Long Ben is the innkeeper who works the bar of the tavern on Tortuga. He is the first named quest NPC most players speak to after the main story delivers them to the island, and he stays relevant far longer than a tavern keeper has any right to: he opens the Underground Network chain, closes it, hands out the follow-up Smugglers faction quest, and turns up again at the end of an unrelated murder investigation.
Where to Find Him
Property | Detail |
|---|---|
Role | Innkeeper and tavern keeper, quest giver |
Location | Behind the bar inside the Tortuga tavern, across the market from the pier |
Fast travel | The Undead Waters point drops you closest on return trips |
Faction ties | |
Hostile | No. He is a settlement NPC and never fights |
The tavern sits on the far side of the Tortuga market from the pier. Follow the quest marker in through the front door and he is directly ahead behind the bar, in the same spot on every visit.
Underground Network
Underground Network is the questline that unlocks the Hidden Smuggler Base and the Smugglers faction. Long Ben appears in three of its seven stages.
Stage | Objective | What He Does |
|---|---|---|
1 | Ask around on Tortuga about the smugglers | Names Marita as the woman running the smuggling operation on the archipelago and points you to the Smugglers Waters cave |
5 | Talk to Long Ben in the tavern | Marita sends you back to him about a name found on Hale's body. He knows more than he first let on |
7 | Tell Ben that Marlowe is dead | Final turn-in for the chain |
Stage 5 is where the character actually opens up. Pressed about the name in the dead supplier's note, he admits he once went by Henry Every, a famous pirate, and that Captain Marlowe is an old accomplice hunting him down. The rest of the quest is settling that debt: find the Bony Sue, sink its escort, board it, and kill Marlowe on the deck. Returning to the tavern with the news closes the chain and pays out 50 Piastres, 5 Letters of Favor, and a crate each of Brandy, Madeira, and Whiskey.
The Smugglers Faction Quest
The moment Underground Network is closed, walking back into the tavern triggers the Smugglers quest. Long Ben opens it by complaining that his wine supply has dried up, which turns out to be a symptom of a larger problem: smugglers going missing and caches turning up empty.
Detail | Value |
|---|---|
Quest giver | Long Ben, Tortuga tavern |
Prerequisite | Underground Network completed |
Recommended level | 9 |
Chain | Marita, then the drifting Hunchback Pilgrim, then Eddie Lowe's camp in the Foothills |
Reward | 150 Piastres, 10 Letters of Favor, Decoration: Iron Lamps |
The stolen cargo recovered at the end of that chain is the Contraband Wine taken from his shipment, so the whole faction questline is, in the end, an errand for the tavern.
Other Appearances
He is also the closing contact on Sacrificial Lamb. That investigation runs through the Tortuga murders, a witness aboard a ship, Letty's account of the cultists, and a search of the New Ark, and its final objective sends the player back to Long Ben to report what was found.
Dialogue Shortcuts
First conversation: pick the option about someone having wrecked the smugglers' caches. It advances the quest in one pass instead of cycling through flavor branches.
Return visit in stage 5: lead with the question about who Henry is. The other branches loop back to it anyway.
No dialogue option locks progress. Talking through the flavor lines first and re-approaching for the quest branch works fine.
Notes
Long Ben was the historical nickname of Henry Every, the English pirate the game borrows for the character's hidden past, which is why the tavern name and the confession line up. The quest log leans on it in the closing journal line, where the narrator remarks that Ben came away with another story for his endless collection.
See Also
Underground Network: the chain he opens and closes
Smugglers: the faction quest he hands out
Sacrificial Lamb: the investigation he closes
Marita: the smuggler contact he sends you to
Smugglers of Port Royal: the faction the chain unlocks
Tortuga: the settlement his tavern sits in