Vergen

Vergen

You're only in this area for a short time and you're only allowed to explore a small portion of the city, mainly what lies outside the main walls. That’s going to be the Rhundurin Square area, the Human Enclave, and the Old Gate. Explore each area thoroughly for loot, though don’t be surprised if you end up having to sell most of it off. Still, you can check around the Human Enclave to pick up an Elaine Bleidd from a chest and usually some books from one of the two residences you can enter.

Points of Interest

Spark is the only merchant you can access when visiting Vergen on this route, and she’s basically a trash merchant. She doesn’t sell anything you want. Her main use is in selling off loot that’s put you over the encumbrance limit while you’re adventuring. This is quite useful, since you get to pick up a ton of loot while you’re active in this area and you have no access to storage. If you lightened your load sufficiently before you crossed the mist, you shouldn’t end up in a position where you are constantly having to backtrack to Spark’s to sell things off.

Dwarven Weapon Racks

Even though you can’t explore but a small slice of Vergen, you can get a surprisingly large amount of loot by exploring. Most of it you want to sell, since orens are easier to carry than crafting materials. You can access quite a few weapons racks in the areas of Vergen you can reach, which work similarly to their Kaedweni counterparts. The selection of weapons you get from them is different, though. Each weapons rack you find in Vergen contains a dwarven hammer, a hammer, an elven messer, an elven sword, a small blackjack, a dwarven axe, an axe, and a hatchet. That’s 38 pounds of loot you can sell for a quick 54 orens.

Hatred Symbolized

Let’s start with this quest, which calls for you to meet up with Zoltan in the tunnels beneath Vergen to get Vandergrift’s sword. You need to get into the Tunnel of the Founders area marked on the guide map, via a roundabout path. Basically, head out the Mahakam Gate, take a left at the campfire just beyond the burned village, and proceed until you reach what looks like some sort of dwarven idol to your right. At that point, take a very hard left up a path that doesn’t look like it exists, if you judge by either the guide map or your mini-map. It takes you up a small hill surrounded by high cliffs, where you can find two wooden doors. The one that you can open leads into the Vergen tunnels.

This is one of the most confusing dungeon-like areas in the game. It is extremely dark inside. If you’re having difficulties navigating, try drinking a Cat potion. The dotted areas you see on the guide map and your in-game mini-map represent tunnels that run directly beneath or above the tunnels marked in solid lines. This area is truly massive and you gain surprisingly little loot from exploring it thoroughly. Many dead-end areas are simply empty and there’s very little random loot.

The main enemies you face in the tunnels are various types of necrophages: nekkers, rotfiends, and a bullvore if you explore deeply enough into the tunnels. It’s worth noting that the nekkers and rotfiends are hostile to each other and fight if they spawn in similar areas. In general, these are all monsters you’ve fought before, so the only danger to you will be because of the relatively close quarters of the tunnels. Just make the combat preparations appropriate to your build and you shouldn’t have any issues fighting your way through the tunnels.

Your first task in the tunnels should be finding Zoltan and Saskia. To do this, proceed down the tunnel from the entrance. Activate the circle of strength when you have the chance. When you reach the chamber at the end of the tunnel, take a very hard left. Follow this tunnel until it forks, then take a right. You’re essentially taking a circular route that lets you emerge into an upper chamber. You may see a doorway ahead of you, but you can’t pass through until you find a key. Instead, take another hard right and follow the narrow passage. When it forks, enter the broad passage that leads off to your left. Ignore the passage that branches off to the right and keep going until you reach a very large chamber where a bit of natural light filters in.

This chamber is patrolled by what we call the “unusual bullvore,” because it is a seemingly normal bullvore that can yield really unusual drops. When you kill it, you may get a draugir claw and a draugir armor fragment in addition to any bullvore drops you get, like the bullvore brain. Since relatively few draugirs can be fought on Roche’s route, this bullvore can be very helpful for picking up these items. This bullvore is of particular interest to Dark mode players, who really need some draugir drops for completing the Oathbreaker’s set in Chapter 2.

Once the unusual bullvore is defeated, loot the body that contains the catacombs key. Hold onto it so you can explore beyond the locked door on your way out of the caves. Exit the chamber to the north and you emerge into a smaller chamber. You should find Saskia and Zoltan waiting for you at the far end of it. Ignore the passage that branches off to the right and head toward them. After you finish the cutscenes with Zoltan and Saskia, which should automatically resolve the quest Hatred Symbolized , you can finish exploring the immediate area and then head back to the locked door. Opening it reveals a short passageway leading to a chest containing the Temerian leather galligaskins.

Now there’s one last area of the Vergen tunnels you want to explore. Head back to the fork where you went down the broad tunnel to your left previously. This time, head down the long, long, narrow passage that leads off to your right. At its end, you should emerge into a chamber where long passages lead off to your right and left. Go right first. You’re approaching an area patrolled by some rotfiends and a bullvore. The rotfiends aren’t dangerous by themselves, but they can be a real annoyance if you end up fighting them at the same time as the bullvore. Maneuverability is key here. If you can get past the bullvore and its rotfiend escort, you should find the blood sword waiting in a chest beyond. This is the best silver sword you can obtain in this chapter in terms of pure damage, and its chances of inflicting bleeding are insanely high. It can be quite useful if slotted with the right runes, though you’ll find that many types of monsters resist its bleeding critical effect. Once you have the blood sword, you’ve pulled all of the loot out the tunnels that’s worth your time. You can explore some more if you want, or just head back to Vergen and start looking for Skalen Burdon.

The spear of destiny

This quest is extremely simple. Simply go find Skalen Burdon and challenge him to a game of dice poker. Once you beat him, he hands over the head to Yahon’s spear happily. Once you have the spear’s head in hand, The Spear of Destiny automatically resolves. You get no XP for resolving it, but there is a way to get extra loot out of this quest. Skalen offers to wager another unique item if you’re willing to rematch him. If you beat him a second time, you can obtain a unique steel sword called Princess Xenthia’s sword. It has nice damage stats but only one rune slot, which makes it a bit underpowered at this point in the game. If you can beat Skalen a third time, you gain the Dun Banner cloak, a quest item that comes in handy for Death Symbolized .

A Sackful Of Fluff

Head past the area where you’d usually take a left to reach the Tunnel of the Founders area. This time, go straight past the dwarven idol nearby. You should instead find yourself at the Old Quarry, where a small cabin stands to your right. The cabin belongs to a fellow named Elthon, who offers Geralt work as he passes by. He says he knows a collector in Vengerberg who pays well for harpy feathers. He begins by asking you to bring him 12 if you agree to the quest (which you should). You may already have 12 harpy feathers on hand. Elthon pays three orens per feather for the first 12, which is considerably below the usual nine orens you’d get for selling harpy feathers. Sell them anyway, since what you’re really trying to get out of this quest is a unique item rather than orens. Try to argue up the price as high as you can when you have a chance.

After you give him 12, he asks for 60 more feathers. If you don’t already have the feathers on hand, go kill harpies for a while down in the quarry or in the area to the north of the pond. Remember that the harpies respawn roughly once every 12 hours. When you give Elthon the 60 feathers, how much you’re paid depends on how you argued earlier. The highest possible price is around 20 orens per feather, which is much higher than their market value. If you humor Elthon’s next request by saying “Let me hear it,” you get asked to bring by 8 more. Elthon gives you 100 orens for the last batch of feathers. Go do something else for a while—maybe kill a few more harpies.

Come back after some time has passed if you want to see why Elthon really wanted all of those feathers. It can be a good idea to go complete your next quest, Death Symbolized , then return to speak with Elthon. You can also meditate for a day or two. Engage in some small talk with Elthon when you visit him. After the conversation finishes, A Sackful of Fluff resolves. You don’t get any XP for finishing this quest, but you do get Elthon’s trophy. While Elthon’s trophy is not super-good, you can wear it during major story cutscenes to transform The Witcher 2 into a delightful surrealist comedy.

Death Symbolized

Prepare yourself for an expedition into the forest, then exit town through the Old Gate. It’s labeled on the guide’s map of Vergen on. Just head up the stairs near Skalen Burdon’s location, through the slum-like area, and then through the tunnel at the rear of the Vergen slums. Once you’re out of the tunnel and into the wilderness, you come to a pool in a creek that you must cross. After you cross the creek, you’re very likely to run into a pack of four or so harpies prowling the area. This encounter respawns, so you can end up fighting them about once a day. In the same area, you’re likely to run afoul of a group of six or seven bandits. Usually two of them have crossbows and can be quite dangerous if you don’t have both levels of Arrow Redirection. If you do, then just deflect arrows until they die and you get closer to unlocking the Batter attribute. The other bandits try to rush you while under cover of the crossbow fire, but you can easily manage these crowds by using Axii on somebody or throwing a dancing star.

A bit farther on the way toward the catacombs, you sometimes run afoul of a group of nekkers near a small pond. Sometimes the nekkers are all steaming heaps by the time you get here, because they got into a fight with the bandits and lost. Search the area around the pond very carefully to find a corpse that carries some random loot. Once you find this, you aren’t far from the entrance to the Dwarven Catacombs.

Once you’re inside the catacombs, move forward. An obvious false wall is in front of you, so blast it over with Aard. This opens up a crypt. Be ready to be attacked by a group of wraiths when you step inside. Just as In the Claws of Madness , the close quarters make the wraiths more dangerous than they would be normally. Alchemist builds shouldn’t hesitate to use traps and bombs to get the group under control, while mages can make good use of Axii. Quen is essential for swordsman builds here; it’s very difficult to get through these battles without getting surrounded.

You can examine the corpses in the crypt by approaching them and pressing the interaction button to uncover them. Doing this sometimes summons a wraith. Many corpses yield nothing interesting when examined, but a few reveal some random loot and orens.

Continue exploring the catacombs. The next two false walls you can blast away reveal nothing useful, but the third one opens up another large crypt chamber. Be sure to pick up the Wild Hunt investigator’s notes from the corpse on your left. Follow this chamber as it winds in a U-shape around to another false wall. Blast this down and head straight across the bridge.

Continue exploring and open up the final crypt in the catacombs by blasting down the false wall. This reveals the ghost of Ekhart Hennessy, color bearer of the Dun Banner. In death, he’s become the guardian of the Dun Banner itself, so Geralt can’t obtain it unless he deals with the ghost somehow. There are two ways to do this.

The most direct and easy way is to slay Ekhart Hennessy’s wraith. He is an incredibly weak opponent that swordsman builds can dispatch with little more than a chain of strong attacks. Alchemist and mage builds may opt to play around a little with potion buffs or signs, but they shouldn’t have any harder of a time defeating him. After Hennessy is slain, you can simply loot the Dun Banner itself, called the standard, from Hennessy’s sarcophagus.

There’s also a sneaky but slightly more challenging way to resolve the quest. You can attempt to convince Hennessy that you’re a surviving member of the Dun Banner who needs the corps’ standard for a worthy cause. If you can do this successfully, Hennessy gives you the standard and an extra item, the sword of the Dun Banner, willingly. To deceive Hennessy, you must answer all of his questions about the Battle of Brenna correctly. If you remember the details of your conversations with Zyvik and the other veterans of that conflict in the Kaedweni Camp, this should be no trouble. It can also help to read that copy of The Dun Banner you looted earlier.

In case your memory fails you, the answers Hennessy wants at each branch of the conversation with him on this route are listed here. Note that you can do a version of this quest on Iorveth’s route, and on that route one of the answers is slightly different.