Faith and Punishment is one of the small, self-contained investigations tied to a Curious House in The Blood of Dawnwalker, and it sits in the Altenmarkt district of Svartrau City. There is no NPC to talk to and no quest giver to find. The whole thing starts the moment Coen gets inside a house whose front door will not open, and it ends a couple of minutes later with a skill manual in your inventory.
Quick answer: Go to the Altenmarkt Curious House at night, use Shadowstop to reach the upper balcony, enter the attic, then hold Focus Mode (L2/LT) and inspect the bed, the scratch marks on the door, the girl’s body, and the Note from Mother. Faith and Punishment closes on the final inspection and pays out 17 XP plus the Amalgam Manual.
Where the Altenmarkt Curious House is in Svartrau City
Curious Houses only exist inside Svartrau City, the walled capital of Vale Sangora, and there are six of them in total. They show up on the map as a white door icon rather than a normal quest marker. The one tied to Faith and Punishment is in Altenmarkt, the district that also holds a long list of other activities and side quests, so expect the surrounding streets to be busy.
Timing matters more than the exact address. Faith and Punishment is a night activity, and the traversal you need to get inside is a night ability. Turning up in daylight leaves you standing at a barred door with nothing to interact with.
How to get into the attic
As soon as you are inside, the activity registers and the tracker switches to Investigate the attic using Focus Mode - 1. That counter is your progress bar for the rest of the quest.
What to inspect with Focus Mode
Hold L2/LT to switch on Focus Mode and everything that counts glows yellow. Looting the room does nothing for the quest on its own, so work through the highlighted objects first and leave the containers for afterwards.
| Object | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| The bed | Bloodstains around the sleeping area |
| The attic door | Scratch marks left from the inside |
| The body | A girl who starved to death in the room |
| Note from Mother | Her mother locked her in over her faith |
The note is the payoff. It confirms the girl was shut in the attic and left there because of what she believed, which is where the quest name comes from.
Faith and Punishment rewards and loot
Once the last highlighted object is examined, time passes on screen and the activity closes out with 17 XP. The headline reward is the Amalgam Manual, filed under Superior Character Development, which makes this one of the more worthwhile Curious Houses to clear early.
Open the container in the room and take everything before you leave. Pick Loot All so the manual and the odds and ends go across in one action.
The rest of what is lying around is minor by comparison. Expect Pork, a Rotten Book, Torn Clothes, and Broken Scissors, all of which are worth grabbing but none of which are required for completion. When you are done, jump from the balcony back to the street.
Why the quest is not completing
Two mistakes account for almost every stalled attempt at this house.
- You came during the day. The balcony route depends on night traversal, and this activity is flagged for night only.
- You looted instead of inspecting. Emptying the container does not advance anything. Turn Focus Mode back on and sweep the room for a yellow object you skipped, usually the note.
If the tracker still lists the attic objective after you have handled all four clues, you have missed a highlighted object rather than a chest. The quest closes itself the instant the final one is inspected, so there is no confirmation step to hunt for.
Because every Curious House needs the same night-time approach, it is worth chaining several of them into a single night in Svartrau City rather than making separate trips. The Altenmarkt house is a short detour on that route, and a Superior Character Development manual for five minutes of work is a fair trade.
