Act I, Flotsam Part IV

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Act I, Flotsam Part IV

Now is a good time to wrap up a lot of the side-quests for the area, so start with Fight Club -- wait until night (meditate) and then find King Ziggy outside of the Inn leaning against the wall.  Chat him up and agree to his proposal, then follow Ziggy to Loredo's compound, where you have to leave your weapons outside... 

Do that and head inside with Ziggy and you will end up in the arena behind the house...  Loredo is interested in betting on you it seems -- but hey, money is money, right?  Just before you do the last fight Loredo orders you to take a dive -- I don't respond well to that sort of thing so I told him to go to hell, but if you want you can take the dive and earn extra money for it.  Your call.  Either way that last fight ends the Fight Club Quest!

With that out of the way, let's take care of the Malena Quest -- which by the way is one of those quests where the decision you make potentially changes the story...  Basically you need to investigate the cave they were talking about, and after you do you have a choice to make:

(A) Accuse Malena of working for the Squirrels.  Doing that gets her taken to Loredo and tried.

(B) Accuse her but let her convince you to accompany her to see evidence she claims absolves her -- that takes you to an obvious trap mates...  After the ambush she still gets taken to Loredo and tried for her crime.

(C) Don't accuse her, and then accompany her so she can lead you into an ambush alone... After which she runs away.

Completing the Malena Side-quest 

It is not clear how this factors into the future story -- Malena does not really appear after this in the current game, but there is a chance that she will appear in the sequel -- assuming you let her get away that is.  It is your call what to do, I let her get away, but regardless of the choice that you make, you still get the 125 XP reward.

Head to the cave outside of town on the side where we first arrived from, examine the blood at the entrance and then head down inside, where you battle an army of Nekker as you search the cave.  You follow the blood clues to the body and then examine it to find damning evidence...  There is a fair number of Iron Ore to be looted here and some Silver Ore, so bear that in mind right?

Head back to Malena and talk to her -- you have to decide what you are going to do here, I chose to cover for her and let her lead me into the ambush so she could escape in the hope that it will add something to the sequel but you need to decide what you want to do yourself.

When you are ready to, head to the meeting point by the waterfall in the woods, and she will lead you into the ambush -- kill the elves and she will escape -- so now you must track her down and confront her -- she is actually hiding in the ruins of the insane asylum we were at for the Madness quest before.

Talk to her and choose how she ends up -- I chose Away with You!  And let her escape.

-- The Vermin Quests --

Now that we have wrapped up Malena's mischief, let us partake of clearing the forest of the vermin that infest it!  Start simply by tracking down and destroying the nests and tunnel entrances, fighting a fair number of each type of vermin as we go about it.

With the Nekker you need to find their entrances and use Grapeshot Grenades on them -- so head to Cedric up in his tree and buy the diagram and then make a dozen or so of the Grapeshot Grenades yourself, then head out and find nests and blow them up!

To do that you just need to have the Grenade in your inventory and then hit 'A' on the nest to destroy it by planting the charge.  You may want to pop a Grenade at a group of Nekkers while you are about it to unlock the Achievement "Torn Asunder" (15 G) Kill more than one opponent using a single exploding bomb.

Unlocking the Torn Asunder Achievement 

With the Engrega Quest what you have to do is find and destroy enough nests to spawn a Queen -- you will know when that happens -- and kill it, then do it again to kill the second Queen and voila! 

To  complete both of the quests you need to head back to town and collect your reward from Louis Merse.  When you arrive at his office upstairs in his house be sure to talk to him and choose the Post Box option to use magic to get him to let you read the mail inside -- click on the postal box on his desk to deposit the reports for the Mystic Quest and advance it, then turn in the two outstanding quests to him for your reward.  You can also ask why Loredo wants the Troll dead...

-- Dealing with the Kayran --

The time has now come, what with all the side-quests managed, to head to the Inn and get Sile, and deal with the Kayran.  Bear in mind that we put in a lot of preparation for this confrontation, starting with getting the items to make the Kayran Trap, so you want to be sure that you place that when the time is right!

So, head up to the Inn and speak with Sile, and tell her you are ready; you will be teleported to the spot above the Kayran's Lair and at that point you should save your game, then drink the Mongoose Potion and then head down!

You will notice that there are two spots that light up on the ground -- those are the spots you can place the trap -- so pick one and quickly place the trap and then dodge and run and KEEP MOVING!  It cannot hit you if you keep moving.  It would be a good idea to have the Sign Yrden already set as your default, because after the trap is sprung and you cut off a tentacle and unlock the Achievement "Artful Dodger" (30 G) Cut off a tentacle using the kayran trap -- you will need to stun the tentacles that remain while they are in the air with Yrden, then cut them off with your sword.

Eventually you will get enough to trigger the QTE in which you deliver the final blows to the Old Man, and then you unlock the Achievement "Kayranslayer"  (10 G) Kill the kayran -- and the Achievement "Journeyman" (10 G) Achieve character level 10 -- so well done mates! 

Now before you move away, be sure you loot all two loot points on the Kayran corpse since you need those items to make the Kayran Armor, the diagram for which you are about to receive when you visit the merchant at the waterfront to collect your reward!

Once you have looted both spots head back to town -- you may want to drop off any extra crafting resources and sell any unneeded items at the Inn first -- but basically you want to select the quest The Kayran: A Matter of Price and go to the marker to talk to the merchant that hired you next. 

Battling with the Kayran 

After you speak to the merchant you get a CS with Triss that advances the quest Assassins of Kings -- and you get your reward and complete all of the Kayran quest lines.  Now while we are thinking about it take a look at the Kayran Armor diagram -- there are some special items that are needed for that to be made, as it calls for x14 Robust Cloth, x6 Hardened Leather, x1 Kayran Skin, and x8 Twine.  Now you should have the Twine and Kayran Skin but you probably do not have the other two in the quantities required.

First, save your game -- this is important because you are about to start hitting the merchants and crafters to buy what you do not have off of them to make the armor, and that will be expensive.  Considering that the Hunter's Armor that we have is way better than the Kayran Armor, really all we are doing this for is to unlock the Achievement, so you will want to reload your save after you do that so that you don't waste the money, since you are working towards the Achievement that requires 10,000 Oren...

Once you have all of the ingredients, go to the Smith and have him craft the armor, unlocking the Achievement "Backbone" (20 G) Craft a suit of armor from elements of the kayran's carapace.  Once you have the armor crafted and the Achievement unlocks -- it can take a minute for that to happen so wait until it does -- you can reload your save in order to not have spent the 1,000 Oren to buy all the materials.  Well done mates!  You have added a free 20 G to your Gamerscore!