The rooftop chase in A Friend Like This ends abruptly. One moment Coen is hopping between broken shingles above Svartrau City, the next the quest tracker swaps to “Investigate tracks on ground level” and the trail simply stops. There are only two clues left to find, and both sit within about thirty seconds of walking distance of each other.
Quick answer: Drop off the roof at the claw marks west of the Cathedral Tower, inspect the yellow impact mark on the ground below, follow the path north up the stone stairs, inspect the smashed wooden fence, then go through the door right beside it to trigger the cutscene.
Where the ground-level tracks are in Svartrau City
The objective takes place in Svartrau City, west of the Cathedral Tower. You arrive there by following the damaged rooftops southwest from the north-east wall, so the marker should already be close by the time the objective updates. Open the map if you have drifted off course — the pin sits a short distance from the tower, in the cluster of buildings below the roofline you have been running along.
The trail leaves the rooftops at a set of claw marks scratched into a wall. That is the game telling you the vrakhir went down here rather than onward, and it is the only place you should be dropping from.
How to complete “Investigate tracks on ground level”
Get inside the building to trigger the Lacra cutscene
The door you want is immediately next to the wrecked fence, on the left as you come up the steps toward the building. Walking through it starts a cutscene inside the abandoned house, where Lacra is holding a bound uriash named Nish. Her first line — “Oh, Nish, one of your mates followed us? Well, that’s unfortunate for him.” — is the confirmation that the investigation phase is finished.
Dialogue choices here include “I’m not with the guard,” “What are you doing to him?” and “Who are you?” None of them avoid the fight. Lacra attacks regardless, and the objective becomes “Defend yourself.” Bring her health down and the fight ends in another cutscene rather than a death, after which you move on to interrogating Nish.
Why the trail stops progressing
Almost every case of being stuck at this stage traces back to one of a few specific things.
- You dropped off the roof at the wrong point. Only the wall with the claw marks leads down to the impact mark, so climb back up and follow the broken shingles until they end.
- Focus Mode is not active. Neither the impact mark nor the fence is obvious without the yellow outline.
- You reached the rooftops during the day. The roof section of the quest requires nighttime and vrakhiri traversal, so the ground-level step only becomes reachable after you have completed that leg at night.
- You skipped the fence. The door will not open into the cutscene until both ground clues have been inspected.
A Friend Like This quest reference
| Detail | Value |
|---|---|
| Location | Svartrau City, west of the Cathedral Tower |
| Time cost | 3 time segments |
| Reward | 150 XP |
| Missable | Yes — the coronation deadline can close it out |
| Leads into | Song of the Mountain |
Note: the quest sits on a clock alongside the 14-day rescue timer, so if you are deliberately banking time segments, finish the ground-level tracks in the same night you complete the rooftop chase rather than leaving it half-done.
Once the cutscene plays and Lacra stands down, the interrogation opens up the location of the uriash village, and Coen and Lacra head for the mountains. That is the point where A Friend Like This hands off to Song of the Mountain and the rest of Lacra’s questline.
