Dragon's Dogma 2: The Caged Magistrate quest walkthrough

Fair warning up top: this walkthrough contains main story spoilers for Dragon's Dogma 2!

So you've arrived in Vernworth in Dragon's Dogma 2, and Brant has pledged his loyalty to you as the true Arisen. Once you've settled into the city, he invites you to meet with him at the Stardrop Inn after nightfall to discuss your next move.

Brant presents you with three options: go monster hunting in the wilds to earn yourself the love of the people (huh, wonder where Capcom got that idea from), infiltrate the palace to find out what the regent's up to, or infiltrate the jail in order to free a respected magistrate wrongly imprisoned for supporting your cause.

Although the game initially presents this as an either-or choice, it's worth knowing that you do actually get to do all three quests eventually, as the other two are available to activate during any future conversation you have with Brant. However, you need to pick a place to start, and The Caged Magistrate is as good a quest as any to kick off your longer adventure to claim the throne.

Dragon's Dogma 2: The Caged Magistrate walkthrough

Accept the quest from Brant and he'll give you the Goal Key, as well as an assurance that his buddy Otto (who happens to be the doorguard at the goal) is a fellow sympathiser who will look the other way so that you can walk inside.

In order to get to the goal, you need to enter the palace grounds. This sub-area of Vernworth has some pretty strict rules, including that the Arisen isn't allowed to be there at night, and pawns aren't allowed at any time. Your pawns will simply refuse to follow you past the gate, but you're on your own when it comes to ensuring you don't get caught there at the wrong time of day.

Head to the round tower on the western side of the palace grounds and say a friendly hello to Otto before descending into the dungeons. Once you've reached the main area of the gaol, investigate the side-rooms to pick up a duplicate Gaol Key (you don't need it for this quest, but it will come in handy later). When you're ready, Magistrate Waldhar's cell is the first one on your right.

(Note: The guards down here are… temperamental, to say the least. I took the approach that it was probably best not to let them see me, and you can observe their patrol patterns from the doorway to identify a moment when you can sneak to Waldhar's cell unobserved. However, sometimes they came close and seemed to spot me but didn't react, while on other occasions they came rushing over from the other end of the gaol to fight me just for being in the room. Best to just try to avoid them, but I recommend coming here straight after an inn save, just in case you run into any trouble.)

Use the Gaol Key to enter the cell and speak to Waldhar. Turns out he's a nice enough old guy but a bit of an odd duck, and while he's known for a while how to make his escape, he doesn't want to unless he can take refuge somewhere with lots of books. This, clearly, is a problem you're expected to solve.

Avoid the temptation to run around every building in Vernworth looking for a library and do the sensible thing any stranger to a city ought to do in these circumstances: go and check in with a local friend. Brant returns to the Stardrop Inn every night in case you need to talk to him, and you can't actually progress in this quest until you get his opinion on Waldhar's ultimatum.

Brant can't think of any good locations, but he knows a guy who might: Kendrick, a wise old fellow who operates the Gracious Hand almshouse in the slums just outside the city walls to the southeast. Head there at your earliest convenience.

After giving Kendrick a donation of either Gold or food to supply the almshouse, he'll open up to you about something that's troubling him. One of the children under his care, Malcolm, has been missing for the past few days. The other children are being tight-lipped about it, but Kendrick suspects they might open up to a kindly stranger.

You need to talk to three children who can all be found in the vicinity of the Gracious Hand: Aimee, Harvey, and Rick. They're all extremely eager to dob in their missing friend, not even asking for anything in return before they spill the beans: to wit, that Malcolm was boasting about finding treasure in some vaults in the area right before he disappeared. They'll swear you to secrecy as a bit of an afterthought, but after speaking to all three of them, you (as a responsible adult) naturally need to report back to Kendrick.

Kendrick instantly knows where Malcolm must have gone and leads you to a boarded-up gap in a nearby wall. He'll remove the boards for you, after which you and your party just need to follow him into the Gracious Hand's vaults.

While visibility down here is limited, you can't actually get too lost, since it's more or less a single corridor with a couple of dead ends that might require you to retrace your steps a bit. There are no particularly nasty enemies down here either; you'll need to fight off a few spiders and bats, but the rats won't bother you unless you bother them, and there's nothing worse to be found.

Keep following the path and you'll eventually meet up with Malcolm, who's none the worse for wear despite having been lost (how?!) down here for a couple of days. He's mainly just really excited to have found his treasure, so follow him and you'll reach a cavernous archive that's been entombed down here for so long, nobody even remembers it exists.

Archive, you say? Nobody in authority knows it even exists, you say?

You're no doubt very keen to relay all this back to Walhdar, but there's a couple of optional yet worthwhile bits to take care of first.

Begin by unblocking this door — give it a good smack from the side with the wooden bar — so that you don't have to take the long way around every time you want to come back to the archive.

Then, once you're back outside, talk to Kendrick again to receive a thank-you gift for helping Malcolm, which was kind of a quest-within-a-quest. It's the Logistician's Tome, which allows you to teach your main pawn a helpful Specialization they can use to help rearrange and lighten your pack loads on their own.

Now it's time to report back to Waldhar. Watch out for those guards! (Maybe.)

Happily, Waldhar's only too keen to escape imprisonment now that he's got a lovely secret archive to hang out in. He just asks one more thing of you: escort him out of the prison.

Wait before you rush off back up the stairs! Waldhar actually means for you to go out the back way, which is accessed from the far end of the main gaol room, but on the same side as his cell. You'll need to unlock another couple of doors using the Gaol Key, but once you're out of this first room, the guard presence is mercifully minimal-to-nonexistent.

Once you're through you'll mainly spend a lot of time waiting for old Waldhar to catch up to you as you run down an extremely long spiral staircase. But at the bottom: daylight, and freedom!

After saying au revoir to Waldhar, report back to Brant in the Stardrop Inn at your earliest convenience. He'll take back his Gaol Key (hence why getting your own copy earlier was such a good idea) and then send you away with a prompt to check back in with Waldhar from time to time, ending the quest.

For more Dragon's Dogma 2 quest explainers, see our guides to the Medicament Predicament quest, and to a seemingly very important choice in the Seat of the Sovran quest.