Xanthe trains fresh Blood Guards using veteran soldiers as instructors, and Teach with Pain is the court activity that removes one of those instructors from the roster. It is a single-objective job in Tantari Woods with no dialogue puzzle and no optional steps, which makes it one of the faster ways to push Xanthe’s anger level up in The Blood of Dawnwalker.
Quick answer: Travel to the marked soldiers’ campsite in Tantari Woods, attack the guard posted at the entrance to start the activity, then kill every soldier and recruit in the camp, including the instructor who fights you last. It costs 3 time segments and pays out 325 XP, 1 skill point, and a Small Vial of Vrakhiri Blood.
Where the campsite is and how to start the fight
The camp sits in Tantari Woods, in Xanthe’s territory, up a rocky path in the hills. Like every court activity, it does not appear on your map on its own. It shows as an unknown activity until you either stumble into it or reveal the region’s question mark icons by climbing the towers.
Clearing out Xanthe’s soldiers’s campsite
The camp empties in waves. Regular soldiers come first, recruits join in from the surrounding structures, and the instructor is the last body standing. There is no barrel to destroy, no prisoner to free, and no item to loot from a corpse. The objective ticks over only when everyone hostile is dead.
Shielded enemies block frontal sword swings, so break their guard or come at them from the side rather than trading hits head-on. When two or more close in at once, dodging out of the group and picking off the nearest target is more reliable than swinging into the middle of them.
The activity is available in both a day and a night version, and both cost the same 3 time segments. Night is the stronger option in combat because Coen fights with claws and can use Shadowstep to move around the outpost’s walls and roofs. Day means sword and magic instead, which is the safer choice if the region outlevels you.
The last enemy is a wounded recruit who survives the brawl. Finishing him ends the activity; the fight closes out as a straight duel with no additional objective attached.
Rewards, time cost, and how to confirm it completed
You know it worked when the journal entry updates to read that you eliminated one of the Blood Guard instructors and that new recruits should be weaker for it. The rewards land at the same moment.
| Detail | Value |
|---|---|
| Type | Court activity (Xanthe) |
| Region | Tantari Woods |
| Objectives | 1, none optional |
| Time cost | 3 time segments |
| Time of day | Day or night |
| XP | 325 |
| Skill points | 1 |
| Item | Small Vial of Vrakhiri Blood ×1 |
| Missable | Yes |
The Small Vial of Vrakhiri Blood is a master-tier crafting ingredient, so it goes into your inventory rather than being consumed by the activity. Clearing the camp also feeds Xanthe’s anger level, which is the whole point of court activities, and raises Coen’s Infamy.
The one way to lose this activity
Teach with Pain has a failure ending, and it fires for a single reason. If you move on to confront Brencis before clearing the camp, the entry closes with Coen deciding he has no time for it. Nothing else takes it away from you.
Because the story runs on a 30-day clock and time is spent rather than passing on its own, an unstarted court activity sits waiting indefinitely. The pressure comes entirely from the deadline you set yourself by advancing the main path.
Note: keeping a manual save every few activities is worth the slot. You get 54 manual saves, and a save made before you commit to the final confrontation lets you come back and mop up any Xanthe activities you skipped.
Other Xanthe court activities worth stacking with it
Xanthe has 15 court activities across her region out of 41 in the game, and you do not need all of them. Roughly three quarters of a vassal’s activities is enough to max their anger and unlock the duel quest. Since Teach with Pain is short and sits in Tantari Woods, it pairs well with the other Blood Guard and Recruiter jobs nearby.
| Activity group | Entries |
|---|---|
| Blood Guards | Loophole, Teach with Pain, Unquenchable Thirst |
| Excavations | Bloodied Dagger, Malevolent Presence, Unsealed Secrets |
| Recruiters | Come Home, Just a Bit More, Taste of Power |
Xanthe is the third vassal in the recommended order behind Ambrus and Bakir because of her level range, so if this camp is chewing through your health bar, the fix is usually to come back later with more skill points rather than to grind the same fight. Once the instructor is down, the activity is closed for good and the camp stays cleared.
