boxes of goods to his boat on the beach. Your pawns will also take a box each so it shouldn't take more than one trip, unless you have less than 3 pawns of course. Talk to Valmiro and quest's complete along with a nice farewell cutscene. The reward of this quest along with the experience, money and RC are a bunch of very rare and high quality crafting materials. Every one of them can normally only be obtained from the end game so it's really worthwhile to drop these off in the item storage.

Duke's Demesne II, Catacombs II and yet another trip to Soulflayer Canyon

Now that most the quests that are found and completed in the surrounding world are done, it's time to do the last handful of quests that are from Gran Soren. First, we're going to jail! To uh, tag off An Innocent Man and Arousing Suspicion. So make double sure you have the two or three (three's still the best choice though two will suffice) Skeleton Keys in your possession. Head to the Inn and sleep 'til nightfall and proceed to make for the Duke's Demesne.

Find Mirabelle on the left side from the Demesne and talk to her, she'll tell you to sneak into Aelinore's chambers upstairs and make sure she's alright. Beware though, from now on if you're spotted by guards, you'll be thrown in jail and potentially failing the quest all together.

Make through the front doors of the castle, don't bother using the side entrances cause they're well guarded and also be sure your lantern is off. Enter the main hall and keep right and use the walls for cover, there's two guards that patrol this area. One's on the ground floor, patrol starting from the right and heads to the throne and walks past it to walk down the left side of the room. The other guard patrols a clockwise fashion route on the second floor walkways. You can easily sneak past the guard downstairs when he walks past the throne, using pillars for cover and waiting for the upstairs guard to walk up the right side of the stairs and turn the corner.

You can use that exact moment to run upstairs and go into the open room with the massive stairs, follow these up and exit the door to the walkway that leads to Aelinore's tower.

Entering this tower triggers a cutscene, which has some rather romantic conclusions... Until the freaking Duke comes to interrupt your moment together. Edmun Dragonsbane obviously isn't himself, worse so he seems to be completely nuts and begins to strangle his betrothed.

Beware: You now are presented with two choices, which isn't directly clear whatsoever. You can do nothing and let the Duke do his ... thing. Or you can move towards the bed, triggering yet another cutscene. You have to pick the option where you interrupt the Duke. If you don't? Aelinore dies. It simply removes her from the game, and with that not allowing you access to another quest with her and locks a entire area of the map from being entered.

So, it's quite important that you take action by moving to the bed and interrupting the mad Duke. For her own safety and perhaps even yours, Aelinore puts up the innocent maiden act when the Duke becomes himself again and you're chucked into the lovely depths of the Gran Soren Jail.

Wait for the guard to walk back to his post on the far side of the room and use a Skeleton Key on the prison cell gate. When you're out of your own cell, you'll have access to your equipment again instantly. You're not the only fellow in prison, a jail cell across from yours on the right is occupied by Tomlin's father, Ansell. Talk to him and you'll find out the true reason for his capture and use another Skeleton Key on the cell, then talk to him another time so he's following you. Before you leave, break the boxes and jars in his cell, one of them contains a spare Skeleton Key.

There's a hole in the wall on the right side inside the prison cell, so use yet another Skeleton Key and head down the secret passage out of the jail. You should take lead on your escape, the path is littered with critter enemies such as snakes, rats and bats. Ansell is in no state to fight and a single snake could actually very well kill him, the poison doesn't automatically cure and with his small health pool he will surely wither and die before reaching the exit.

So the safest way would be to carry him and leg it. Eventually you'll enter the Slums area of Gran Soren where Tomlin will be waiting your arrival. He and his father will have a short private talk and a little walk to the Aqueducts. Arousing Suspicion will flag as completed when you exit the Sewers and An Innocent Man completes when the duo leaves the city through the Aqueduct city gates.

Now this will sound odd but travel right back to the Demesne. Don't worry, nobody seems to give a damn about your recent jailbreak, not even dear old Duke himself. Upstairs in the meeting room you'll find Fedel. Talking to him gives you the quest THE CONSPIRATORS. He simply asks you to come meet him at night near the castle.

Return to the Inn, sleep 'til nightfall and go to the Demesne and wait for Fedel at the marked point on your map. Don't worry if he isn't there after a few seconds, the man's incredibly slow. He slowly makes his way from his original spawn point in the meeting room to the agreed upon location, so give him a good minute or two. You won't be spotted there by the nearby guards for as long as you just stay put at the meeting location.

After you're done talking with him, leave the Demesne. It's time we do three quests, at the same time! Rise of the Fallen, a part of Nameless Terror and the wrapping up of The Dragon's Tongue. Rest at the Inn one more time to reset the time to midnight and head for the bridge that leads to the Venery inside of Gran Soren, it'll trigger a short cutscene of two Salvation members talking.

There's two ways of completing this part, either through subtle stalking by wearing the Set of Salvation Robes you looted from the main quest Seeking Salvation or bought from Montebank, or by simply jumping down and going for good old confrontation. The subtle way has you following one of the members to the Alehouse where he will hide a key in a barrel, looting this key gives you the First Key To Salvation. Now we're not going to be subtle, it's just now how we rock here. We're going to jump right down there and have a little chat with Tagert, who can either be bribed for 10.000G to give the key up or with some good old fashioned intimidation. Either option will net the Second Key To Salvation, so don't bother bribing the guy, after all he isn't exactly worth the ten grand anyhow.

Worried about the keys being different? Well, yeah they are. The real difference lies in what they unlock, which is only a difference in approach. The subtle kind will get a more subtle path that the First Key opens, the brash kind will get a more combat related route with the Second Key. They both still lead to the same quest with the same outcome. You're done here for now, so let's get going for the main gates and leave town.

Once you're out the city, make your way north and go across the bridge. Here you'll run into the first group of assassins for the Nameless Terror quest (it has to be night still, if you go there by the time its sunrise, rest in the Inn until nightfall and head outside) They're easily identified with their dialogue being unique, easier so if you have subtitles on cause their names will be "Phantom", "Ghost", "Soul" and "Spirit" when they speak. Keep in mind, there's a massive skeleton army on the hillcrest that will almost certainly be aggro'd by this conflict. Kill each of them and the skeletons if you have to and loot their corpses.

While we're here, travel up the road and figure your way out back to the Hillfigure Knoll at night and head inside, talk to the Dragonforged who turns the tablet you picked up in Witchwood into a ring. It awards you a unique ring called Arisen's Bond, which you can give to any NPC you fancy cause it raises their affinity to the absolute max, over-ruling any previous relationships you may have shaped. Basically a sure fire way to pick up the Affinity and Beyond achievement if you somehow messed it up when you talked to Aelinore.

Now, leave the Hillfigure Knoll area and make your way to the Catacombs rear exit under the bridge you passed just before the fighting the named assassins, it honestly doesn't really matter where you enter it but the rear exit makes for the shortest path. Inside, go back to the room where you fought the Elysium (or rather, attempted to) and you'll notice the massive double doors are now open. Head through them and follow the stairway, you'll stumble upon some semi powerful Skeleton Knights. Kill 'em and go through the next large room. You gotta follow the path north, through a rather cavernous looking area. At the end you'll have to climb up a ladder and up there you'll have to fight even more skeleton knights with the odd skeleton mage included.

Continue the path, left or right doesn't matter since both join up again at the end. The closer you get, you'll begin hearing a certain someone we may have strong-armed a key from. It's Tagert! Now since we got the Second Key To Salvation, we have to open the gate, slaughter the Stout Undead and speak with Tagert whose loyalty to Salvation has diminished and requests you stop Salvation from whatever crazy plan they got going now. However, if you got the First Key To Salvation instead, you have to go right and be spared from bloated zombie combat, open the door and head up the elevator, continue and open yet another door and drop down the stairs.

Therein lies the difference with the keys, the way you approach this area. Incredibly minor, eh?

Anyway, now you got to collect a set of gems that unlock the door near the stairs you would've come down if you have the First Key. Use the map to locate them, couldn't be easier. However! There's a set of three Skeleton Mages on the beams next to the door that can truly mess your day up. If you're ranged or have some Throwblasts, chuck those at the skeletons and put them down before they really become a problem.

Okay when I said easy, I should've mentioned that was for the task at hand, you're in a enclosed area, close quarters and you're assaulted by every undead enemy the game can possibly summon up. Stout Undeads join the ranks of normal Undead, Skeleton Knights and their Mage buddies and if you're truly unlucky, you may even have to deal with a Phantom.

When you have all five Gems of Salvation, use them on the door and go through. In this room you'll walk onto a macabre ritual as done by a guy called... Balsac. Dick jokes aside, this guy is almost worth of a pity kill. After all the stuff you've run into to get this far, Balsac only has two healthbars and just a few Skeleton Knights and Mages to back him up, he's a real big push-over. Focus on, uh, Balsac, as when he goes down, all living things excluding your party die with him.

Before you leave, be sure to loot the chest for the nifty pair of Crimson Teeth daggers. You're now ready to pop out of the Catacombs by Ferrystone or by legwagon and go back to Gran Soren to turn in the quest at Ser Maximilian. If it's still night after all of this, rest at the Inn to make it daylight and go visit Max.

Before you go anywhere, be sure to have at least one Ferrystone on you. Leave town again, time to wrap up The Conspirators. Fedel has a cart which has been ambushed slightly south of the Soulflayer Canyon's east entrance. When you get there, a cutscene will show that the cart's been ambushed and burned to a crisp and also handily pinpoint you to the nearby east entrance to Soulflayer. Use the map above to plot out the route to the west entrance instead! It'll save you a fair bit of time and exploration. Though if you had to grab the Pilgrim's Charm from here, you should already mostly know the way.

Once inside, follow the path to the fork and take the left path. You'll have a slightly complicated with an armored Cyclops on a bridge, one who will happily send your pawns falling to their deaths. Though with a bit of luck, he himself can take the tumble down to his death at the cost of the loot.

When he's dead, or inevitably fallen to his demise, follow the bridge down until you reach a steep grade, you know one of those grades you can slide down without faceplanting the ground below. It's important that you hang left on the slide down, you'll hit a small flat landing you can continue onto. There'll be another slide down, once again very important that you stick left cause this time, going right won't just send you to a totally different place, it'll also kill you! Now after this there will be a third slide, on which you have to hang right and your land on the platform with the questmarker.

All you gotta do now is simply grab the Confidential Letter! There's also ten pieces of paper called Parcels lying around this area, grab all of those too. It's for a notice board quest that you can pick up in Gran Soren. And you should be done here now. And since I told you to grab a Ferrystone beforehand (or if you have some spares), portal back to Gran Soren. You'll be approached by Ser Gabrian who wants to intercept the letter before it goes to Fedel, so if you want to play both sides and win both rewards, have it duplicated at the Black Cat and first give a Confidential Letter to Gabrian and then give the second to Fedel, you'll reap both rewards and the quest is completed. Or, if you're in a rush, simply deliver it to Fedel who was spot on, there is a rebellion forming and one of the key players (you guess who) wanted it intercepted before it could hit Castle grounds.

Now you should have only one side quest left to finish up for now, Nameless Terror. There's a reason why we're doing this one last in this stage. It's an absolute you-know-what. The quest has specific conditions, set under even more specific conditions. Killing the assassins isn't a real big problem, making them actually appear is.

Buy a few more ferrystones if you have to, sleep at the Union Inn to make it night (all the assassins only spawn at nights) and begin to make your way to the Ancient Quarry again. You'll find the second group of assassins here between the Miner's Hut and the actual entrance to the Quarry, these are named Raven, Condor and Hawk. Kill them, loot them and get the heck out of dodge.

The next assassin is a complicated one. Darkness can spawn at three different points on the path between Gran Soren and the Mountain Waycastle. He can be at the Mountain Cottage, at the harpy cages further south or at the massive tree at the far south end of the trail (but still before the Waycastle). If there's bandits around, he should spawn too. If he isn't at any of those points, return to Gran Soren and rest at the inn until nightfall and repeat looking through the trail until you find Darkness. When you kill him, the quest will update.

The next group is on the S-shaped road where you saved Rowland for the main quest Watergod's Altar. They're called Rouge and Noir and they spawn on the turn north of the Abandoned Storehouse. Repeat the process of murdering your would-be murderers and carry on.

Continue south and take a night's rest at the Encampment, sleeping until nightfall once more. The last target and the quest end are at the front gates of Cassardis. Zero will spawn and give you a typical bad guy speech, be sure to not interrupt his speech or attack him preemptively, it'll bug the quest out (it's been bugged since Dark Arisen was released and still goes unfixed as of August '14, don't hold your hopes up for a fix). Killing Zero completes the quest, at last! And with that, the last sidequest of the stage. Even better, there's only three left and none of them are as time consuming!

So return to Gran Soren, time to hit the road again with the main quest.

Griffin Hunt

Let's do some preparation for Griffin's Bane to cut down our travel time. You'll need 2 Ferrystones and 3 Skeleton Keys. Earlier during the Arousing Suspicion and An Innocent Man quest walkthrough I showed you how to obtain the keys so check there if you're unsure. Ontop of that, get a bunch of healing items and stamina restoration items. You'll need it, you'll be doing two boss fights.

Happen to have a Portcrystal too? It would sever your return trip to where we go in half, and it won't be the last time you'll be going in this direction. It's really worthwhile grabbing a spare from a placed location or use one you haven't used yet, since we're going to the eastern most spot of the map, really worth snagging one with you.

Walk down the Fountain Sq. gates and exit town, down the bridge you'll meet Ser Georg. He and his gang will begin running up the crest and to the area where you'll be fighting the Griffin for the first time. There's a few goblins up on the right that jump your group and the men, so take them out and take one of their corpses with you, you'll need it.

From now on you'll be out of the fight and losing stamina for as long as the goblin is on your shoulder, so let your pawns do the fighting while you stay out of the problem area. It's only a short walk up to the spot so if you do still happen to be short on stamina, eat some restorative items and keep hauling that goblin.

A short cutscene will show where the goblin has to be put down, keep in mind though the same cutscene also makes you drop your goblin so be quick on grabbing it again or it might disappear. If it does disappear, there's more goblins further past the zone and carry another corpse in.

A guard will say it's coming and in the distance you can actually spot it fly in. Now beware, he'll aim deadeye for you and he can take off a fair chunk of your life if you stand around waiting for the big bird to nail you dead on. This is only a temporary fight, though if this is a NG+ situation for you, you might just be able to slay it before it takes off. But after you do a few health bars of damage (or anywhere between 30 seconds and 2 minutes, depending on your damage dealing), it'll take off.

This is signaled by Georg telling you to go meet him at Bluemoon Tower. You got one hell of a walk ahead of you, like I said before Bluemoon Tower is at the far north east end of Gransys and along the way you'll walk into an area with a wind current that slows you down to crawling speed, you'll passing by the strongest bandit clan in the game, fight off a Golem and optionally fight down and loot a small cave with lots of chests.

Make your way north past Windbluff Tower, past the Hillfigure Knoll and when you hit a split in the road, hang right towards the massive tree that houses a group of snow harpies. Kill the gals and move on into the back far right of the area where you'll spot a small path. When you hit this trail, you'll get constantly blown backwards by a strong wind. Unless you have the augment that allows you to be unaffected by this, you'll be going forwards at crawling speed.

You can sort of cheat this effect by grounding yourself with weight, by carrying a pawn for instance! But don't worry, sprinting down the wind blown area should be able to get you to the far end before the stamina bar runs empty. It's only a very little part of this path that has the constant wind.

However when you escape the gusts, you'll stumble upon some of the toughest bandits that deal a ungodly amount of damage for the simple weapons they got. Your pawns will likely take huge damage here cause for some reason they like to climb the cliffs the bandits sit on and get shot off the edges by the bandit archers' staggering shots. There's a bunch of chests in the hidden little alcoves on the left and right sides.

When you get out of bandit territory and into a open area, you'll wake up a golem. Fantastic huh? Gets better. The area is littered with snow harpies and a few spare bandits on the upper plateau. Use the same tactics I showed off for the quest Witch Hunt earlier this walkthrough. And there's a upside, the hillside on the right has a bunch of heavy ballistas which you can use to take down the golem without a problem. Switching to the Explosive Bolt allows you to take out several Magick Discs without even directly striking them. When he dies, loot the discs and move on down the valley. There'll be a small cave on the left called the Smuggler's Den, down here there's a bunch of jail cells including a few that require Skeleton Keys.

It's optional and whats down there only just gives you some money, a few scrolls of monster tactics, some pieces of gear and of course experience for slaying the skeletons that live down there. So if you don't mind spending the extra time on some extra loot, pop on down and clean house! When you're done, follow the canyon down and at the end, you'll see something like ...

... that.

There's a Rift Portal on the left near the gate, you really wanna consider using it and save afterwards cause Bluemoon's a bit of a pawn trap. With some AI issues and the Griffin becoming a bit of a threat later on that can cause some seriously unfair deaths to your pawns, it's worth saving a few times extra and not rely on the game's autosaving. Also, if you brought a Portcrystal with you, place it right here near the Rift Portal. If you don't have one, after the boss fight in the Tower you'll be able to pick one up, I'll remind you to run back out and place it down.

So let's get this murderball rolling, head into the Tower and you'll find Ser Georg and his men in battle with skeletons. You'll be fighting mostly skeletons, skeleton mages and a few harpies here and there while you work your way up. As you head up the stairs and kill the magi, you'll spot a door thats barred, that's going to be your shortcut up after you're done here, so remember that one!

Follow the way through the Tower, you'll trigger a cutscene not longer after with a guard panicking and the reason why flying up right behind him. You don't want to even bother attacking the griffin during this stage, instead run right to the closed gate. A short scene will explain you to bust down the wooden barricade keeping the doors shut, so begin bashing the crap out of them. Your pawns will assist you on this, so it shouldn't take too long.

At the second barricade, you can either take the small path to the right and bust through the box obstacles and open the gate from behind with the switch. Or you can just do exactly what you did before and attempt hacking away at the log, though keep in mind this log is twice as tough and takes a fair bit of time to break down. Ser Westley will get grabbed up and carried off on top of the gates, you can as a ranged vocation pelt the Griffin with attacks so Westley can survive. It has no impact on the quest whatsoever if he lives or dies, so don't worry too much about it but this is a small chance to hurt the griffin (the health persists) so why not eh?

The third gate is trickier. You have to keep the Griffin busy until it's had enough of you and headbutts the party and crashes the gate open. Now you gotta run, run your butt off cause the big bird will begin tearing the walls and ground down and beneath you is nothing but a whole lotta death. Hit down on the D-pad as often as you can, shouting the "Come!" command cause otherwise the pawns will begin to fall back for some reason and likely get crushed or worse, their pathfinding screws up at the very end and they just kind of wander off to their deaths.

If you lost a pawn, well I'm afraid you'll have to truck on limping cause the walk back is considerably more difficult with only slivers of stone left that once formed the path. If you feel like you're lost without them, this is a good time to reload a previous save and hope for the best time around.

Anyway, at the end of the pathway you're nearly there. There's a large open room with lots of breakable boxes that house some restorative items and a few chests, then follow the massive stairs all the way up to the main arena. Here you'll find the lovely bird in question just minding it's own business, ready for some fighting.

Right, first things first. Fire and feathers, logically they don't go so well eh? So as a ranged character it's worthwhile to throw a bottle of oil at it (by selecting Bottle of Oil and using the square or triangle button to throw it) and then chucking a Throwblast at it. Fire disables it's ability to fly and also causes it to panic, making it flop up and down, giving you a fair bit of time to shoot/burn the hell out of it.

If fire isn't in your arsenal, generally it's weak point that can cause it to enrage or make it fall over is it's head (A). Melee's should do this only after actually mounting it (B), chopping at it's neck and wings from on it's back makes it freak out and not take flight at any point in the fight.

If and when it does take flight somehow, your best bet at luring it back down is being live bait. Stand still whether you're range or melee oriented and allow it to divebomb your spot. When it gets close enough, just sprint out of the way.

After the Griffin bites the dust, loot it's remains for the rare materials and then go for the piles of money that lie near the walled section of the arena. There's also a few chests with some useful gear for melee based characters and a Portcrystal. Now just head down the stairs on the opposite side from where you entered, kill the few enemies that are here. At the bottom, you can open the shortcut door and head back for the entrance. If you have planted a Portcrystal down, you can just Ferrystone back to Gran Soren.

If you haven't put down the Portcrystal, quickly head back outside the main gate of Bluemoon Tower and plant the crystal near the Rift Portal. Then, simply Ferrystone away back to Gran Soren. Once there, run back to the Duke's Demesne and turn in the quest at Aldous. He'll offer you the other quest, TRIAL AND TRIBULATIONS. That one has you either prove guilty or innocent the bald property manager slash wares-for-the-wealthy merchant we've run into a few times before; Fournival.

It's a very simple quest, you have four ingame days worth of time to grab either incriminating evidence against him or have people testify for him by writing you a letter of recommendation. It's outcome depends on your liking to the guy, there's no easy or hard way of doing it as both outcomes require the same amount of effort.

The benefits on the other hand, well they're different... Guilty removes Fournival from the game, with that his shop and access to cheap ferrystones. Innocent allows the shop to remain open, with a bonus discount and newly opened access to high quality new items only he has.

So let's for the benefit of, well you, have the man declared innocent. First item is called "Chamberlain's Affidavit" which you find upstairs in Fournival's home in the dining room. Once you got it, locate Symone. Remember her? She's the queen brat of a child Fournival has, she's usually found around their home. Talking to her and get "Symone's Petition". Now head for the Catherdral and talk to Father Geffrey, he'll give you "Geffrey's Petition". Now pop back into the Demesne quickly and talk to Fedel, he's usually wandering upstairs. He gives you "Fedel's Petition". (And if you feel it's necessary, you can buy a phony bunch of papers called "Tattered Affidavits" from Reynard (if he's in Gran Soren) for 3000G.)

While you're at the Demesne, find Aldous and turn in all four of the items. Leave the Manse and go to the inn, sleep there four times until the quest updates saying "Inquire after verdict". Don't mind it when it says near deadline, it just means one day remains.

The Fountain Square will be the place where it all plays out and Fournival should be declared innocent. Return to Aldous in the Duke's Demesne and turn in the quest. He should offer new quests right away, grab the next quest by selecting "Recover a stolen item" which is called THE WYRMKING'S RING.

Quests Completed

O MQ15 - "Griffin's Bane"

O MQ16 - "Trial and Tribulations"



O SQ19 - "An Innocent Man"

O SQ20 - "Farewell, Valmiro"

O SQ21 - "Talent in Bloom"

O SQ22 - "A Parting Gift"

O SQ23 - "Supply and Demands"

O SQ24 - "Idol Worship"

O SQ25 - "Witch Hunt"

O SQ26 - "Rise of the Fallen"

O SQ27 - "The Conspirators"

O SQ28 - "Arousing Suspicion"

O SQ29 - "Nameless Terror"

O SQ30 - "Supplier's Demand"

O SQ31 - "Mettle Against Metal"

O SQ32 - "The Dragon's Tongue"

The End Before the End Game

Yep, the name says it. There's only three side quests left and only five main quests left before you hit the true end game. Though here, the game's difficulty seems to take a generous spike in difficulty. So from now on it'll benefit you greatly to start getting higher level pawns and invest in many more healing/stamina items.

First let's get a slightly hidden quest out of the way. It's called SEARCH PARTY and it's given to you by Reynard whom we saved way early on in the game.

He's a bit of a traveller, so that's where the harder part comes into play. He can either be in one of the following places where he stays for two or three days and picks a new destination randomly.

Cassardis - Across from the Inn, near the general store.

- Across from the Inn, near the general store. The Encampment - Near the southern gates, where he was during Off With It's Head.

- Near the southern gates, where he was during Off With It's Head. Gran Soren - Across the Inn infront of the fountain during the day and inside the Inn at night.

- Across the Inn infront of the fountain during the day and inside the Inn at night. Rest Camp, Devilfire Grove - Between the merchants around the tents.

- Between the merchants around the tents. Greatwall Encampment - Right next to the Rift Portal.

You can just repeatedly wait at the Inn's between Cassardis and the Encampment until he finally shows up, it might take a while but you will definitely find him this way. Once you finally track him down, purchase ten items from him and exit the entire buy/sell menu. If he doesn't offer a quest yet, buy one item, exit the conversation and repeat the cycle again until you've purchased ten items this way. They don't have to be unique, expensive, anything will count. I'd suggest buying materials as they might come in handy.

He'll ask for a item to be given to him which is something you should already have if you've followed my stockpile-all-materials advice. He just wants a single Scrap Iron. So grab one from your stockpile, and if you don't have one it's a frequent drop from Skeleton enemies so hit up the Catacombs if you lack one.

Give him the Scrap Iron and talk to him again. Repeat the same process of buying things from him and leaving the conversation, you only have to buy five items this time. Now talk to him and he wants a Miasmite. If you happen to have one of these, you're one lucky S.O.B. If you don't, well they're a rare drop from Phantoms. You can find two of these in the Catacombs, a few in Witchwood during the night and another one in the Deos Hills, also at night. They can drop the entire Miasmite or a Miasmite Shard. If you get a hold of a shard, you can combine it with a Firefly Stone that you can mine from any normal dungeon like Watergod's Altar, Soulflayer Canyon or the Ancient Quarry.

Whichever way you end up getting the Miasmite, return to Reynard (a quest location marker should at least pin down the location of him now).

Repeat the whole process of buying yet even more stuff, this time buying ten items. After that, he'll ask you to look for any signs of his father. Now it involves you finding six pages of a journal that are scattered literally all over Gransys. You might even already have a few cause we've been to the places where they are located before.

The picture below should explain enough but to make sure to be thorough their exact locations with descriptions are below the picture;

The Encampment - Facing the south gate, it's in a chest behind a tent. Gran Soren, Venery - In the Venery, on the map there's a small open spot. It's inside there, surrounded by buildings. Only reachable by climbing the ladders that lead to the roof. Catacombs, Second Level Underground - After riding the elevator down to the 2nd floor underground, it's at the end of the first open room. Barta Crags, Miasmic Haunt - Between the tents at the camp. Soulflayer Canyon - From the West entrance, simply follow the path and stick right at the fork. It's on the broken bridge. Ancient Quarry - Follow the ordinary route through the Quarry until you're at the location we previously went and gotten the Ambrosial Meat, it's in the same square part just on the opposite side.

Once you have all six, return to Reynard and quest complete! It'll remove him from the game but he has very little unique items aside from rusted weapons, so honestly it's no big deal.

Right, that's the only side quest you can do for now. The other two trigger later on under very specific circumstances, so let's get working on THE WYRMKING'S RING. Just a word of warning, as a melee the end stage of this quest will be hard. Not in say, difficult, just very annoying. So if you can be a ranged vocation or have 2 pawns who are range, you'll save yourself a lot of time.

The quest has you ask people in the Duke's Demesne for more info, so hit up Pering who wanders around the place for the most part. He'll tell you to talk to Ser Gyles upstairs, and he sends you off to the King's man-servant Ambrose. That's all the intel gathering you gotta do for now, so return to Aldous and instigate stage two of the investigation. He says go ask a man called Mellard, he might know where he is.

Mellard's usually either in the Noble Quarter or marching to Fountain Square. He says Salomet was last spotted at the Ancient Quarry, so let's hit the road immediately. You got your preparations, restorative items and whatnot for a boss fight? Also be sure to have a few Ferrystones left, you'll be using two very soon again.

When you enter the Ancient Quarry, you'll pretty much bump into Salomet right away. He has a pack of vicious cronies he'll sic on you, but they're no tougher than a group of bandits, they just use a broader variety of attacks. Once they are all died, focus your fire on Salomet, who pulls a magick trick out of his backside and gets to escape... somehow. You literally can't kill him here, if you try you'll get the quest stuck in a infinite loop of him trying to escape but completely messing up the actual escaping part, leaving him stuck walking back and forth taunting you.

Now the quest tells you to go back to Aldous, so return to the Demesne and chat to him. He'll tell you to go ask around town, once again. Got to appreciate how well connected the Gran Soren folks are, huh, you're doing everything. So head back to Fountain Square, the guy who hates witches Brice is your target. He claims he saw a guy fitting Salomet's description head for the direction of Bluemoon Tower.

Fantastic, spare no time and use a Ferrystone and portal to your Portcrystal near the Bluemoon Tower. Toldya! You'd go here very soon! This time there's a tiny difference, it's now Salvation members and skeletons all fighting you, rather than guardsmen fighting skeletons.

You can now use the shortcut up, use it! Beware though, it's now dotted with several skeleton mages all the way up to the top. Including a bunch up on a ledge a melee can't reach, so either run for your life or shoot them down. At the top of the stairs, save your game. All set and ready? Head inside the arena.

So, Salomet. He's basically a inflated mage with some extra abilities. Not much can be said tactics wise aside from one important thing; Melees are virtually useless in this fight. He will teleport when you close in on him to one of three spots around the summit, so if you're a melee you'll be entirely depending on your pawns to do the brunt of the damage making for one long, long fight. He will eventually stop teleporting all together, but this can be up to ten minutes into the fight.

He has all the basic magi spells, fireballs, lightning strikes and ice attacks but he usually resorts to only fire based spells. The main danger in this fight comes in shape of shambling zombies and skeletons, Salomet summons them for as long as the fight goes on. So if you're a melee, focus on these guys instead so your pawns are safe and able of fighting Salomet.

Eventually, after a bit of a tough fight, he should drop to the ground. He doesn't just simply drop the ring, no that little bastard pings off into the distance and is actually quite difficult to spot.

Loot the ring and the area around if you didn't before after the griffin fight and use a Ferrystone to head back to Gran Soren.

If you have 99.000G to spare, you can make a duplicate of this ring, it's actually really worthwhile. If you have a caster pawn or if you're a mage/sorcerer yourself, this ring reduces all casting times by 15% and you don't even have to wear the ring, just having it in your inventory makes the effect work. If you happen to have double that amount, you should copy it twice cause when you're in new game plus, having a copy of this ring handy means you can turn in the quest, right there right away, the second you get it.

When you've decided to copy it (and slept at the inn) or decided against it, drop by Aldous at the Demesne again and turn in this quest. Take the other quest he has available, opening up PRIDE BEFORE A FALL. Talk to Mercedes outside the building near the gate, she'll inform you of the current situation (Remember "The Conspirators"? Yeah that stuff's popping off, Fedel's hunch was spot on) and tells you to meet her at Windbluff Tower.

Head up there, you passed it by a few times before and you actually went there for a sidequest called Supply and Demands before, so you should know where it is.

Once you arrive there, all hell has broken lose and the Gran Soren guard is fighting the uh, Gran Soren guard. Your pawns tell you to leave them be (it really is of no use helping them) and go find Mercedes up the stairs in the tower. A cutscene triggers, showing Mercedes about to face of with the masked crusader (it's Julien, AKA the Night's Champion, AKA Madeleine's love interest, so forth).

There's a few ways this can pan out and all of 'em are bad for Mercedes. You can A: help Mercedes and beat the crap out of Julien. He dies and Merc will declare utter shame on herself, despite that it nets you a Cutlass. B: let Mercedes lose by waiting it out, this will let Julien escape. This gets you a Silver Rapier. Or C: Murder Julien and bag the Cutlass, then use a Wakestone if you have one on Julien and talk to him. You can later visit him in the Duke's Demesne again and get his unique Magick Shield.

Whichever way it pans out, in the end you'll be returning to Aldous in the Demesne and telling him of your success out at Windbluff. Did it repel the rebellion? Eh, who knows. We assisted a lady in getting her pride back! Priorities, right? Don't grab the new quest yet, this is the only time you can grab the quest BAD BUSINESS.

Head for Madeleine's shop out in the Venery and you'll find a woman called Katlyn instead. She offers this quest to find Madeleine, whom has vanished. Loot the Divine Razors on the counter, they're in a bag. Now inquire about Madeleine around town, so head to the Alehouse and talk to Arsmith and Nettie. They will direct you to the Aqueducts, so go there right away.

Now you'll be welcomed with a short cutscene of Madeleine fleeing town through the gates out there, along the way you'll be asked by Ser Raulin if you've seen her. You can say you haven't, or you can say you have but both answers are incorrect anyhow.

Go through the gate Madeleine went out of and follow the cliffpath to the marker and talk to her. She'll explain her side of the story why she's fleeing town and ask for her Divine Razors, which you happen to have! So hand 'em over. A guard will approach and she will quickly hide nearby, Ser Marcas will ask if you've seen Madeleine.

You can say you haven't and he'll be called away by another guard, or you can say you have (at the cost of Madeleine not being quite so in love with you anymore) but he will still be called away by another guard. Before she decides to skip country and leave for good, she'll ask for a 50.000G investment... You know, she may just be a bit of a bad person after all. Why? Cause the 50K won't get you a damn thing in return. So happily decline or reluctantly agree, whatever you end up doing it won't change anything.

It Hits the Fan, Part I

Preparation time. Hit up the apothecary and buy a handful of stuff that cures all debilitations such as Secret Softeners. You want about four per character, so 16 in total. Buy some extra healing items and while you're at it, anything that can augment your strength or magicka, depending on your vocation. While you're busy doing prep work, buy some ferrystones if you haven't got any left.

Go back to the Demesne and snag HONOR AND TREACHERY from Aldous. It's really just a matter of travelling to the Mountain Waycastle, something pretty bad has happened there apparently. Spoiler alert, it's a ruse.

When you finally approach the Waycastle, a guard will run up to you and tell you everything's a-okay at there but that at Gran Soren, it's going down. So if you came prepared with the ferrystone, throw one up and portal to Gran Soren. Now you'll land in the area where the conflict is raging, a Cockatrice is rampaging through the Workman's Quarter, specifically the Wheat Fields.

There's not a whole lot of advice I can give you aside from play utterly defensively. Your survival is key here, killing that thing should be second of course but whether you end up killing it or it escaping, you just wanna walk away from this living.

Also there's three boxes with white rings around the area, keeping these from being destroyed gives you an amount of bonus experience per surviving crate.

Anyway, the fight is similar to the Griffin in many ways. Its head is a weakspot (A), it'll often get staggered if you give it your all. It's especially weak there if it's casting it's petrifying attack (B). If you somehow end up being petrified, pop a Secret Softener immediately. Other than that, if you can somehow ignite it's wings it'll prevent it from going airborne.

Should it end up flying around, you'll have to wait and dodge it's attacks from above until it touches down again. If you have access to lightning abilities, they will shock it right out of the air and allow you to beat the hell out of it while it attempts to recover from being zapped and smashing into the ground.

The quest updates when you've either done enough damage to make it retreat (if it retreats, it'll set up camp and hide in a hidden part of Soulflayer Canyon) or when you've killed it. When it's dead, go up the hill and to the gate to the Royal Quarter. There you'll find a guard who automatically transports you to Aldous and the Duke.

Turn the quest in and talk to Aldous again and grab his new quest which is REWARD AND RESPONSIBILITY, he says the Duke wants to personally give you a reward for what you just did. Go upstairs and find the Duke in his Solar, talk to him and follow him down to the treasury. Once inside...

... leave no penny. Once you've snagged all the goodies, the quest completes.

The Message Received the duke's commendation. 1 guide

It Hits the Fan, Part II

Last side-quest in the game time. First go and find Aldous one more time and take his last quest, DENY SALVATION. This opens the very last side quest from Mirabelle again. This time she's tucked away on the left side of the stairs to the main building, if you're leaving the Demesne she will be on your right hand side. She knows what happened between you and Aelinore and fears the Duke's lost his freakin' mind (Well, we're two quests away from figuring out just what happened to Duke Edmund, but the short version is he's a wimp who chickened out and feasts on false glory and soon will be "replaced by current events", hence why the guy's mind is going off like a runaway train). She gives the quest DUCHESS IN DISTRESS, which we will follow up on right away.

She'll give you a nice set of Gran Soren Royal Guard Armor, which you should put on now. We're going on a journey to the Blighted Manse up north. It's located a bit north of the Hillfigure Knoll, remember when you took the split up north to Bluemoon Tower? Instead of going right, head left. You should soon see the Manse in the distance.

If you're not wearing the armor set that was given to you by Mirabelle, don it now cause you ain't getting in otherwise. Head up to the gate and pass the guards, they'll make note of you being new but write it off as just you being another guard on duty. Also, be aware - You'll be doing