The Hermit is an early side quest in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, which can be completed in various different ways. The way you acquire this quest also changes depending on the choices you make, so let us get into it.
How To Start The Hermit Quest In Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2
You need to talk to the blacksmith Radovan in Tachov to begin this quest. If you asked for his help to get inside during “Wedding Crashers”, this quest is the last one in the blacksmith’s questline. However, if you went with Kreyzl, this is the only quest that he assigns you.
Radovan wants you to help him forge an exceptional sword that is capable of outdoing even the best ones. In order to do that, you need to visit a certain hermit, who is rumored to have a sword with Toledo steel. It is also said that there is something fishy going on with the hermit recently, that needs to be investigated.
How To Complete The Hermit Quest In Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2
You need to find the Hermit’s Broken Sword in Apollonia to complete this quest. There are multiple steps to do this, and not doing them correctly might make you miss out on important world-building elements.
Talk to Innkeeper Betty
Go to Troskowitz and ask Betty about the hermit. Even though she is visibly afraid to talk about it, she will agree to answer your questions. Your conversation here ends shortly, so interact with her again and exhaust all the dialogue options related to the hermit. You only get the additional objectives if you have done this, else you need to try and find the hermit without any clues or context.
Talk to Gerda
Betty tells you that the local apothecary’s wife Gerda saw an apparition a few days ago, which might direct towards more information about the hermit. She is usually inside the house or sweeping the courtyard, so go ahead and talk to her. You must either bribe or use skill checks to get her talking. She reveals that she witnessed an apparition near a cross with a big tree, riding across the field towards Apollonia.
Investigate the Cross
Make sure to get a spade before you proceed, as you need to do some digging in these next parts. Go to the Poacher’s Hideout POI, and you will see a stone cross beside a giant, dried-up tree. Start digging here to find a sack, inside which you will find some groschen, clothes, an old letter, and two lore books: Chronicles of Knight of the Cross and Seneschal Ambrose’s Decree. Henry also comments that the digging has been done recently, hinting that it wasn’t an apparition. Read both the books and the letter before you continue.
Talk to Shepherd Stanislav
Head over to Apollonia, and talk to Stanislav. You again have to bribe or use skill checks to make him talk. He tells a story similar to Gerda, that an apparition was seen riding towards the hermit’s house, because ‘he sold his soul to the devil’.
Explore Apollonia
Start exploring the mission area in Apollonia, and pretty soon you will come across a tiny, fenced courtyard with a black horse. Further inspection reveals that it is just an ordinary horse, but someone did visit the hermit recently.
Find the Hermit
The hermit’s place is easy to miss, so follow these instructions precisely:
- Coming from the horse’s location towards the hermit’s, step into the puddle of water and continue up the path.
- White rocks with Mint growing nearby indicate you’re in the right direction. Once you reach the top, you will see a narrow path between giant rocks.
- Proceed ahead to find a road split into two. You need to take the third path which can be seen on your left.
- Continue through the curved road until you see a hut and sheep nearby.
The hermit is usually inside, and entering is considered trespassing. However, you can still sneak in and start a conversation with him. This entire next section is only available if you didn’t directly visit the hermit after talking to Betty.
Start talking, and he will be hostile with you initially. Don’t ask him about the sword immediately, but tell him about each of your findings first. You will eventually be able to press him, which reveals that he is not the hermit, but a knight of the Cross with the Red Star. Upon further questioning, he tells you that the hermit called Ambrose is long dead, and he put the sword on his grave.
The knight now wants you to do him a favor and complete Ambrose’s last wish before telling you the grave’s location. You need to visit a widow named Margaret and hand over a cross to her. This will start “The Sinful Soul” activity.
The Sinful Soul
Head over to Margaret, who is in a graveyard west of Apollonia. Talk to her and give her the cross. She additionally wants you to help give Jan, the hermit’s brother, a proper burial. Because of a misunderstanding thirty years before, Jan is buried outside the graveyard, underneath some rose plants.
Go around and pluck the roses, then collect Jan’s remains. Dig a grave inside the graveyard, and give him a proper burial. Talk to Margaret again and tell her you buried Jan. She thanks you, after which the activity ends and you are free to proceed ahead.
Talk to Hermit
Return to the hermit, but this time you will see soldiers on the path leading to the hut. One of them will call out to you for help, you can either accept or refuse. Accepting it will result in a dialogue, where the guard tells you that the man in the hut is called Conrad, who is an imposter – the information you already have.
Now you need to choose whether to side with the hermit and kill the knights or vice versa. If you side with the knights, you need to loot the hut and find the Diary of Knight Conrad for clues on the location of the sword. If he is left alive, you can simply ask him about it.
Either choice gives you 85 groschen, and whatever loot is on the opposite party. The entire portion after talking to Betty can be skipped if you aren’t too keen on the lore and just want to finish the quest. Simply head over to the hut, knock the hermit out, and loot him for the diary.
Find the Sword
Head up on the path to the right from point 3 in Find The Hermit section, and continue ahead. Once you reach to the top of the cliff, you will see two birches and a grave with the sword penetrated inside. Collect it, and return back to Radovan.
Forge the Sword
Since the sword you found is broken, you need to forge a new one. The sketch will be automatically provided to you once you start smithing. Make sure to forge at least a tier two sword to continue, and show your work to Radovan. If you are doing this side quest as a part of “Wedding Crashers”, it can be presented as a gift to young Semine. If it is done after that, Radovan uses this sword to win a drunk bet against Tomcat.
You are allowed to enter the wedding, or given 45 groschen by Master Tomcat for completing this quest.
The game has some pretty good combat mechanics, and you may want to have your build in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 refined to get the best out of your stats and gear. Do check our guide on this.
