In the Eternal Fire's Shadow is a secondary quest in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt that was introduced with the next-gen update, Patch 4.0.
Walkthrough[]
The quest is given by a young Eternal Fire deacon just outside Devil's Pit in Velen, who's just finished his studies and is intent on helping people. In this case, he wishes to have the abandoned mine system at the Devil's Pit cleared of whatever horrors it contains from way back when the Eternal Fire used it to isolate scarlet fog victims. Depending if you've already done Funeral Pyres or not, you can bring up what happened there if you learned the truth about that priest, but this won't have an effect in this conversation. The young deacon won't have much information to give you about the job but once you accept, will give you the key to unlock the mine's gate.
The first area, to the right up in the small shack, you'll find Reinald's note discussing the situation and his guesses. Continuing further, at the next set of doors into the mine, you'll find his first letter pinned there, revealing Reinald's also a witcher. As you open these doors, you'll hear a voice call out to you asking you to hurry and help them as torches light up to guide you.
Note: While the magic lamp can be used at multiple locations in this mine, it's entirely optional as it just gives some insight into the events that happened there, as there's no speaking voices and it won't open up extra dialogue for later.
At this point you can either go into the small shack in front of you or proceed down the steps as the voice is trying to get you to do. If you want to look around though, use your Witcher Senses to notice the old School of the Wolf insignia on the shack in front of you and then, inside the shack in the back right room, you'll find some bones emitting a red light that you can examine. If you went into the shack, when you exit the voice gets angry and demands you to hurry up as it makes the barrels in the cart fly off.
Head down the stairs and you'll find a split path, where the voice tries to guide you to the right, but you'll likely notice immediately on the left path a crawling corpse, which Geralt will remark on. It'll disappear shortly where you examine the wolf insignia on the left path's floor.
At this point you have a few options here: explore the mine to the left to learn more of the background story, or go right as the voice demands. If you just want to finish the quest quickly, you can go right without any dire consequences (as long as you select the right dialogue choices at the end), though you won't get access to Reinald's Philter, which might be helpful if you're at a low level for this quest. Note also the mines will be locked again at the end of this quest, so if you want to do any exploring, you need to do it during this quest.
If you went right immediately, you'll soon enter a slightly large shack area where 4 non-hostile beings similar to the one you saw are standing around. Proceed through and up the stairs and jump across to the large doors here, where Reinald's fifth letter is pinned. Entering it, you'll see Reinald pinned in some of the salt stalagmites, calling out to you to destroy the stalagmites to free him. Once you destroy them with Aard, this is the point of no return so this is your last chance to explore before you do.
The dialogue that happens next, once you free him, varies if you explored or not. If you explored around and made Reinald's Philter, when freed he'll note his strength is fading and that the red miasmal has almost taken over. If you made his philter, he'll ask you to give it to him so he can expel it. In this case, there's a few optional dialogue choices here to test him. If you offer him the potion, the real Reinald will break through for a bit and knocks it to the floor so it can't be used as he tells you the spirit has taken over, otherwise if you choose to keep it, the real Reinald will warn you to drink it and finish the work he started. If you didn't explore, as soon as you free him, Reinald will instead begin to laugh and reveal it's not Reinald, but rather a possessed form of the witcher and begins to fight.
The first fight here with the possessed Reinald is fairly easy if you paid attention to the notes, otherwise the real Reinald will drop a hint of this during the fight. In particular, the easiest way to deal with him is to use both a Yrden trap and then Aard on the ensnared Reinald (about three times if full health) to defeat him and force the red miasmal out to fight. Otherwise, you can fight him with your sword, though this will take a bit longer as he likes to use Quen.
Once the miasmal is forced out, it'll then fight you directly, periodically teleporting around the room and summoning a couple plague victims to help it out. Note it'll continue to summon these at certain intervals in relation to its health meter, so you could end up in a room with the miasmal and four of the plague victims if you were primarily focused on damaging the miasmal and didn't kill the first set off.
After it's defeated, Reinald's spirit will finally be free and will talk to you. You can ask to learn more about the witcher and how long he'd been trapped there. Regardless, as you wrap up your conversation he'll give you his armor and sword diagrams. However, his spirit is obviously restless and needs to find peace before he can leave the world, or you could just burn his body to force him to depart. In this case, you can either choose to bring the deacon to him or burn the body right away. If you choose the latter, Reinald won't fight you.
If you wish to bring the young deacon to Reinald but have him live, the easiest way is to side with the deacon by pointing out he's innocent and he doesn't need the church to do good. The only dialogue branch off "the boy is innocent" route that would get him killed is if you didn't use any of the optional conversations and then said that the crimes couldn't be forgiven.
However, if you don't mention the priest that stayed behind beforehand (only given if you explored and learned of this) and then say Reinald is right, Reinald will kill the deacon regardless of your subsequent choices. In this case, the only way to save him on the "Reinald is right" dialogue branch is by mentioning that priest beforehand, asking what Reinald would do, and then say that the young deacon doesn't need the church.
There's also a third main option that'll show up if Funeral Pyres wasn't done (or didn't learn the truth about that priest) where Geralt can instead say not all priests are bad (this is a different option from the optional mention of the one that stayed in the mines), but this will lead to the deacon's death as well regardless of the next dialogue choices.
Journal entry[]
- While passing the infamous Devil's Pit, Geralt overheard the desperate pleas of prayer - a prayer he answered.
- A young deacon of the Church of the Eternal Fire asked the witcher for aid. It turned out a gang of deserters had taken hold of an abandoned mine, now long haunted by a mysterious specter thought to spread pestilence. Geralt must deal with this plague spirit or risk releasing it unto the world.
- If Geralt brings the priest but couldn't get Reinald to let go of the past:
- Three hundred long years had filled Reinald with bitterness and spite. He was driven by a singular goal: to exact revenge on the Church of the Eternal Fire in any way he could, no matter the cost. Shortly after meeting with the young cleric, the witcher's ghost murdered the lad in cold blood, destroying his own essence in the process.
- If Geralt brings the priest but couldn't get Reinald to let go of the past:
- In a peculiar twist of fate, it turned out Reinald, a witcher of the Wolf School, had already been possessed by the red miasmal for hundreds of years. Fortunately, Geralt managed to defeat the specter, thus freeing the soul of his ancient brother in arms.
- If Geralt brings the priest and got Reinald to let go of the past:
- With the young cleric's aid, Geralt managed to quell Reinald's anger and help him find peace at long last.
- If Geralt refuses to bring the priest to Reinald:
- Geralt dared not risk another life at Reinald's word. Instead, he salted and burned the witcher's body to destroy his tormented ghost, thus preventing it from ever becoming a vengeful wraith.
Objectives[]
- Open the gate to the mine.
- Search the rest of the mine.
- Read the red miasmal Bestiary entry.
- [Optional] Prepare Reinald's Philter.
- Find out what happened to Reinald.
- Free Reinald.
- Defeat possessed Reinald.
- Defeat the red miasmal.
Notes[]
- If one dies while fighting the red miasmal, a slightly different death scene plays out. Instead of just Geralt collapsing and the screen going black, Geralt will instead collapse and become possessed by the red miasmal before the normal screen to reload appears.
- One cannot reenter the mine after defeating the miasmal, so make sure to explore and plunder before destroying the stalagmites.
- Upon completion of the quest, the bandits in Devil's Pit no longer infinitely respawn. Instead, two different things can happen depending on the fate of the deacon (to trigger the update, travel to another area, like White Orchard, and return):
- If he was killed, respawning ghouls will populate the area instead.
- If he lives (regardless of whether he was convinced in the chuch's crimes or not), the place becomes a hospital for the poor, populated by refugee NPCs and even a merchant in the house outside the gates, which will be unlocked. A misc. letter will also appear in one of the tents inside the pit.