Act I, Flotsam Part VI

Act I, Flotsam Part VI

Follow Roche from the baths back to the city, where a celebration is under way.  You will be offered drinks several times -- if you accept them you get a little drunk and that makes the screen a bit blurred and your play a little confused -- you do not have to accept the drinks, and not doing so will not impact the story.

When you get to the Inn you will find Dandelion, who tells you that Triss went to see Sile -- head upstairs to Sile's room and you will things in disarray!  Examine the dead bodyguard, examine the bed, and examine the hole in the wall to progress the mission -- heading next door to the brothel speak with the prostitute Derae -- who answers your questions.

This triggers a CS in which you play as Triss for the conversation with Dethmold -- as the conversation unfolds you learn a lot about what Sile has been doing, and what Triss did in her room, but you do not learn the details of what happened to either Triss or Cedric.  From what Derae says, it is clear that Margot has something to do with the elven side -- and although you need to find Cedric you also need to find Margot!

Dandelion goes off to find Margot, follow him down into the Inn and then down to the basement, and search the rooms down here until you locate Margot, who has committed suicide!  You can loot her suicide note and other notes as well as some useful items from the room so go ahead and do that, right?  Completing all of these side-quests is really important if you want to manage to level up to Level 35 by the end of the game, so try not to skip any.

Answers from a Dying Cedric

-- Finding Cedric --

Now you head off to find Cedric -- and drinking a Cat Potion helps a lot by highlighting the blood trail taking you outside and into the woods.  After following the trail for a bit you get attacked by a group of elves, and then you follow a false blood trail to some human corpses.  Backtracking you get back on the trail and eventually you encounter Cedric near the waterfall, and before he dies he tells you what happened.

It seems that Triss asked for help and then Letho appeared and kidnapped Triss -- Letho forced her to open a teleportation gate and then forced her to go through first, following after her and thus putting massive distance between you two...  At this point Cedric begins to die, and the forest animals approach.  You have done all that you can here.

Zoltan and Dandelion appear in a CS and you fill them in on what has happened -- they were sent to find you by Roche -- once you cover both chat lines you then have a third, to talk to both sides.  That actually leads up to the Crossroads decision point, but we are already committed to supporting Roche anyway, still...

Before you progress any further in this make absolutely certain that you have completed all of the side-missions that you need to, since after the Crossroads many of them will be automatically failed since you cannot do them after it.   Specifically you should make sure that you have completed the following quests: Melitele’s Heart (see the witch in the village outside the city -- warning!  You have to fight Wraiths for this one!), Little Shop of Dreams (a sort of continuation of the Scent of Incense quest). Those are the last pair of side-quests that you should have outstanding -- and once you complete them you are good to go on the Crossroads side of things!

Head for the marker to reach the HQ, but before you speak to Roche, talk to Vess to get her story, then talk to Roche to exchange information.  He fills you in on Loredo, and Roche tells you in no uncertain terms that Loredo must be dealt with before you can leave -- agreeing with Roche (and you should) flags the quest Death to the Traitor, and progress the main story and quest line as well.

-- Death to the Traitor --

Roche tells you to wait in the back of Loredo's to get ready to infiltrate -- while you are in the HQ you can do a little looting too, and it might be a good idea to hit the Inn and put anything you do not need in storage as well as sell off your Junk and other items you do not want.

Head to the marker after dark to climb the ladder and enter the read of Loredo's compound.  Note that when you climb up the wall and cross over into the compound you may get a notice that the quest Scent of Incense has failed -- this is a bug, the quest that you completed is still completed, not failed.  You did not lose the XP or the money from it, it is simply a bug that marks a completed quest as failed and nothing more.

The gardens ahead have people in them -- a group of guards and what appears to be a merchant who is one of Loredo's trade partners who is trying desperately to find his prostitute who, it appears, has given him the slip.  The thing here is that having him discover you is just as bad as having one of the Guards discover you...  It will raise the alarm and then all of the Guards on the outside are hostile and alarmed, which means you have no choice but to kill or incap them all. 

One approach to this is to stealthily knock-out the merchant, and then slip past the Guards in order to get to the platform and go through the window -- but you may find it much better and easier to kill all of the Guards on the outside (doing so does not alert those inside) as it gets you the key to the Storage Area, which you can then go into and and have a CS with the prostitute that was hiding from the merchant, who gives you a sitrep.  I chose the latter, since it gave me more information and satisfaction in the process (heh).

Once you have that information the quest advances, instructing you to seek out Loredo's Mum -- so jump through the window to get a CS of Loredo snorting coke, then you make your way to the basement, taking out the Guard in the hall, and finally arriving in the room with Loredo's Mum, who at first appears to be cooperating but then throws a fistful of coke in your face and attacks, forcing you to chop off her head!

Once she is dead loot her for the key, and then loot the rest of the room for lots of stuff if you want, and why not?  When you are loot-happy continue on towards the upstairs, where you will trigger another CS in which you see Loredo being all letch.

One of the extra requirements for this quest is to explore both the lower and upper floors -- you can either sneak past the Guards to do that or kill them -- I vote kill them -- and you eventually reach the top floor where you have a battle with and kill Loredo, and in the process rescue Ves!  Did not see that coming...

The final battle with Loredo

After you release Ves check the adjacent room to discover another unwilling breeding project of Loredo's -- Moril.  We have hear of her before, she has been missing you will recall, and thought to have left the region but now we know what actually happened to her! 

When you get to the second floor Moril goes into labor and Ves takes her back up to deliver the baby -- and you get discovered by more Guards!  A battle ensues which you win handily because, after all, you are The Witcher!

After you deal with the Guards here you hear the battle taking place outside -- running out you help Roche's men deal with the remaining troops, and then you speak with Roche and he tells you what happened to him -- a flashback ensues in which you, as Roche, deal with Iorveth -- but it seems Roche cannot complete that battle.

You fill Roche in on Ves and then she appears to show you that the baby is a healthy boy.  The CS plays out, and you learn that Moril has killed herself because of the shame of what happened to her -- then Roche orders the boat to be prepared and you determine what to do with the baby (I would guess that we will be seeing that child again in the sequel, remember the prophecy?).  We get a CS of our party going to the boat, and then the Achievement "To Aedirn!" (5 G) Complete Chapter 1 -- unlocks.

This ends Act I of the story, so well done mates!