Prelude to War: Kaedwen – Witcher 2 Quest

This guide helps players with a specific quest of chapter 2 for Roche’s side in The Witcher 2. It has a map, legend, and walkthrough to show you exactly how to complete the quest.

Map Legend

1 – Starting location as King Henselt
2 – Aedirn representatives
3 – Starting location as Geralt
4 – Encounter with wraiths
5 – Stennis’ corpse
6 – Encounter with wraiths
7 – Encounter with wraiths
8 – Mist exit
9 – Main camp gate, Zyvik
10 – Blacksmith Lesota
11 – Cantina and notice board
12 – Tournament arena
13 – Elven prisoner
14 – Gate to the upper part of the camp
15 – King Henselt

Background

Starting the second act from Roche’s perspective lets you act as King Henselt during the beginning. You’ll also notice Sile and Dethmold in your retinue. Dethmold is Henselt’s royal advisor, while Sile is there to cure Henselt of infertility. Your job in this prelude is to talk to the Aedirnian nobles.

Walkthrough

From your starting position (#1) slowly move towards the Aedirnian encampment at #2. You cannot run, so just enjoy the view. You’ll also have the sorcerer duo quarrelling along the way, talking about spells and such. Henselt will also indulge himself in commenting the lands of Aedirn.

Once you reach the tent at #2, you’ll be royally greeted and drawn into a conversation with Felart and the other nobles about buying the land you’re supposed to fight. They’ll require a lot: a hundred thousand coins, along with the titles of marquis. Fair enough, King Henselt is already and established character, so your choices in dialogs won’t have any significant effect on his personality later in the game. As a response, you can either give them half the sum they want and no titles, or you can give them nothing. They’ll accept half the price, and mention that as long as Stennis lives, he’ll make problems by trying to claim what’s his.

Soon enough, Saskia and Stennis will join in the meeting. Stennis is Demavend’s son, prince of Aedirn, with pretension to parts of the land, while Saskia is the girl Iorveth told you about. She’s characterized as noble, generous, pure of heart and supposedly she’s slain a dragon. During your dialog choices here, you can either concoct a fight between the sides, or just duel with Saskia, which proves to be a much better option. That is done by letting her speak up, instead of silencing her.

Duel can end either way. In the cutscene that follows, both of the fighters are hurt, and Henselt will kill one of the nearby priests in a surge of rage, starting a terrible curse. Later on it will be explained that when his previous advisor Sabrina was condemned to a pyre, she cursed Henselt for sentencing her to death.

In the meantime, we’re back to Geralt and Roche who are nearing the walls of King Henselt’s main camp in Upper Aedirn. The arbalest commander, Zyvik, will immediately recognize Geralt as the kingslayer and hold his crossbow pointed to him. Roche will try to calm the situation, but Geralt’s medallion vibrates as a magical storm conjures in the hills behind him. Seeing as there’s no other way to check it out, Geralt casts Quen and runs for it, with Roche trying to catch up.

Over there (#3), Henselt has awoken remnants of the fallen soldiers from the previous battle which took place on this ground. Dethmold will try to prepare a ghost-repelling spell while you, along with Henselt, Sile and Roche, will be fighting dozens of apparitions culminating in two draugirs. Draugirs are lesser demon beings wearing a shield, so use Yrden to trap them and beat them down with strong attacks. Once they are dead, Dethmold will have finished his spell. Stay in his protective dome.

While on your way back to safety of the camp, you’ll encounter wraiths which will disrupt Dethmold’s movement and draw his attention on sustaining the shield. This happens when the shield turns from orange to blue, and multiple wraiths draw beams towards Dethmold. Just defeat the wraiths and you’ll continue the journey. These encounters happen at #4, #6 and #7.

You’ll also come across Stennis’ corpse at #5. His only loot is his sword Stennis’ sword. It’s a steel sword which deals 22-28 damage and has 15% chance to cause a bleeding effect.

The exit from the fog is over at #8. Once you reach that point, a large surge of blue energy represents the border and crossing it will return you to the normal world. You’ll slowly walk towards the Kaedweni camp, where Henselt will issue orders (#9). Dethmold and Sile are to meet him immediately and explain the curse and the events that transpired, while you’re to be taken around the war camp and check out the major sites of it with Zyvir. Roche got dismissed and he’ll stay at #11 for the time being.

You can either tour the camp with Zyvik and get introduced to several important places or you can persuade him to grant you an audience with the King. You’ll also receive a new quest called Bring it On: Kaedweni Camp, which relates to the arm-wrestling scene in this act.

As far as touring goes, there’s a blacksmith’s tent over at #10, held by Lasota. Then there’s a cantina along with the notice board at #11. You’ll also see a sparring arena at #12 and an elven prisoner at #13. Approaching the imprisoned elf will trigger an update to the quest The Assassins of Kings, which is further continued from Act I into Act II.

Now’s the time to see the king. You could’ve also come to this step by simply convincing Zyvik with an Axii sign to take you directly to the gates (#14). From here, just as Zyvik said, go straight to the King at #15. Before talking to Henselt though, you’ll be interrupted by ambassador Shilard. Shilard’s a Nilfgaardian emissary you met in the prologue. He’ll ask you some, rather private, questions which you can answer as you please. Don’t bother to use Axii on him as he has a talisman which protects him from magic. You’ll also learn that the Emperor is intrigued by your return to the living world. He’ll also tell you about art and a figurine which he’s received recently. After this conversation, you can talk to Henselt.

Henselt will ask you several questions about your motives and reasons why’re here, but you’ll primarily discuss Sabrina’s curse. He’ll be able to tell much about the details, as to why he death sentenced her and other details about her life and death. You’ll also get Dethmold at your disposal to help on anything you need to lift the curse. After finishing the conversation with Henselt you’ll receive 1000 experience points. As you’re about to leave the tent though, Dethmold will call you to his quarters and you’ll start a new main quest Conspiracy Theory.