The Blood of Dawnwalker: The Night of Horrors Full Quest Walkthrough

The Night of Horrors is Lacra’s personal research trip into the swamps of Gallis Sangora, and it ends with one of the few permanent power upgrades in The Blood of Dawnwalker that you cannot buy, loot, or find anywhere else. It is optional, it is easy to miss, and it only appears if you have already worked through her earlier questline in Svartrau City.

Quick answer: Finish Our Rotten Roots, let a couple of in-game days pass, then return to Lacra’s house in Rock Hills and ask about her research. Follow the wisps through The Silts, feed them painful memories at each stopping point, clear Kallias’s crypt, and eat the mandrake to unlock the Mandrake Ward perk and the “Misery Loves Company” trophy.

How to trigger The Night of Horrors

The quest sits at the end of Lacra’s Svartrau City chain, which runs A Friend Like This into Song of the Mountain, Hive and Seek, and then Our Rotten Roots. When Our Rotten Roots wraps up, Lacra says she is ready to move against Brencis but wants time to look into something first.

That “something” is the reason the quest does not appear immediately. Spend a couple of in-game days on other content, then travel to her house in Rock Hills and ask what she has been researching. She wants to find the old battlefield where St. Mihai fought the ancient vrakhir Kallias, on the theory that Kallias used the same kind of power Brencis relies on now.

Dialogue wheel with the response "It's time to deal with Brencis." highlighted during the talk with Lacra — The dialogue menu at Lacra’s campfire, with “It’s time to deal with Brencis.” selected. Image: Rebel Wolves

Every objective in order

The journal tracks the quest in a fixed sequence. Nothing here branches, so the list below doubles as a checklist if you want to know how much is left.

Objective	What it means
Talk to Lacra	Her stone tower in Rock Hills, at the campfire
Uncover Kallias’s secrets	Head out to The Silts swamp in Gallis Sangora
Reach the roadside shrine	The shrine of St. Mihai, marked on the map
Follow the wisps	Chase the red lights, fight ghouls along the way
Investigate the stone slab	Broken slab signed by St. Tobias
Check in with Lacra	Offer a second memory to summon more wisps
Explore the sunken crypt	Murals of darkness, blood, and parasites
Inspect the sarcophagus	St. Tobias’s petrified arm with a vrakhir fang in it
Defeat the hellhounds	Ambush of hellhounds and undead inside the crypt
Explore the hidden cave	Kallias’s Ruined Notes and Kallias himself

The Silts: Feeding the will-o’-the-wisps

The swamp is far too big to search on foot, so Lacra’s plan is to let the wisps do the navigating. They are drawn to fear, regret, and grief, and they will only light a path if someone pays them in genuine misery. Coen and Lacra take turns, so expect two long confessions across the trip.

Open the map and set a marker on the roadside shrine objective, then run to it. It is the shrine of St. Mihai, and inspecting it starts the wisp sequence.

Listen to Lacra explain the trade, then follow the red wisps as they drift deeper into the mire. Ghouls attack repeatedly during the chase, and the wisps will wait for you while you deal with them.

Glossary open on the Monsters tab with the Wisps entry selected, showing artwork and lore text — The Wisps entry in the Monsters section of the glossary, listing them as supernatural. Image: Rebel Wolves

The trail ends at a broken stone slab signed by St. Tobias. Investigate it, then check in with Lacra when the wisps go quiet.

Have Coen give up the memory of his mother’s disappearance. That summons a fresh set of wisps, and a second chase begins through more swamp and more enemies.

Note: a nearby prayer tablet spells out exactly how the locals feel about the place, and it is worth reading before you go any further in.

Wanderer, in the name of God, turn back from this cursed mire while you can. We came here with a host of men, but walked back alone. Their souls forever forlorn.

Sunken crypt: The sarcophagus and the hellhound ambush

The second wisp trail stops dead at a rockslide burying the crypt entrance. This is scripted rather than a puzzle. Lacra uses blood magic to blow the debris apart and opens the way in.

Cinematic of Coen and Lacra pinned against a rocky wall in the swamp — The cutscene at the blocked crypt entrance, just before Lacra clears the rockslide. Image: Rebel Wolves

Work through the crypt and study the murals on the walls. They lay out the same three ideas over and over, which are darkness, blood, and parasites.

Open the sarcophagus. Inside is St. Tobias’s severed arm, petrified around a vrakhir fang still lodged in it.

Survive the ambush that triggers immediately after. Hellhounds and undead pour into the chamber, and the objective will not clear until every one of them is down.

Combat screen with an almost empty enemy health bar and a 506 damage number popping up — Mid-fight during the crypt ambush, with a 506 damage hit landing on a nearly dead enemy. Image: Rebel Wolves

Let Lacra blast the weak section of wall at the back of the crypt. The hidden cave behind it holds Kallias’s Ruined Notes, along with loot such as the Chalcantbum Solution, a Fragment of an Ancient Figurine, a Broken Sword, and a Rotten Book.

Kallias, the mandrake, and the blood ritual

Kallias is still here, fused to the cave wall by the parasitic vines called Anachora. He is holding a mandrake, which is the flower those vines produce. When a vrakhir that powerful is left in one place for centuries, the essence collects in the plant, and eating it hands that power to whoever swallows it.

Kallias's body grown into the cave wall by pale vines, a mandrake held in his grip — Kallias fused to the cave wall by Anachora vines, still clutching the mandrake. Image: Rebel Wolves

There is no choice to make here. You do not pick between Coen and Lacra the way you do with the Font of Life elsewhere in the game. Consume the mandrake when prompted, Coen feels the surge of power, and Lacra takes her share too. The scene closes with Coen letting her bite him and share his blood, after which he wakes up alone and stripped of his gear.

Rewards and how to confirm the quest completed

The moment Coen wakes up, the journal marks the quest complete and the “Misery Loves Company” trophy pops. The real payoff is the perk, so check the Vampirism skill tree afterward to confirm Mandrake Ward is now listed there.

Reward	Detail
Mandrake Ward	Vampirism perk. Restores 3 health segments when Coen drops close to zero, once per night.
Phial of Lacra’s Blood	Quest item handed over as part of the ritual
Astral Talisman	Equipment reward for finishing the quest
Misery Loves Company	Trophy, unlocked on completion

Mandrake Ward has no alternate unlock path. If you skip Lacra’s questline, or never come back to her after Our Rotten Roots, the perk stays locked for that save.

Why the quest may not show up

Two things stop it from appearing. Our Rotten Roots has to be finished first, and enough in-game time has to pass for Lacra to get through her research. Time only moves when you spend it, so if you go straight back to her door after the previous quest, there is nothing new to ask about. Take on a few other quests or activities, then return.

The other stall point is inside the swamp itself. The wisps will not lead anywhere until a memory is offered, so if the trail seems to have dried up at the shrine or the stone slab, talk to Lacra and go through the confession dialogue rather than searching the map for a missed marker.

Because the whole thing is optional and gated behind a long side chain, it is worth slotting in before you start burning days on Brencis. The perk pays for itself the first time a night fight goes wrong.