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Background

You'll receive this quest when you arrive at the Outskirts of Vizima, when the barghests attack you at the eastern gate (#1).


Walkthrough

For this quest you'll have to defeat the Beast, which is basically the leader of the barghests. To track it down, you'll first have to talk to the Reverend (#2). He'll insist that lighting the five Eternal Fire Shrines in the village (#3) will drive away the beasts, and he'll give you five Holy Flames so that you can complete the task. The shrines can only be lit at night, and you'll likely have to fight four or five barghests at each one. You might also run into some ghouls.

The shrines won't do anything to stop the beasts. When you return with this news to the Reverend, he'll decide that the witch Abigail (#4) must be at fault, but he'll give you 100 orens for lighting the shrines anyway. When you visit Abigail, she'll claim that she's not powerful enough to conjure the Beast, but she'll say that Alvin, "a strong source and diviner," might be able to give some answers -- provided that you bring her enough ingredients so she can brew a potion for him.

You'll need to find 5 White Myrtle Petals for the potion. White myrtle bushes grow all throughout the village, and so it shouldn't be any trouble to find them. In order to pick the petals, you'll need to read about them in the book Field Plants, which, conveniently enough, is sold by Abigail, and you'll also need to learn the Herbalism skill, which falls under Intelligence II.

When you bring the petals to Abigail, she'll start brewing the potion. To get her to finish, you'll need to leave and then re-enter her house and talk to her again. This will cause her to give the potion to Alvin, who will see "evil faces twisted by drink and desire" and "human villainy." That is, while the villagers might think that the witch is responsible for the Beast, Alvin's words will make it sound like the village drew the Beast to itself. After the divining, Abigail will give you the scroll Hellhound's Soul plus Berengar's Notes on the Beast.

Note: When you read Berengar's Notes on the Beast, you'll learn about Alzur's Demon. If you ask Abigail about this demon, then she'll ask you a riddle. The answer to the riddle is "man" (from crawling, walking, and using a cane) but nothing will come of giving the right answer. You also won't have to answer a riddle when facing the Beast later.

When you return to the Reverend, he'll pay you 200 orens, and he'll say that he'll question the villagers, but nothing will happen until you've progressed far enough in the quest The Salamander's Tail. At that point you'll find yourself in a cave (#5) with Abigail -- and with a bunch of angry villagers, including the Reverend, waiting outside to kill her (so much for the Reverend believing your story that the villagers are at fault).

When you leave the cave, you'll have to make a decision: to side with Abigail and protect her from the villagers, or to side with the villagers but insist that they hold a trial before killing anybody. If you side with Abigail, then you'll talk the villagers down (for a while). If you side with the villagers, then you'll just walk away from the cave and leave Abigail to her fate.

After the confrontation at the cave, you'll finally encounter the Beast. If you sided with Abigail, then she'll help you in the fight. Otherwise you'll have Odo and a couple of peasants assisting you. The Beast is tough to kill, and it will constantly spawn barghests to help it out. You should immediately quaff a Swallow potion, and if you have one, you might also want to apply some Specter Oil to your weapon.

The easiest way to deal with the Beast is to knock it down with the Aard sign. It might take 2-3 tries, but eventually it will go down, and you'll be able to use a coup de grace move to finish it off. If you just want to fight the Beast, then switch between the group style and the strong style depending on how many barghests there are, and run around if necessary to avoid combat for a while and heal up. With Specter Oil on your weapon, the battle shouldn't be too bad.

When the Beast dies, the quest will end, but don't forget to loot the Beast's body and pick up the Trace of the Beyond. Later you'll be able to use this ingredient to brew a potion that will grant you a silver skill point.

After defeating the Beast, you might have to fight some villagers, including the Reverend, Odo, and Haren, depending on what you said to them at the cave. The group style will take out the regular peasants pretty quickly, and then you can mop up the rest. If you fight the Reverend, then you should find a Letter of Safe Conduct on his corpse; otherwise he should give it to you. You'll need the letter for the quest The Salamander's Tail.


1 - Eastern Gate


2 - Reverend


3 - Eternal Fire Shrine


4 - Abigail


5 - Cave