Smoke and Ashes is the 6th main mission in The Blood of Dawnwalker. This walkthrough will guide you through all objectives of the Smoke and Ashes main quest.
- Starting Location: Laslea Glen / Anca’s House
- Requirement: Starts automatically upon completion of “Bad Blood“
- Fail State: N/A
- Reward: 150XP, Burning Blood ability, Astral Communion ability
- Time Required:
- 1 Time Segment – Return to Anca
- 7 Time Segments – Remove the rubble blocking the gate
- Quest Description: What happened? I’m alive – but how? Did Brencis turn me or not? And where’s my family? I need to find them, and soon.
Objectives:
- Go to Laslea with Anca
- Search your family home
- Return to Anca (1 time segment)
- Cast Compel Soul on the dead soldier
- Find items of importance to the dead soldier
- Go to the village gate
- Remove the rubble blocking the gate (7 time segments)
You awaken in Anca’s hut, somehow having survived the sunlight. She tells Coen that she removed the pickaxe from his body, and watched his wounds heal themselves. You’ve clearly been changed in some ways, your eyes are proof enough of that, but you still appear to be more or less human. She doesn’t have any better an idea what you are now than you do. She tells you that the village has been sacked, and everyone had been taken. Coen insists on searching the town for survivors, despite his condition.
Go to Laslea with Anca
Follow Anca as she runs up the path towards the village. Now that day has broken, you can see that everyone is gone. There are a few charred corpses, and dogs feeding on the bodies. Along the road, Anca finds one of Brencis’s men dead, and Coen hopes this means someone was able to get by and escape. Coen tells her that he has to check his house for signs of what happened to his family, while Anca searches the body to see if she can find orders or some other clue.
Search Your Family Home
Head up the road to Coen’s house and he’ll find signs that they tried to set their house on fire. The door has been knocked down and there are bloodstains and signs of a struggle, but there are no bodies. Lunka’s doll has been left behind, and a scrap of cloth is caught on the windowsill as though they were caught trying to climb out the window. Head into the yard to see signs of soldiers’ footprints going back and forth as though searching for something. In the last room, inspect the bed to see that it has been moved.
Return to Anca (1 Time Segment)
Stepping outside, Coen tells Anca the bad news. Losing hope he starts spiraling at the thought of losing his whole family, saying that sometimes people just disappear and are never found. Without clues all seems lost until Anca offers a possible solution. Taking him back to the dead Brencis soldier, Anca gives Coen a painful lesson in magic, granting him his first ability in the Witchcraft tree, Compel Soul.
Cast Compel Soul on the Dead Soldier
Use your new ability on the Brencis Soldier, earning the 
Dead Man Talkin’ trophy for your trouble but not learning anything useful from his body.
Anca tells Coen that to focus the corpse’s attention on a specific subject he will have to find a catalyst. She asks you to look around in the area, to try and find items of significance to the soldier.
Find Items of Importance to the Dead Soldier
A short distance away you’ll find a stack of bodies near a stand bearing Brencis’s Banner. Pick it up and return to the corpse.
Return to the corpse and choose the prompt “Use Catalyst – Brencis’s Banner”. This time the corpse is much more cooperative. Coen learns that the villagers have been taken to the castle to be drained in 30 days for Brencis’s coronation. Anca advises Coen that he needs to find allies if he hopes to stand a chance against Brencis and his lieutenants, not to mention training and powerful magics. She mentions the library at her former convent, St. Tyna’s, which had an extensive catalog of books of forbidden knowledge on how to fight the vrakhiri.
Go to the Village Gate
Follow Anca to the destroyed gates. Brencis intended Laslea to remain empty, a warning to other villages of what happened to those who resisted Vrakhiri rule. To clear the rubble and escape Laslea will be no small undertaking.
Remove the Rubble Blocking the Gate (7 Time Segments)
By the time you are done clearing the debris away from the door, night will have fallen and Coen will revert to his vampire form.
Anca isn’t sure what has happened to you, or what is causing the vrakhiri side of you to lie dormant during the day. Coen vows to use the power Brencis cursed him with to destroy him and his entire court. Anca tells him that she is packing her things and going to St. Tyna’s, telling you to meet her at the inn near the convent when he’s ready to investigate the library. With that, the Prologue ends and Coen is now free to wander throughout the valley, plotting the course of his revenge.
This finishes Smoke and Ashes in The Blood of Dawnwalker.
For all other Quests refer to The Blood of Dawnwalker Walkthrough.
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