Quick Links

• How To Start 'In the Eternal Fire's Shadow'

• The Devil's Pit Walkthrough

• The Mine Walkthrough

• Follow The Voice – Skip The Mine

• Ignore The Voice – Explore The Mine

• The Salt Cavern Walkthrough

• How To Defeat The Red Miasmal

• Every Possible Outcome

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt's next-gen update comes with an impressive graphics overhaul and additional content for players to enjoy – the first since the second expansion in 2016. From new armor sets to Netflix-inspired Easter eggs, there is no shortage of content to appreciate. One of the new story quests for players to enjoy is 'In the Eternal Fire's Shadow'.

This impressive quest is accessible fairly early in the game and boasts about an hour of content, as well as a shiny new set of armor inspired by Netflix's adaptation of The Witcher. Unfortunately, the armor set comes as a craftable set rather than pre-made, but the questline itself is fun, engaging, and jam-packed with interesting lore.

How To Start 'In the Eternal Fire's Shadow'

To start In the Eternal Fire's Shadow, you'll need to first have access to the Velen map. It is also likely that you'll want to have explored a good bit of Velen first, completing contracts and quests so you can increase your level, as the game's recommended level is 15.

It is possible to take on and complete this quest with a healthy challenge as early as level eight for normal (Sword and Story) difficulty.

If you're coming to the Devil's Pit at a lower than recommended level, it is recommended to invest in points for Axii and damage to counteract the large health pools of the enemies you'll encounter.

From the Hangman's Tree, where you begin your adventure in Velen, you'll want to head southeast toward a large, wooden lookout tower half-hidden amongst a grove of tall coniferous trees.

Circle around along the wall on the southern side (to the right) of this area until you reach a road guided by hanging corpses and, a little further east at the entrance of the wooden wall, an NPC in red beside a cart marked as the "Eternal Fire Priest." Talk to him and agree to help to accept the quest.

While speaking with him, you can ask for more gold to sweeten the deal. The original set amount is 200 pieces, with the max at 297.

The deacon is an easily irritated individual who can be a bit tricky to haggle with. It's recommended to set your sights between 200 and 230 for the best success.

Asking for 250 is possible, but a failure always sets his annoyance level at an immediate 50 percent.

The Devil's Pit Walkthrough

Next, venture inside the Devil's Pit, there are seven bandits to defeat. They are all level nine deserters and brandish axes and blackjacks. On most occasions, six will venture up to the top of the pit once you draw the attention of one. Defeat them all before progressing.

As they are human enemies, using Axii is recommended to stun and attempt a one-hit autokill or, at the very least, always remove one enemy from a group attack.

At the bottom will typically be the final and seventh deserter. Once defeated, you'll be able to locate the lootable chest indicated on your mini-map. Inside, you'll find a large assortment of treasure. After looting the chest, head toward the large wooden doors to enter the mine.

The Mine Walkthrough

Once you enter the mine, walk forward and use your witcher senses to find the lootable resources along the way to find a variety of alcoholic spirits and crafting supplies.

The path here is fairly straightforward, but once you're given the opportunity, you can turn right to climb a set of stairs into a small office where, inside, you may use your witcher senses to locate Reinald's Note on the desk for some lore.

Approach the set of large doors with a letter nailed to the outside. Once you've read the letter, you'll be able to open the doors and enter the mine.

If you wish to explore the mine in its entirety and aspire to create a unique potion, you'll need Celandine; if you don't have it already, leave and return with a few bundles.

After taking a few steps into the mine, you'll hear a voice asking for your help. Along your path, torches will be lit with red flame, but there will also be wolf school insignias etched into walls and furniture. You can choose to follow either.

Either way, both will lead you to the same location; however, choosing the voice will be the fast and more difficult route, while choosing the wolf school marks will be a long but lore-filled path ending with an item to make your final encounter a tiny bit easier.

The first part of the cave is shared by both paths, allowing you some time to yourself to make your decision.

Enter and use your witcher senses to locate two hints:

• The wolf insignia on the wooden wall in front of you.
• The blood stain on the ground to the right of the wolf insignia.

Go past these clues and go into the left door to find two small rooms. The far back room has two lootable boxes and a set of bones you can investigate.

If you've completed Keira Metz's questline and obtained her lantern, use it on the black mass in the doorway on the way back out into the mine to see the interactions of the plague-ridden victims.

Go back out and down the stairs, where the voice will grow impatient and state you're wasting time. At the bottom of the stairs, there is a chest on the wooden mine supports above your head. Use Aard to knock it off and loot the items.

Once at the bottom, follow the path until you reach a split in the road. Here you can make your decision:

• Turn right to follow the voice and follow the fast track to complete the questline.
• Turn left to ignore the voice and explore the mine.

Follow The Voice – Skip The Mine

This path is the simpler of the two. As the voice will direct you, you need only follow the directions it gives you and the flaming red torches that light your way.

Choosing this path means that the Plague Victim enemies that wait in the three corners of the wooden room along the way will not attack you.

Instead, they will remain passive, and you can ignore them as you pass.

Jump over a ledge to reach a set of double doors with a letter in between the crack. Read it or choose not to, the letter makes no difference if you're seeking to follow this path and ignore the rest of the mine.

Continue through the double doors, and your quest will be updated as you enter the large salt cavern.

Ignore The Voice – Explore The Mine

Turn left at the fork to ignore the voice and face a Plague Victim crawling on the ground besides a lootable item (a Greater Glyph of Yrden) and an interactable wolf mark on the ground. The victim will disintegrate as you approach, so don't worry about fighting it. Pick up the glyph and continue.

It is recommended to equip this glyph, if you're able, as it will be a big benefit to you later against the final boss encounter.

Pass the Plague Victim on your right behind the bars (you can't go that way), down the corridor, and to the bridge where you can see a purple candle. Before crossing it, look to your left and slightly up to see a ledge you can jump to.

Jump over to find a small alcove with a chest at the end you can loot. Afterward, jump back down on the bridge and continue over to the purple candle. Sitting on the table-like ledge there is another letter from Reinald and a second Greater Glyph of Yrden.

Turn right and use your witcher senses to spy a wall that can be broken and a mass of black mist that you can use your lantern on. Destroy the wall with either your sword or Aard to find a pile of decomposed corpses and bones you can investigate and see the ghosts of the Plague Victims banging on the wall to be let out.

Go down the steps nearby toward the red torch in the vine-framed entrance. Ignore the breakable wall on your left, as it leads nowhere. Jump onto the ledge to proceed.

Continue along the path beyond it through a winding corridor until meeting another Plague Victim hunched on the ground holding their head. Touch them to activate a cutscene. Don't worry; you don't have to fight them.

Go across the bridge here to see another split in the path and another, unimportant blood stain on the ground you can investigate. The right path is an offshoot that leads nowhere except a small room full of loot and another ghost event by some red bones.

Grab the loot and continue down the main (left) path to a very large, cavernous room where you'll hear a voice begging you for help and see a bridge across the room partially collapse. There are multiple rooms in this cave, and only one way to progress.

If you fall down here, there is a hidden room you can explore before jumping back up via the ramp.

Turn around to see a breakable door you can destroy by attacking or using Aard. Inside are lootable barrels and boxes.

The room closest to the left only has lootable bones and a ghost event. The same can be said about the room directly to the right. Go directly to the farthest room across the cavern from where you entered and turn left to see a marked ledge.

Jump up to it to find another purple candle, a Greater Glyph of Yrden, and a witcher insignia on the wall. Jump again across the large gap to the left of the wolf school marking and enter the office room there.

The office appears to be some sort of office where the priests operated. There are some lootable items here and the Forgotten Priest's Testament on the table. In front of the table is a ghost event where you can watch the forgotten priest praying for the sick boy in front of him. Leave the room and turn right for more loot or left to continue.

Cross across the wooden bridge that partially collapsed by running and then jumping. On your path forward, you'll find another witcher mark on the ground to confirm you're going the right way. Continue along until you're met with another choice:

• Left toward the purple candle.
• Right along the red torches.

The left path leads to a dead end of rubble, but there's another letter from Reinald to read and a third Greater Glyph of Yrden there.

Follow the red-lit path to yet another large cavern for another cutscene. Four Plague Victims will appear – all level 14 – and will attack you this time. Defeat them in order to continue exploring.

The Plague Victims follow similar rules to human enemies. Axii is very effective against them, but you'll need to use a silver sword in order to deal damage.

Stagger them with Axii and close the distance quickly to attempt an auto-kill.

There are two and a half rooms to explore here. The first, and most obvious is the room blocked off by a large boulder. Ignore that for now and explore the room directly across from the boulder/to the right of the entrance. Inside is another Plague Victim to quickly defeat.

There is a ghost event to witness as well as a blood stain on the ground to investigate and numerous lootable containers. In the next room over, you'll find a torture chair covered in blood you can inspect and a letter on the table beside it.

Jump down from this room into the main room. Directly in front of you, use the ramp to jump to the white-marked wall to the right of the boulder-blocked doorway. Turn left and break the door in your way. This appears to be Reinald's study. Inside this room, interact with the chest and the letter on the desk. This will prompt another cutscene.

Now that you have the recipe for Reinald's philter, so long as you have Celandine and Dwarven spirit, you'll be able to craft it. Do so now.

Dwarven spirit is a common drop for the lootable items in the cavern, so if you don't have it, you can find it in the boxes.

If you don't have Celandine, you'll need to either give up on the potion for this quest or leave and return later by following the path until you find a split in the path that leads away from the red torches.

Exit Reinald's study to follow the straightforward path to a set of stairs leading down to a drop-off point. Be careful descending, as there is a Plague Victim standing in wait to ambush you. Turn around quickly and dispatch it before continuing to a point where there is a split in the road.

• Turning left will lead you back toward the entrance of the mine.
• Turn right to continue moving forward.

Ahead is a box-like room where three Plague Victims are standing in the far corners, just out of view. Beware of their ambush as, now that you've ignored the voice, they will be hostile and attack.

Kill all three of them and then continue along the red torches until you eventually reach a very large set of doors with Reinald's fifth letter. Enter the boss's room, but do not drink the potion yet.

The Salt Cavern Walkthrough

Inside the Salt Cavern, you will find Reinald on the far side, suspended by several stalagmites. He'll ask you to break them. Do so by casting Aard in his direction.

Talking To Reinald – Follow The Voice Path

The dialogue here is the shortest and fairly straight to the point. There are no dialogue options for you to choose from, so enjoy the cutscene and prepare for the combat soon to come.

Talking To Reinald – Ignore The Voice Path

If you ignored the voice and crafted the potion, you'll be able to ask Reinald questions and hold a conversation with him.

When Reinald is freed and stands, he'll ask you to give him the potion you crafted. You can choose to either give or refuse to give him the potion, as well as ask him two non-necessary questions.

If you choose to give the potion to "Reinald," the real Reinald will grow angry and shout that it was never him that was speaking. The miasmal possessing him will throw your potion aside and attack you. You can win the fight, but you'll have to do so without the upper hand that the potion might have given you.

If you choose to keep the potion, Reinald will tell you to destroy the Miasmal quickly, and you'll begin combat with the effects of the potion, which allow you to cast signs more quickly and at a higher intensity.

Taking the potion does give you an edge combat-wise, but it does have a drawback at setting your toxicity gauge at nearly half.

Without point allocations in Alchemy or if you're at a lower-than-recommended level, this can be a detriment to you.

How To Defeat The Red Miasmal

The fight against the Red Miasmal is broken into two stages. There is no opportunity to rest in between them, and if you took Reinald's Philter, you'll need to plan your potions accordingly.

Try saving potions for the second stage. Recommended strategies and preparations for this fight include:

• Crafting and equipping the Swallow potion for healing.
• Using a steel weapon for the first stage/saving your silver weapon for stage two.
• Equip any sign intensity boons you have available, especially for Yrden, Aard, and Axii.

Stage One – Reinald

As far as skill goes, stage one may be the more difficult of the two stages. Thankfully, completely defeating Reinald is not necessary, and his health is quite low for the difficulty. Reinald's moveset does require some caution, and his quick moves mean that casting Yrden to slow him down is a constant must. His moveset includes:

• Casting a short-lived, but high-level Quen sign.
• Casting Aard at long distances.
• A strong sword attack.
• A fast backslash sword attack.
• A parry-forward sword slash.
• A dodge jump in any direction (but especially forward).

Reinald's biggest threat is his use of Quen. It is rather strong and is almost always followed by a strong sword attack, being the bulk of his damage. Otherwise, he likes to move constantly and almost always has his sword ready for a parry.

The recommended strategy here is to either wait for his dodge jump or bait and dodge a strong attack to take advantage of an opening.

To defeat him, you don't need to drain all his health. Cast Yrden and then Aard once he's within the Yrden circle.

The combination of Yrden and Aard is a little difficult without help from Reinald's Filter, but still doable.

Place Yrden down away from Reinald and lead him to it, as opposed to casting it around him and hoping to keep him inside as he often likes to jump out of it.

The level of his health is not a requirement for success, but you will either need to cast both signs three times while he's at full health or bring him down to at least one bar in order to trigger the correct dialogue and cast it once.

Beware that once one bar of health is gone, Reinald will begin regenerating health.

During that time, however, he will stand still and render it possible for you to strike him repeatedly.

Once both Yrden and Aard have been successfully cast, you'll be graced with another cutscene and brought into stage two.

For those who are using Reinald's Philter, it's important for you to try and finish this section of the fight quickly so that you continue to enjoy its benefits in the second stage.

Stage Two – Red Miasmal

This is arguably the easier of the two fights, as the Red Miasmal only has two attacking moves and is quite slow – especially with Yrden. However, that being said, it does hit for a significant amount of both physical and fire damage, so do be careful.

The Red Miasmal's moveset includes:

• Teleporting to a spot next to Geralt and then slashing.
• Teleporting a little further away and then using a downward fire strike.
• Teleporting into a corner and summoning Plague Victim minions (twice; at 50 and 25 percent health).

As you can see, there's a lot of teleportation movement from the Red Miasmal but not physical. Using Yrden is necessary here to slow down these teleportations and give you time to attack.

Beware that the slashing attack is sometimes used as a defense when you get a full combo of attacks in, so get in three or four strikes and then dodge back to avoid being retaliated against.

The downward fire strike has a long and obvious wind-up, but it does have a healthy bit of range directly in front of it.

Once you see it, either steer clear at a healthy distance and wait for the Miasmal to eventually teleport and slash (which it will always do after using its fire attack) or, if you're closer, dodge to the left or right and take the window of opportunity to get some hits in/trap it with Yrden.

If you haven't followed the earlier tip, applying the Greater Glyph of Yrden is specifically important for this part of the fight because you will want it always placed.

With higher intensity, your Yrden sign will last even longer, giving you important stamina in the meantime to use for other signs.

For the minions, the Red Miasmal will only perform this twice – once at 50 and then at 25 percent health, respectively. Each time, two Plague Victims at level 14 will appear.

It is heavily recommended to use Axii on them and then attack, as the auto-kill function gives ample immunity frames during the animation and renders it impossible for the Red Miasmal and the other Plague Victim to attack you. Dispatch them quickly and then re-focus your efforts on the Red Miasmal.

To make the most of Yrden, it is recommended to place it just after you have gotten a few hits in and right before – or during – the Miasmal's teleportation so that it appears in Yrden rather than you trying to catch up with it.

If you die at any point during these two stages the Red Miasmal will infect your body, and Geralt will become a minion of it.

Every Possible Outcome

There are three possible endings for this questline, all affected by your dialogue decisions after the fight. Whether you chose to follow or ignore the fight has no impact on these endings.

After the Red Miasmal is defeated, Reinald's ghost will appear. You'll be able to speak with him and learn the truth of his identity and background. Also, you'll be given the crafting diagram for the Forgotten Wolf School's first level (Journeyman) and the quest to seek out the other, advanced pieces at Kaer Morhen.

Refuse To Bring The Priest – Neutral Ending

If you choose to refuse Reinald, he becomes angry and states that he wouldn't abandon his convictions for a priest. Geralt isn't swayed, and you burn Reinald's body to prevent his restless spirit from becoming anything dangerous.

Upon your return to the outside, the Priest awaits your report. He doesn't believe anything you say and dismisses Geralt, giving you your hard-won gold, and tells you that, someday, the Church will investigate on their own…

This ending prevents anyone else from dying and Reinald from becoming an evil spirit at the cost of never exposing the truth of the terrible acts by the Church of the Eternal Fire within the mine – thereby never giving the restless spirits in the mine their justice.

Agree To Bring The Priest – Bad Ending

When you bring the Priest, he's appalled by the things he's seen in the mine on his way to the Salt Cavern. Disgusted by the atrocities of his church, he asks Reinald how to make amends.

Reinald will then state that all followers of the Eternal Fire are either criminals or hypocrites. Your decision here doesn't make a difference on the ending.

No matter your chosen dialogue, the Priest falls into a crisis of Faith. Reinald will ask if the Priest is being honest and what he'll do with this new knowledge. Geralt's dialogue after will determine which of the endings you get. In order to get the "Bad Ending," you'll need to select "Crimes like these can't be forgiven."

Reinald will get angry. Geralt will try to calm him down, but Reinald will attack and kill the Priest before Geralt can intervene. Geralt burns both bodies. The restless spirits never get their justice, the Priest is dead, and Reinald abandoned the teachings of the witchers.

Agree To Bring The Priest – Good Ending

Just like above, instead of selecting "Crimes like these can't be forgiven", you'll need to choose "Don't need a church to do good, priest." Doing so will spur the Priest to abandon the Church of the Eternal Fire and dedicate himself to making amends at the Devil's Pit.

Reinald's body is burned, preventing him from ever becoming an evil spirit, the Priest casts aside the Church of the Eternal Fire and focuses on making amends and seeking justice for the lives lost in the mines, and Geralt walks out with the Priest's gold and the Forgotten Wolven armor diagrams.

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