Ambrus

1. Court Activities: making Ambrus angry

Court Activities are the repeatable jobs scattered through a vassal's territory, and working through them is the only way to open his quest. The wider system works like this: wrecking operations and clearing camps raises Coen's general infamy, and doing it in a particular officer's territory raises that officer's personal anger on top. There is a catch — there is no way to reduce infamy once you have it, and the higher it goes the heavier the checkpoints and the more troops Brencis's court puts on the map. So the activities you do here are permanent, and they make the rest of the valley harder as a side effect.

• 1

  How many, and the number nobody agrees on

  The sources disagree: PowerPyx says to keep going until his anger sits at roughly 75%, Game8's Ambrus boss guide says about nine court quests max him out, and Game8's Ambrus's Cuirass page says the quest unlocks after at least ten infamy quests in his domain. The game shows you an anger meter and none of these numbers is the meter, so watch it rather than counting. Clearing at least one of each type is sound whichever number is right.

• 2

  Leech Collectors — the easiest, and the one with a surprise at the end

  These are the easiest: destroy the barrels of leeches at the collectors' camps. They pay out Blood Leeches as consumables. The detail worth having before you start the last one is that an elite called The Bloodletter spawns after the final Leech Collector activity, and drops a Phial of Bakir's Blood — so the easiest activity type ends on the hardest single fight in the set, and it drops something belonging to a different vassal.

• 3

  Blood Transports and Prisoner Transports — the convoys

  Blood Transports are second easiest: kill the guards, destroy the blood barrels. One of them is a convoy already moving through Maragir Village rather than a static camp. Prisoner Transports are a step up — escorts walking human prisoners to be drained, travelling the roads and sometimes through towns, where the local guards may pile in if you attack there. The mitigation is that the convoys move slowly, so they are easy to catch and easy to pick a spot for.

• 4

  Blood Cellars and Draining Dungeons — the hard pair

  These are the challenging ones, and they work the same way: storming an outpost held by several enemies at once. The advice for them is not about a build but about the fundamentals — decent equipment and a real grasp of perfect blocks and perfect dodges, because these are the activities where being surrounded actually happens. If you are doing Ambrus at a low level, these are the two types to leave until last.

• 5

  Prisoner Processing Camp — the sixth type, and a side quest too

  There is a sixth type, with a single entry: Under Watchful Eyes. Defeat the enemies in the camp and rescue the Miller from the prison cell, for 3 time segments, and it also counts as the side quest The Firebrand. All fourteen of Ambrus’s activities are in the Court Activities tracker.

2. The Gilded Gauntlet

Ambrus's infamy quest, and the frame the rest of this page sits inside: the challenge, an optional detour that is a whole quest of its own, and then the duel. Game8 marks it missable, while PowerPyx says the quest itself has no fail state; the duel only proceeds after sunset, so it is a night quest whatever else it is. Its time cost varies by source — 1 segment for the lodge and 2 for the bell to PowerPyx, 4 to Game8's quest page and 3 to its walkthrough index, 2 straight to the duel or 1 plus 2 with the lodge to Vandal — and none of those figures includes The Bittersweet Toast, which is much the larger bill.

• 1

  The crosses at Maragir

  With his anger maxed the quest appears on the map. The marker is in southern Maragir: go to Maragir Village's public square and approach the crosses, which starts the cutscene. The crucifixion scene is Ambrus's reply to everything you have been wrecking — it carries his challenge to a duel.

• 2

  Iulian Codrin's hunting lodge — optional, and the whole reason to read the next section

  The quest gives you an objective to show up for the duel, and alongside it an optional meeting with Iulian Codrin at his hunting lodge, directly north of Maragir village. Taking it starts The Bittersweet Toast. Skip it and you fight Ambrus at full strength; take it and you can poison him first. The visit costs 1 time segment, and choosing "I'll make my own way there" at the lodge saves one more.

  Take the detour before you ring the bell, not after. The Bittersweet Toast is highly missable, and it is only reachable from inside this quest at this point.

• 3

  The bell at the watchtower, at night

  The spot is the ruined watchtower south of Maragir Village. Ring the bell to summon him, which costs 2 time segments and must be done at night. That is also the condition attached to the reward later, since draining his blood is a night-only option — ringing at night therefore settles two things at once.

  • Rewards for the quest: 500 XP and 1 skill point, plus the Scarlet Shield ability if you drain him.
  • Trophy: The Right Fist of the Knyaz (bronze) — automatic for defeating Ambrus at the end of this quest.

3. The Bittersweet Toast

A side quest that lives inside The Gilded Gauntlet and costs more than its parent: about 9 time segments to PowerPyx, 7–10 to Game8 and 10 to Vandal, with the ritual alone taking 3. What you buy for that is a much easier duel — a poisoned Ambrus fights with a green health bar that drains on its own throughout, and the difference is significant. It also carries the only hard deadline on this page.

• 1

  The plan, and who it kills

  Iulian Codrin's idea is that Ambrus drinks from a human at the duel, so the human is the delivery mechanism: poison him, and the poison goes where it is wanted. You can accept or refuse and come back later. It is his own life he is spending — the final objective is to make sure Iulian finishes the entire brew despite his agony, and refusing to complete the ritual, or killing him when he begs you to stop, fails the quest outright.

  Vera. PowerPyx flags that accepting the plan causes her death; Game8 says no choice saves her: her death is scripted, and she is killed by the Pale Ravager — the same creature you can go and hunt in the next step. You find her house empty and then her body by a ritual altar. She died trying to get the lizard gland that would have let Iulian survive his own plan. Her scattered notes are what make the brew work at all, so collect them.

• 2

  Through the forest to Vera's hut

  Follow Iulian out from the lodge — wolves on the way — past a mutilated body, to Vera's empty house. This leg costs 1–2 segments. Search the hut, follow her footprints with Focus Mode, find her traps and her ritual notes, and then find her. That stretch takes 3 segments.

• 3

  The Pale Ravager, and whether Iulian lives

  Optional, 1 segment, and the only decision in the quest with a person on the other end of it. Follow a slime trail into a nearby cave, kill the Pale Ravager and take its Tatzelwurm gland. Adding the gland to the brew means the poison does not kill Iulian; leaving it out means it does. Iulian wants to die, so going without the gland is what he actually asked for; adding it is done secretly, against his stated wishes. The poison works on Ambrus either way, so this choice costs you nothing at the duel. The Ravager is worth 100 XP.

• 4

  The ritual, and the three-day clock it starts

  Give Iulian the instructions, use the cauldron, then the ritual itself: five pillars worked with Astral Communion — in daytime — against spectral enemies and a Fallen Witch. Three segments. Then Iulian drinks.

  Now the deadline. Finishing this quest hands you the objective "Show up for the duel on time", with exactly three days — 48 time segments. Past that, Iulian's condition has become obvious, Ambrus brings a different victim instead, and the objective fails. Everything above is spent for nothing if you wander off and do Court Activities for a week, so clear the calendar before you start the ritual rather than after.

  • Reward: 250 XP on completion, plus 100 XP for the Pale Ravager.
  • Time cost: about 9 segments (PowerPyx), 7–10 (Game8) or 10 (Vandal), 3 of them the ritual.
  • Curing the poison on yourself, if you catch it: advance time or do non-combat quests.

4. The duel, and the choices after it

The end of The Gilded Gauntlet. A toast first, then three phases, then two decisions in a row. It happens at night, which means the claws and the Vampirism tree are available to you — and that the sword is too, since swords work in both halves of the cycle while claws are night-only. As a general preference rather than a read on this fight, the sword is the more reliable of the two, and some Swordmastery is worth keeping either way.

• 1

  The toast: four lines, and who ends up poisoned

  If you brought the poisoned human, Ambrus offers to share him before the fight and how you answer decides who takes the dose. There are four options:

  • "Letting a peasant drink first?" — Ambrus drinks the poison, Iulian survives.
  • "I don't trust anything you offer" — Ambrus drinks the poison, Iulian survives.
  • "Gladly! To a juicy slaughter" — both Coen and Ambrus end up poisoned.
  • "I don't drink from humans" — Iulian dies, and the poison reaches Ambrus partway through the fight instead.
• 2

  Phase one: he blocks, so stop swinging

  The central point about the fight is that Ambrus blocks ordinary strikes easily, so attacking on your own initiative does very little; the damage comes from perfect blocks answered with perfect ripostes. He also has three unblockable shadowstep attacks that have to be dodged rather than blocked. By tell: block his normal attacks to make openings, dodge backwards out of the sword flurry, and side-step the teleport that ends in an upward slash.

• 3

  Phase two: Scarlet Shield, and hitting him heals him

  At the first health breakpoint he puts up Scarlet Shield — the same ability you can take off him afterwards. It is shown by a grey diamond indicator and attacking into it heals him, so the answer is to stop. A faster one: use Dirty Trick to strip it, or wait it out. This phase's teleport ends differently from phase one's — a downward slash — with the same side-step answer.

• 4

  Phase three: the clones, and the flurry at the end

  At the second breakpoint he teleports and comes at you from several angles at once, and the answer is simply to defend until he goes back to normal attacks. They are blood clones: perfect-block them, and wait for the real Ambrus to reappear before committing to anything. The fast flurry of strikes after his final health bar breaks is his most dangerous move, which is also the point at which a poisoned health bar is quietly finishing the job for you.

• 5

  Drain or kill — and the drain is night-only

  Beaten, he can be drained or simply killed. Draining teaches Scarlet Shield, one of the best Vampirism skills in the game; killing him ends it there and you do not get the skill. The drain option only appears at night, which is another reason the bell gets rung after sundown. Looting his body gives Ambrus's Cuirass, a legendary heavy chestpiece — 149 armour, −11.8% attack stamina cost, +11.8% activation charge restoration from both attacks and perfect blocks, and −3.9% vampiric ability cooldown.

• 6

  Invite him in, or leave him — and what it does not affect

  After draining comes the second decision. Invite Ambrus in and his soul lives on inside Coen as a voice that comments on the journey, and he helps in the final fight against Brencis — though Brencis can reabsorb him and turn him against you. Refuse and he goes to Anachora, the vrakhiri afterlife, with no help given later. The choice affects neither trophies nor endings, which makes it a preference rather than a fork — refusing is the option for a player who wants the vrakhiri gone rather than carried around.

  One trophy note. The bronze Realmwalker is for visiting Anachora for the first time — guaranteed during the final boss fight, with earlier routes through specific questlines. Inviting his essence in is one of those early routes, not a separate requirement.

Ambrus Completion

✅ Before Moving On to Bakir...