Return back to Canneroc where the village is attacked by spiders. Save the townspeople. Don't let them die or they're gone for good.
Once the spiders are dead, talk to whoever you left in charge. Once you explain that the The Widow is responsible, you will be sent to Cathrus to find the The Widow.
Make sure you take with you a fire producing or enchanted weapon so that you can cut through several web "doors" to get to loot.
Inside Cathrus, the Widow approaches you and offers you a choice to Kill the Villagers or attack her.
Kill The Residents[]
Kill them all!
They will not respawn and all services will be unavailable.
This fight may be challenging for a low level player as there are many mobs and the Widow can deal heavy damage. As the fight progresses, the Widow will summon waves of Venomspitters and Giant Spiders to help her, often in groups of four or more.
The Widow's main attack shoots a purple orb at the player after a brief animation similar to a staff charge attack. The orb has homing capabilities and travels fairly quickly. The orb deals large amounts of damage and it's recommended for lower level players to dodge at the last second rather than block; lower level shields will not be able to block the entire hit.
The Widow also has a teleporting ability and can heal her spiders if they are low on health.
The fastest way to defeat the Widow is to save up Fate Energy while defeating the spider guardians in Cathrus and use Reckoning mode to focus down the Widow, ignoring the summoned spiders. However, the summoned spiders give additional experience and players wanting to gain more xp may choose to focus on the spiders while dodging the Widow's attacks. AoE weapons are recommended due to the large number of enemies.
When using Reckoning mode down the Widow then focus on downing spiders but keep an eye on your Fate Energy so you can roll over and kill a spider or the Widow to kill all the downed enemies for the xp boost. You can also assuming that you didn't do this quest at the beginning of the game make fate potions if your alchemy skill allows you to make potions with 4 ingredients in case you don't save up enough fate or if you finished main quests but didn't put skill points in alchemy just eat essence of fate you should have some by the time you decide to do this quest. Also having weapon late in game with bleeding damage can cause a lot of damage to Widow. If you want the best odds to kill widow it's recommended that you finish all the main quests because you'll level up a lot, you'll come across decent equipment,gems and potions that will give you big advantage over Widow. Also having child of autumn twist of fate helps too before you decide to go after Widow.
Rewards[]
Kill The Residents[]
Canneroc is a ghost town. No smithing or store services. Although you can still use the altars.
It is highly recommended to kill the Widow as you gain FAR greater rewards from killing her than from killing the residents. If you really want to kill civilians, just make a save and then go on a rampage. Revert back afterwards.
After the Widow's death, settlers begin returning to Webwood. In the Northeast previously abandoned camp (where a Lorestone was present), your mini map will show one settler. As you approach, 8 will single file spawn from the first NPC...rather interesting to watch. They do not mind your looting their two chests either. Curiously, they cannot be killed...
The Widow has a chance of dropping Unique or Set items.
Bugs[]
Caution: Quest may be glitched, where the widow will not appear at the beginning of Cathrus but is still back at Castle Yolvan. If you talk to her at Castle Yolvan, she will teleport to the entrance of Cathrus instead of the end of Cathrus. To get around this, go through the caves and clear out the spiders, BUT do not enter the final chamber or it will send you back to the beginning of the cave where the widow is standing. Instead, after clearing out the spiders, go back to the beginning of the area where the widow is standing, and attack her like a civilian by going into aggressive mode and attacking her again. Train her all the way to final chamber where you can take her on properly without the boss battle glitching.
Boss Health: The bosses health (along with others) may bug upon loading/reloading the area.
