Canker is a task in Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. This walkthrough will guide you through all objectives of the Canker side task.
- Starting Location: Trosky Region > Semine
- Quest Giver: Gules
- Requirement: Completed Side Quest: The Jaunt (Blacksmith’s Questline), which is missable and must be done before entering the wedding in Wedding Crashers.
- Reward: 85 Groschen, Canker’s mace (if you ask Gules at the end to keep it)
- Quest Type: Task
- Quest Description: Lord Semine might have had mercy on Gules, but he won’t be so kind to his former entourage. Now it’s up to me to get rid of the remnants of the band, starting with Canker.
- Missable Warning: This task is double missable. Fail condition #1: missable Side Quest The Jaunt is a prerequisite, must be done before entering the wedding in Main Quest 5: Wedding Crashers. Fail condition #2: in Main Quest 8: Necessary Evil must avoid the raid on Semine, if you tell Bergow that Semine is aiding the bandits then Semine Fortress will be burned down.
Objectives:
- Find Canker’s camp
- Break up Canker’s gang
- Bring Gules Canker’s mace
Starting Location: Canker
This questline becomes available after finishing the blacksmith’s 2nd side quest The Jaunt. During The Jaunt you automatically fight against Gules near the end, after ambushing the first group of bandits. He’s the bandit leader in armor with a red shield. After beating him yield your weapon. Then he gets captured by Lord Semine and Captain Gnarly. After The Jaunt, Gules will spawn inside Semine fortress. He becomes a guard there.
To mark Gules you can talk to a quest tipster, Sir Jan Semine, in Semine fortress. Ask him “What’s happening with Gules?” and exhaust the rest of the dialogues. He will have a (“!”) icon.
He then marks Gules with a gray shield-icon on the map so you can locate him easily. Gules will be somewhere around Semine fortress, his location varies as he moves around. In the morning and day he’s standing guard somewhere around Semine fortress, sometimes outside the main gate, sometimes on the walls, sometimes in the courtyard, sometimes inside the castle. In the evenings 18:00 – 20:00 he’s usually standing at the stables or eating in the kitchen. At night he sleeps in the guardhouse accessed from the stairs in the yard with the big tree. While he stands guard he will have red armor and a red shield, in the evenings he wears a green coat without armor.
Exhaust his dialogues to start the Canker task. This is the 1st of 4 quests in Gules’ questline.
Find Canker’s camp
You will be given a yellow search area east of Semine. Remember that you can only track 3 quests at once, so if you accepted other quests you may need to untrack them to see the objective on the map.
Canker’s Camp is located in the small river in the northern half of the search area.
Note that Canker can also be found sitting on the road in the south of the search area leading to Nebakov, he’s disguised as a monk in black robes. However, to trigger the next objective you should go to the camp as seen above.
Come extremely well prepared. You will have to fight 5 bandits at the same time. This is a very challenging fight for so early in the game.
Break up Canker’s gang
You must now defeat Canker (guy in black monk robe) and his bandit friends. Killing 4 of 5 is potentially enough, then the last one might run away.
Here are some tips:
- Before getting close to the enemies make a save (Save & Exit to menu), in case you die you can retry immediately from this save.
- Buff yourself with any types of potions that improve your combat skills. These can be bought from the apothecary or brewed yourself at an alchemy bench. Helpful are Aqua Vitalis, Painkiller Brew, Embrocation, Artemisia, Buck’s blood. These can all be bought from the apothecary in Troskowitz.
- Quickslot a Strong Marigold decoction to your pouch (if you don’t have a pouch can buy it from trader in Troskowitz, and the potion from apothecary). It allows you to heal gradually mid-combat if you take damage.
- It helps if you raised the skill level of the weapon you’re using, preferably a shortsword or longsword. Using a shortsword in combination with the gladiator skill is extremely powerful (available at level 10 shortsword). This raises your swordfighting by +5 which makes enemies block less frequently and you deal more damage. The higher your skill level with the weapon, the easier it will get. It makes a huge difference, what can feel impossible at skill level 7 would seem trivial at skill level 15.
- You can farm skill levels by fast traveling and getting lucky to encounter bandits on the road, then defeat them. Keep riposting to earn lots of XP before they die. Rinse and repeat. Takes a while but spending 1 hour leveling your weapon skill is better than getting stuck for 1 hour and has lasting benefits for the rest of the game.
- Use swords within your skill level (no red skill numbers when inspecting the weapon stats). Using weapons too far out of your skill range will make them deal too little damage and consumes too much stamina.
- Complete Combat Training 2 to learn the masterstrike. If you get good at using it, can make quick work of some enemies.
- If you don’t have masterstrike yet, do an
stab when the enemy attacks (green shield icon). This will land almost every time but requires good timing.
- Don’t get surrounded. Keep all enemies in front of you all times, walk backwards. If enemies come from the side, you can dodge backwards with
/
.
- If you have a crossbow, you can open with a crossbow headshot on an enemy for an instakill. Alternatively, can try sneaking up to an enemy, do a stealth takedown, stab the enemy to death after choking him out.
- Take out the archer early on. Otherwise he keeps shooting you.
- Take out the lightly armored enemies first. The fewer enemies remain, the easier it gets.
- Once enemies start bleeding, just let them bleed out and focus on other enemies (indicated by them holding their wounds, their body language changes).
- Having unlocked some decent armor pieces helps. You can loot some decent armor during The Hermit side quest if you do all optional objectives and fight the knights or hermit at the end.
Bring Gules Canker’s mace
After defeating Canker and his gang, he will drop his mace on the floor. There will be a waypoint marker on it. The mace isn’t looted from his body, it will be on the floor next to him. If it dropped in the grass it might be hard to see, check next to the corpse in black robe.
Afterward return to Gules in Semine Fortress. Tell him “Canker is dead”. He gives you 85 Groschen. If you ask “Can I keep the mace?” he will give you back the mace.
This finishes Canker side quest in Kingdom Come Deliverance 2.
Next Quest: Handsome Charlie
For all other Quests refer to Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 Walkthrough.
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