A guide showing you how to start and complete “The Sword in the Stone” Side Story in Octopath Traveler 2, including the reward you gain for finishing it.
How to Start The Sword in the Stone Side Story quest
This story can be started by any character in the town of Winterbloom. Winterbloom sits in the middle of the Winterlands found on the Eastern Continent of Solstia.
We can access this location by heading South then East from Cape Cold, or North then East from Flamechurch or New Delsta.
This Side Story is available as soon as we reach Winterbloom with no additional requirements.
We can find the Troubled Woman who starts this Side Story just to the East of the item shop in Winterbloom.
She’ll ask for help to remove the sword stuck in the stone, which sets us out to find a solution.
The Sword in the Stone Story Hints
If you prefer to skip the hints and directly jump into the walkthrough and recommended actions for this side story, go to the next segment of this guide.
Many of Octopath Traveler 2’s side stories have hints that can be accessed by various means. this can be talking to other NPCs, or using an information-gathering Path Action. Below are all the hints we’ll be able to get during the side story to help complete it.
The only hints given to us for this quest are given by the NPC with their opening dialogue. Their first hint points at the use of a pickaxe, referring to it as “one of those pointy things miners have.”
This should point you in the direction of Oresrush without a doubt. Oresrush is a prominent mining town, so what better place to look.
Her second set of hints say “Maybe I just need more hands to rip this right out”.
This is also promptly followed by “You folks have plenty of hands between you. But I still don’t think it’ll be enough.”
This points us in the direction of using multiple characters with NPC guiding skills. As the image above also shows, we will need more than two of the Path Actions to be used.
How to complete The Sword in the Stone Side Story
Below are both solutions to this Side Story, The difference between them is the ending dialogue. They still yield the same rewards, as such the rewards will be detailed after the second solution.
Pickaxe Route
To complete the Pickaxe Route for this story, we’ll need to head over to Oresrush. Oresrush is the Southernmost town in the Wildlands of Western Solstia.
To Reach Oresrush, we can head West then North from Canalbrine or South then East from Cropdale.
Once in Oresrush, we’ll need to head to the Retired Miner in the Oresrush Weapon Shop.
He does not want to willingly part with the item. This means we’ll have to Steal it during the day with Throné or take it by force at night by Mugging him with Osvald.
Once we’ve acquired it, take it back to the Troubled Woman. After a bit of work using the Pickaxe, she’ll free the sword and thank us by giving us our reward.
Party Route
This route is more specific as to the required travelers but also allows us to solve the Side Story without the use of Throné or Osvald. It does however require four of the remaining 6 travelers that aren’t them.
We’ll need to comprise a party of Agnea, Ochette, Partitio, and Temenos. We’ll need to use each of their respective Path Actions of Allure, Befriend, Hire, and Guide to bring four additional people.
Which NPCs they are doesn’t matter, so we can just grab people from town to make it quicker if we don’t already have any followers.
As a side effect of doing this, we’ll also unlock the “Octopath Traveler…?” Achievement. This is a small bonus, but this can also be done at any other point in the game.
Upon returning to the Troubled Woman, she’ll watch as our party works to dislodge the sword, before thanking us and giving us our reward.
The Sword in the Stone Rewards
For completing this Side Story, we’re given a few great rewards consisting of 7,000 Leaves, a Revitalizing Jam, and the Rusty Sword key item.
While it’s not a ton of money, it is an early quest so it’s still reasonable. Revitalizing Jam is also a great healing item that fully recovers the HP, SP, and BP of a character.
The Rusty Sword however is used to start the In Search of Divine Weapons Side Story. This is one of the earliest of these items we’ll find. For the location of the other items needed for the quest, check out our guide on that side story.
