For those who venture into the Zhentarim Hideout under the Waukeen Rest manor, you can find a group of rebels. These rebels can offer you a quest if it turns out in your favor, or depending on what you did leading up to this. If you accept it, here’s what can happen if you do this quest. On this page you can expect a walkthrough for the Find the Missing Shipment quest, including all the possible endings for it.

Keep in mind that this quest has a lot of ways it can start and end. We will do the walkthrough in one particular way, but, in the outcomes section, we will go through all the details in which this quest can be done, and what the differences are, at least that are evident in early access.

Find The Missing Shipment Walkthrough in Baldur’s Gate 3¶

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You can start the Missing Shipment quest by pretending to be traders after figuring out the password.

After completing the Rescue the Trapped Man and the Rescue the Grand Duke questline in the Rest, you can now venture further into the Estate. By exploring the storage yard near the barns, you will find a man crouching. Depending on what you have done, you can share a password with him that you got from rescuing the men in the cave near the Gnolls, or you can use Detect Thoughts on the man and find out what the password is. If, for some reason, you fail, the place will go hostile, and the kid will set a bomb off. So, either save scum this section till you roll the password stealing option, or go deal with the Gnolls first.

For the sake of an easy-to-read walkthrough, we are going with the option where you managed to steal the password. Once you say you know the password, you are told the location of the secret Zhentarium Base is under this step ladder hatch. It brings you to their basement, and then a door leading to their underground base.

When you arrive at the base, the leader opposite the chasm will hail you. After a few threats about how she could ruin your day, you may attempt to persuade her that you are mere merchants looking to trade. Pass the roll and she will turn the traps off, and allow you access to the sanctum for a quest.

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You need to fight off the Gnolls and their pack leader regardless of how you start the quest.

With that out of the way, the group leader offers you a quest to help find the missing shipment. This shipment went missing near a road leading to the Rest, near all the Gnolls. Now you can fast travel back to the Rest, and travel east along the road. You’ll find some Gnolls on the side of the road to fight, and some Hyena in the process of transforming. Fight them, and continue up the grassy hill to fight the remaining Gnolls. Eventually, you’ll come across a larger pack. Fight the pack, and get the Gnoll Leader to join you by mind-controlling it with the Illithid powers just to make it easier. Once the fight is done, you’ll find a few of the Zhantirum crew in the cave further down from the Gnolls. Once the fight is done and all the Gnolls are dead, you can then speak to the men in the cave guarding the chest and conclude the Finding the Missing Shipment Quest. Approach Rugan, the older man in the cave, and speak to him. Depending on your answers here, you can get a very different outcome for the quest.

Baldur’s Gate 3: Find the Missing Shipment Outcomes¶

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One ending to this quest leads to Rugan being beaten a punishment, despite it not being his crime.

You can do a few options to complete this quest, and each one is slightly different. There are many outcomes, each of which likely has an effect on Baldur’s Gate when you finally reach it in the full release.

1. Default: You save the caravan and return the Shipment as normal. Everyone is really happy, and the quest is done. You get your gold, you get your merchant stock access, and no one dies except the Gnolls. This is likely what happens if you save the caravan guard first before accepting this quest.
2. Making a Deal: If you find the people by chance, you can do a History check that shows them as Zhentarium members. You can strike a deal to split the profits 50-50 by fencing it at Baldur’s Gate. However, it goes sour. You find the Rugan tied up getting beaten, Olly dies, and you can execute your business partner to live, or get into a massive fight if you free him. If you free him, be mindful of all the gunpowder barrels, as it is very easy to get blown up here.
3. Lockpicking: If you save the caravan guards in the cave, you can lockpick the chest. If you are successful, and steal the item, then you can complete the quest as normal. When you head back to the Sanctum, you’ll find Olly is dead, and Rugan is once again getting beaten. You can still get access to their secret stock, and complete the quest as normal. And the leader says that the guy will live and earn his way back into the gang. This is just punishment or his actions.
4. Extortion & Theft: When you rescue the caravan guard, you can extort the chest from them or extort money. Extorting money from them means the guy isn’t best pleased with you, but you can still complete the quest as normal. If you steal the chest, then the Zhentarium is forever hostile to you. Since this gang is related to Baldur’s Gate 3, this could have some setbacks for the game in full release, but it is hard to tell just yet.
5. Death: The caravan guard dies. If the guards in the cave die to the Gnolls, or you happen to throw a sucker punch at them a little too hard, then you have the choice to take the chest back to the camp or take it for yourselves. If you hand it in, you complete the Find the Missing Shipment quest as normal, and access to the special stock. However, if you steal it. Then you once again lose the favor of the gang and may encounter issues later on once the game exits early access.
6. Using the Iron Flask: If you open the Flask using any of the methods of acquiring it for yourself, you have the option to open it. If you do open it, a specter pops out of it and fights you. The leader wasn’t wrong when she said if you open the package you will be dead. If you do this, you cannot complete the quest, as there’s no item. And it is easy to infer you ruined everything. You can kill the ghost, and get the XP for killing it, but thats it. This is likely the worst option you can do.

Using the Iron Flask¶

It is important to note that the special item inside the chest is called the Iron Flask. This is a very magical item, which you can give to Gale to cure the magical time bomb inside him. Apparently, it is a very good one too as he says he can feel his condition become very calm. So, you can always take this for yourself and give it to Gale, who will consume it. It’s also a way of securing that you don’t have the item on you, that way, no one can question if you stole it or not, as there’s no trace of it on you. We know for certain that if you steal it without the guard noticing, and then give this to Gale, you can still complete the quest as normal, with the caravan guard getting punished, even though they did nothing wrong.

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You can steal the Missing Shipment’s cargo, the Iron Flask, and give it to Gale rather than these crooks, which can lead to several outcomes for this questline.

Also, there’s a slight variation in Option 2/3. When it comes to Rugan getting beaten up, the leader forces you to kill him to save yourself. However, if you stole the item and they don’t know about it, you can either free the man, which causes a massive fight in the cave or you can put him out of his misery. Either way, in option 3, it leads to a fight because it wasn’t your execution to make or freedom to give. Saving the man gives approval from characters like Wyll, while executing him gives approval to characters like Astarion.

If you successfully free Rugan and he survives the fight, he runs off. You can’t catch him and he eventually disappears anyway.

Best Ending to Find The Missing Shipment in Baldur’s Gate 3¶

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If you get access to the shop, there’s some decent green weapons that can be upgrades for your party, and there’s a nice chest armor that synegirzes with the blue weapon you pic from the Grand Duke questline.

In our opinion, the best ending to the Find The Missing Shipment Quest is likely option 3. This is because you give the artifact to Gale for his condition. You also get to keep the gang on your side in case you need them later in the game, and you get access to their special shop. It is the best of all the worlds. The only person who loses really is Olly, who dies. You also deny the gang the opportunity to use the spectral entity in the flask from being used, which we can only presume is to be used maliciously at some point later in the game, likely against those Paladins.

As for the shop itself, there’s nothing really special. There are a few weapons for sale with +1, so, it offers a decent chance for you to grab an off-hand weapon to replace your common items. Also, there’s a medium armor chest piece that has Counter Shock on it, which synergizes really well with the weapon rewards you get from the Rescue The Grand Duke questline. There are also some trap disarm kits and Thieves’ Tools too to stock up on future exploits, and another place to rinse a merchant for all their money by trading all the usual stuff you come across.

With that said, you now know how to complete the Find the Missing Shipment in Baldur’s Gate 3.