Ready the Cannons – Pillars of Eternity Quest

This guide is for a quest in Part 2 of Pillars of Eternity: The White March. The guide has a walkthrough of the area, and a map with a legend.

Map Legend

1 – Potionmaster’s Quarters
2 – Maintenance Room
3 – Patination Chamber
4 – Tower Top

Exits

1. Artillery Lift.
2. Break in Wall.

Background

You’ll receive this quest when you talk to Deryan in Stalwart Village.

Walkthrough

While talking to Deryan about the Iron Flail, you’ll also learn that some villagers led by Wengra have been repairing the cannons at Durgan’s Battery. When you eventually make your way to the Battery, you’ll meet Wengra out front. She’ll tell you that the cannons are located at the top of the West Tower, but that her people can’t reach them because there are a bunch of “nasties” in the way. So she’ll ask you to clear them out.

You can reach the West Tower by entering Durgan’s Battery, then going up the staircase just to the north, and then heading west along the ramparts. Inside the tower, you’ll have to deal with a variety of spiders and skuldrak, but eventually you should make your way to the Artillery Lift (Exit A). However, when you get there you’ll discover that the lift is broken and that you’ll need to make three repairs:

• Missing Cog. You’ll find a Patinated Cog in the Patination Chamber (#3). To deal with the acidic fog inside the chamber, you can either lure the disease puddings to the entrance and kill them there, and then run to the pile of cogs in the back of the room, or you can go through the wall in the Cannon Range (Exit B) and then break open the back wall of the Patination Chamber, venting the gas in the process.
  
  
• Missing Lever. To replace the lever, you can use a Prybar or a Torch, or you can pick up the Dwarven Lever from the Maintenance Room (#2).
  
  
• Rusted Chain. You’ll need to pick up the Pargrun Rust-Dissolver from the Potionmaster’s Quarters (#1).

But you won’t be done yet. When you pull the lever to start the lift, you’ll wake up some skuldrak in the elevator shaft. You’ll then have three ways to deal with them:

• You can stand in the center of the lift and face them. This will earn your party two injuries, and then you’ll have to fight eleven skuldrak.
  
  
• You can send your party to the edges of the lift. This will cause the character with the lowest Athletics skill to slide off the edge and require rescuing. You can do this with Dexterity 22, Wild Sprint, Flagellant’s Path, or a Rope and Grappling Hook. If you fail in your rescue attempt, then the dangling character will fall to their death and disappear from the game. Regardless, your main character will take an injury, and then ten skuldrak will attack you.
  
  
• You can fix the jammed lift and scare the skuldrak away. To do this, you’ll need a character with at least Mechanics 10. The higher the character’s Mechanics skill (up to 15), the faster the repairs will go and the fewer injuries your party will receive. But your party will always take at least one injury. With this method you won’t have to fight the skuldrak.

When you finally make it to the top of the tower (#4), you’ll run into some more skuldrak — including an elder skuldrak carrying the soulbound Dragon’s Maw Shield — and you’ll discover that the cannons are frozen. Luckily, it won’t take too much effort to thaw them out. You’ll just need to turn the valve connected to the strange contraption at the top of the tower. This will cause you to see a vision of somebody creating “a maegfolc of twisted flesh and forged metal,” but then the contraption will start heating the cannons, allowing them to be used.

To complete the quest, you’ll just need to return to Wengra at the Battery’s front gates. She’ll reward you with two Durgan Iron Ingots, and you’ll also earn a “major” reputation bonus with Stalwart Village.


1 – Potionmaster’s Quarters


2 – Maintenance Room


3 – Patination Chamber


4 – Tower Top