Chapter 2: Vergen (Iorveth)
Prelude To War: Aedirn
While the bulk of this chapter takes place south of the Pontar, in Vergen, we begin in a cutscene where we see Saskia and her forces going to a parley with King Henselt of Kaedwen. You control Prince Stennis of Vengerberg in this sequence. As Stennis, the conversation options you select determine how this sequence plays out.
Basically, you can either get into a free-for-all battle with the Kaedweni forces or end up dueling Henselt. Dueling Henselt is much easier and is only an option if Stennis’s dialogue replies are good enough to impress Henselt. If you fail to impress Henselt, then Saskia steps in to take over the negotiations. Henselt profoundly disrespects her, so the moment she opens her mouth you can expect the free-for-all battle version of events to unfold.
If you take the second option in the first dialogue branch, “You’ll break all the treaties,” you immediately lose Henselt’s favor and can shortly expect to fight all his men. To draw out the conversation, always pick the top option, “Greater forces have crumbled beneath Vergen’s walls.” At the next branch in the conversation, you may pick the first or second option to continue the conversation onto its third branch. The third option, “I am forced to accept your terms,“ leads to Saskia speaking and initiates the mass melee.
If you duel henslet
Stennis can’t throw up Quen, but he still has plenty of vitality. You can simply guard Henselt’s blows and then counter them while Henselt staggers. Stennis is also a little quicker than Henselt and can interrupt Henselt’s sword swings with light attacks. Finally, if your Geralt build includes Riposte, Stennis can use that to great effect to rapidly whittle down Henselt’s health at no risk to himself. Winning the duel is worth 200 XP.
If You Battle the Kaedweni Forces
It is possible to pick off the Kaedweni soldiers one by one while playing as Stennis, though this is quite dangerous due to his inability to dodge-roll. It’s also quite slow, since most of Henselt’s men are carrying heavy shields. You can end the battle much more quickly by standing at the edge of the mass melee and looking for a chance to go after Henselt directly. If you can defeat Henselt, you trigger a cutscene that ends the melee immediately. Getting through this phase of the quest is worth 200 XP.
After some cutscenes, Geralt and his allies join up with Saskia and Stennis. Now you control Geralt and must help everyone battle a horde of Aedirnian knight wraiths. If you optimized your equipment last chapter, it really pays off here. You should be able to take out the wraiths rapidly with light attacks. Once you’ve defeated enough wraiths, two draugir appear. Draugir basically fight like knights with heavy shields, only their defense is even harder to get through.
Mage and alchemist Geralt builds need to stun or stagger a draugir to create an opening for doing damage. Mages want Aard or Yrden here, alchemists want Zerrikanian suns and Talgar winters. A swordsman build can try to sneak around to the draugir’s back with dodge rolls, or try to simply tank through the draugir’s attacks, using Quen to damage it while it’s swinging its sword. Just like you, the draugir has to drop its guard before it attacks.
After you defeat the two draugir, you get some more cutscenes that make it clear the wraiths are never going to stop spawning. For the next sequence, you must stay within a cover of protective magic provided by a flying owl. It’s very similar to the sequence last chapter where Triss protected you from arrows, but staying within the cover’s field of protection is much easier. Occasionally Aedirnian knight wraiths may rush you, but by the time they get to you, they have so little vitality that a single light attack probably dispatches them.
There should be two or three sequences where wraiths appear and trap the owl. The field of cover stops moving and a draugir forms within it. You have a few options for how to handle these sequences. One way is to kill the draugir using whatever method works best for your Geralt build. You can take your time with this fight, since you have Iorveth to help you. You can also take time to loot the draugir’s body before you start eliminating the wraiths. Try sheathing your sword if you’re not getting the interaction prompt to loot the draugir’s remains. Once the draugir is defeated, focus on attacking the wraiths. The wraiths respawn slowly over time, but you can take them out very quickly using light attacks. Once you clear out all the wraiths, the owl can move again. A second way to handle these situations is to simply ignore the draugir and go directly for the wraiths. Once you’ve defeated them all, the draugir begins taking damage from the owl’s protective field and won’t last long. The owl also eventually breaks free if you take too long slaying the draugir or wraiths.
Eventually, the owl leads you to Vergen, the dwarven city that serves as your home base for this chapter. You’re near your goal once you see fog swirling ahead of you. At this point you can make a mad dash toward the fog to end the sequence more quickly, if you wish. Finishing this sequence is worth 550 XP and resolves this quest.
the war council
This quest sets up a number of other main quests that take you through the plotline of this part of the game. Your first step is to follow Skalen Burdon into Geralt’s room in Vergen’s inn, the Cauldron. Vergen and its buildings make more use of vertical space than Flotsam did, which can make navigating a bit trickier. For now, just follow Skalen into the room, then immediately exit and head for the Castle of Three Fathers. Once inside, loot the inside areas. Be sure to pick up the dwarven enhancement in the foyer and all the random loot you can find in the two rooms to the left of the entrance to the main council chamber.
After you enter the main council chamber, cutscenes explain several of the quests you need to fulfill to finish this chapter. You need to break the curse filling the battlefield with wraiths and draugir, gather up all the components of a cure for Saskia, and then figure out some way to defeat Henselt’s army. After the cutscenes outside Saskia’s quarters end, head toward Vergen’s Mahakam Gate. This triggers a cutscene that opens the gate, which lets you fully explore the city. You trigger an absolute ton of quests at this point, but ignore them for now and focus on getting your bearings.
Vergen
Now is a good time to explore Vergen. Where Flotsam was usefully broken up into districts, Vergen's smaller and more vertical construction bunches everything of interest together a bit more. It can also make tracking quests using the in-game markers difficult, since markers may be pointing to locations above or below your current location. It’s important to invest a little bit of time in learning where the major locations are and where you tend to find certain essential NPCs. While there are some districts, like the Outskirts and Rhundurin Square, most of the town is a haphazard collection of buildings. You can use certain buildings to act as shortcuts, going from a low level of the town up to a much higher one. Consult the map for this chapter to see where they’re located and where they take you. These shortcut buildings are loaded with loot, while most of the houses in Vergen that aren’t occupied by major NPCs are relatively bare. Still, be sure to check thoroughly around the city for chests. You can pick up a Dhu Bleidd and an Elaine Bleidd simply by picking over these chests.