Secret Rendezvous is an Act 1 side quest in Dragon Age II.
Acquisition
The quest is received from the Suspicious Lady in the Hanged Man at night after completing the quest Fools Rush In.
Walkthrough
Go to the Docks at night to intercept and break up the raider captains' meeting. Eavesdrop on their conversation for an additional reward. Note that even though the Suspicious Lady tells you that the secret meetings are taking place in Lowtown, you still need to go to the Docks to actually complete the quest.
There are two ways to listen in on the conversation:
- The easier way is to go up the stairs to the left and listen to the conversation from the ledge; however, this is dangerous, as you will then need to fight the group of Raiders hiding out there. However, if the side quest Pier Pressure is already completed, no raiders will be there.
- A more difficult but superior method is to enter the docks from the southern entrance (exit the docks from there during the day and "travel" to the docks at night), set your party on Hold, and carefully inch (
toggle main character from run to walk) your way up the stairs, hugging the wall on the left; then, when on the second set of stairs inch down towards the captain until the conversation triggers.
- Coming from south it's also possible with held characters, when reaching the platform with the captains, to move them one by one to the right towards the end of the docks like mentioned further below, then approaching carefully the scene with one character only to trigger the dialogue.
The conversation reveals that someone in power in Kirkwall is blackmailing the pirates into specifically targeting Amaranthine ships. After the captains finish their complaining, one of their men will notice you and the fight will begin.
This can be a very difficult fight even without the added complication of the Raiders further up the stairs; both captains are elite Assassin-types and should be taken down hard and fast with as much crowd control as possible. Sending any fragile ranged characters down to the end of the docks to reduce the chance of the Captains aggroing them from stealth is advised--this will put them in range of the inevitable second wave when it spawns, but these are mostly trash mobs and of far less concern than the captains.
Return to the Suspicious Lady in the Hanged Man at night; let her know the Raiders captains are dead and that their plans to attack Amaranthine ships were overheard.
Rewards
- 1
and 250 XP if you just kill them. Ring of the Archmage received. - 3
and 400 XP if you overheard them talking before killing them. - Overland Render on the corpse of one of the Ship Captains.
Bugs
- Suspicious Lady may become unclickable, leaving you unable to start the quest.[confirmation needed] When this happens, you can activate the quest via console: runscript zz_lgt_debug -> act 1 -> work with plot -> secret rendezvous -> start of the plot.
- It's possible to reach the end of the stairs by hugging the right wall and prompt the raiders to attack you without starting the conversation. After you killed them all you can listen to the conversation from the ledge. The quest will still update to "overheard the conversation", and when you return to the Suspicious Lady you will be able to tell of the conversation.
- There is a way to finish the quest without fighting the raiders. When listening to their conversation, save your game and the quest will auto complete.
- When you enter the area from the entrance right beneath the group, neither the conversation nor the fight is triggered. The conversation will be triggered when you go to the bottom of the stairs to your left.