Bakir

1. Bakir’s Court

The Court Activities menu opens once the last prologue mission, Smoke and Ashes, is done, and the point of all of them is to raise a court member’s anger to maximum so Coen can fight them. Bakir holds “the southwestern parts of Vale Sangora” — Boar’s Back, Rockfalls and West Silts, with some activities in other regions — and his brief is leading a military force, punishing criminals at the pillories and overseeing the distilleries. His seat is Lunar Manor, in the Silts.

How many you actually need is the one number nobody agrees on. Game8 says disrupt at least seven, then complete one more; Fextralife says about nine of the twelve; PowerPyx says about 75% of roughly twelve, which lands on nine as well. Since none of the twelve is lost by doing it, the safe reading is to keep going until the Anger Level is full rather than to count.

• 1

  Bakir’s Headhunters — three, and the quickest

  Matter of Honour, Silent to the Grave and Smoke Them Out. They are also filed as Rebel Hunters. Hunting the headhunters is by far the quickest of his activities in real time — go to where they camp and kill everything there. Matter of Honour is the enemies in front of the house, Silent to the Grave the enemies in the backyard behind the hut in the woods, and Silent to the Grave also carries an optional objective using Compel Soul at a well.

• 2

  Bakir’s Transports — two road ambushes

  Curious Shipment and Fools’s Gold, also grouped as Payoff Transports: intercept the enemies moving along the road and kill them. The one wrinkle is worth knowing before you finish the fight — letting the men leave on Fools’s Gold triggers a follow-up named Ill-Gotten Gains. No source we read says what that follow-up asks.

• 3

  Bakir’s Distilleries — three

  Ends and Means, Coercion and Duress, Offshoot. Track down the three distilleries and destroy them: destroy the equipment and kill the guards. Bakir runs distilleries and death pageants all over Vale Sangora, which is the closest any source comes to explaining why the tournament exists at all.

• 4

  Bakir’s Pillories — three, and each one has a decision in it

  Out of Love, Familiar Face and Old Hand. The places: a backyard in Svartrau City, the village of Parlita, and directly in front of Lunar Manor. The pillory is where Bakir restrains people in stocks for public humiliation whether or not they are guilty, and the activity is killing the guards and then deciding whether to free the captive. That decision is the reason not to rush these: some of the people you free “offer additional opportunities and facilities, such as a new Swordmastery tutor.” At Old Hand, answering “I’m not letting anyone hurt this man” starts the sub-quest Bakir’s Pillories: Catalin’s Tutor — find him at his camp north-west of the pillory, ask him to teach you and beat him in a duel, and he becomes a Swordmastery teacher.

• 5

  A Mother’s Plea — hidden, missable and time-sensitive

  Filed under Uriash Village, it is all three: hidden, missable, and time-sensitive. It is the twelfth activity and the only one you can lose. The gate on it — you must have completed A Friend Like This and Song of the Mountain first — and it runs through Lacra and Ocha and opens a sub-quest, The Heart Wants What It Wants. Because it is time-sensitive once started and time in this game is spent rather than passed, the practical warning is not to open it and then go and do something else for several in-game days. Neither source describes a way to recover it once lost.

• 6

  What all this costs you in time

  Each activity costs three Time Segments, and the whole Bakir questline totals 42 Time Segments — nine segments each for the headhunters, the distilleries and the pillories, six for the transports, and the rest in The Lunar Game. Across all courts, most Court Activities cost three segments, the exception being Ambrus’ Cellars at one. With thirty in-game days in the game and the story finishable in seven to ten, that is the budget to plan against: Bakir’s court alone is a substantial slice of it, and doing all twelve rather than the nine you need costs segments you do not get back.

2. The Lunar Game

The Infamy quest his anger unlocks. A character called Farkas, Bakir’s jester, approaches you claiming to be his servant and offering to help you be rid of his master. You meet him outside Lunar Manor. He advises waiting until Afternoon — five Time Segments into the day — and suggests spending the wait upgrading abilities rather than simply letting the clock run; the games themselves happen at night. The bill differs by source: six Time Segments to PowerPyx and Fextralife, five hours to Game8.

• 1

  The contestants, and the one thing the sources argue about

  Everyone is masked, Coen included — his is a moth. There are four competitors: The Rat, The Cockroach, The Marten and The Porcupine. The Rat will not help you whatever you say, and the Cockroach is too hostile to recruit. You get three Time Segments here, one per conversation, so you cannot speak to everyone anyway.

• 2

  Who to tell that you mean to kill Bakir — three sources, three answers

  The sources disagree here. PowerPyx says The Marten is the one receptive to hearing that you intend to kill Bakir. VGC says the opposite pairing: you win The Porcupine over by telling him you intend to kill Bakir, and you win The Marten over with a two-step exchange instead — “No, it’s a nice change after Farkas” when he remarks that you are not talkative, then “I heard the boyar can’t shut up either.” And if you are open with the Cockroach about your assassination plans he snitches during the finale; refusing to elaborate or deflecting prevents that betrayal. Being open about it with the wrong contestant is how this goes wrong.

• 3

  The Porcupine’s agreement, and the Cockroach’s jug

  Two preparations that pay off inside the maze. Speaking with The Porcupine earns an agreement that he will not fight you when you meet him later. And the Cockroach can be sabotaged — collect toxic leaves from a bush in the corner, visible in Focus Mode, and add them to his jug. Poisoned, he is incapacitated when you meet him and can be killed instantly; unpoisoned it is an ordinary fight.

• 4

  Bakir’s address — do not take the bottom option yet

  When the preparation segments are up, Bakir addresses the contestants. There is a trap in that conversation: the bottom dialogue option starts the fight there and then, and you will be fighting it without equipment, because the gear is what the maze section is for. It is the first of three routes to Bakir, and the harder version — pull your mask off immediately and you fight him and his men: five lackeys to Game8 and VGC, three men fought together before Bakir himself to Vandal.

• 5

  The maze — stripped of gear, and no vampiric abilities

  It is a linear stretch: you are stripped of everything and handed a low-level sword, and you progress by killing things and picking up gear upgrades as you go. Vampiric abilities stay off, so this is a sword and Swordmastery section. Interior rat areas let you feed to restore health without being noticed. The opposition is a vampiric dog, then hounds, undead, a Murohn boss and the Great Bog Wurm. One practical warning for anyone on Duelist: quicksave after each maze fight, because losing the run costs the whole stretch.

• 6

  The riddle — the answer is the left one

  Three holes, or three switches, and a rhyme. In full: silver coin on the right, the middle like summer light, the left reeking of blood and fear. The answer is the left. The wording misleads — the pleasant-sounding options are the trap, because Bakir’s taste runs to torment. The cost of guessing: the middle and right holes spring traps that damage Coen.

• 7

  Meeting the Porcupine again — the token, and the mercy

  If you reached an understanding earlier he lets you through. If you did not, you fight him, and he stops short of dying and asks for mercy. “Sure. Separate ways.” lets him escape, and he reappears at the end of the maze, captured at the quest’s end. “It won’t be that easy.” fights and kills him immediately. There is a second beat after that: “I have to.” wins Bakir’s approval and gains you his token, while “I can’t.” has Bakir order a guard to kill the Porcupine instead. Killing him for the token gains significant Bakir approval, and approval is the currency the next step spends.

• 8

  The coin, and the feast: talking your way into the treasury

  After the competitors are dealt with you are told to take the coin from another competitor’s body, and this particular choice has minimal impact on how the quest ends. What does have impact is the conversation that follows. There are three routes out of it — unmask and fight Bakir with his men, win his approval and fight him alone in the treasury, or demand Farkas’ amethyst ring, which Bakir denies having. Put simply: keep the mask on and you corner him alone in his treasure vault, which is the easier fight. The yellow options that get you there, in order: “I’m sorry, but I’m not taking the mask off.” · “With pleasure.” · “Cheers!” · “To friendship and good fortune!” · “My wish is to die fighting, not quietly in my bed.” · “Is that all? Can I get my reward now?” · and, if any competitors are still alive, “I thought you might want to eat them later.”

  One caveat comes from a single player’s report rather than from tested guidance, and it is worth reading before you decide to be merciful twice: sparing both the Porcupine and the Cockroach may prevent the isolation from happening at all. No source we read confirms that.

3. The Duel: Bakir

Bakir the Mad Khan is one of Brencis’ commanders, holding the south-western region of Vale Sangora. The fight opens as a brawler and turns into something else: he starts on punches and kicks and “will begin incorporating his blood magic into his attacks” as it goes on, and the blood magic cannot be blocked at all. Game8 counts three escalating phases, while PowerPyx says he cycles between ranged attacks and melee punches and introduces nothing new once he has shown you both.

• 1

  The three phases

  Phase one is blood lines, a delayed kick and a spinkick. Phase two adds blood birds, summoned after he teleports. Phase three opens with an AoE ground slam that leads into his heavy combos. The method is Perfect Blocks, Active Abilities and Shadowstep, with the window to attack coming after his blood attack; a mid-game Vampirism build helps with survivability. Note the one thing that does not carry over from the tournament: the restriction on vampiric abilities is a rule of the games, and the duel is where Shadowstep becomes the answer.

• 2

  What to block and what to dodge

  Right hooks, uppercuts and overhead punches can be blocked or parried; front kicks are unblockable. For the blood fissures, dodge the extended blood lines sideways or interrupt him with the Dirty Trick ability. Against the blood birds, the timing that matters is to dodge when they are close, not early. The last tip is a positioning one: he performs evasive teleports, so do not commit to long combos.

• 3

  Drain or kill — and why drain

  The condition first: draining is available only at night, when you are a Vrakhir. Drain and you unlock the Shadowstorm Vampiric Ability, which slows down time around you and is good for crowd control. Kill him and you miss it. There is no real story consequence to draining. On the armour the sources split: PowerPyx presents the two as alternatives — drain for Shadowstorm, or kill and loot the Legendary Medium Chestplate, Bakir’s Armour — while Game8 and Fextralife say Bakir’s Armour comes off his body either way, and TheGamer says killing yields nothing valuable. The full drop set, with no branch: Ruby Brooch, Denarius, Potent Razor Claw Vial, Bakir’s Armour and Bakir’s Treasury Key.

• 4

  Inviting him in, if you drained him

  A second choice only draining opens. “I’ll invite you nonetheless.” keeps him with you, and his soul stays inside Coen, commenting on what you do, and helps during the final battle against Brencis for a short time before Brencis absorbs his soul and turns him against you. “Suit yourself.” instead leaves him in Anachora. Draining also gives corruption progress. Nothing past that is described, here or in the sources.

• 5

  Where the body ends up, and the trophy wording

  One logistical warning: if the fight happens in the courtyard rather than the treasure room, Farkas moves you to the treasure room the moment it ends, so you have to walk back to loot the body. And the trophy is worth re-reading before you improvise. The Mad Khan (bronze) is “Kill Bakir during the games”, and one player reports taking the money instead, attacking him in the courtyard afterwards, and the trophy not popping. There are 47 trophies in the game with 18 marked missable, and none is truly missable if you keep frequent manual saves — this is one of the places to take that advice. The quest itself has no fail state, and pays 500 XP.

4. The Ring

A side quest that begins inside the treasury you just won. It starts once The Lunar Game is over: pick up the ring, and Farkas at Lunar Manor asks after it — speak to him about the Ring with the Purple Eye. One prerequisite matters: talking Bakir into granting treasury access is not enough, you have to have defeated him to search the place properly.

• 1

  Where the ring is

  A small chest on a shelf, on the north-western side of Bakir’s treasure chamber. It has a purple eye. Finding it gives 75 XP.

• 2

  Give it to Farkas, or refuse and open the other three

  Hand it over and Farkas takes it and leaves, and the quest ends there. A later, non-quest event then shows what it was for: Farkas uses the ring trying to help his brother, and accidentally kills him instead. Refuse, and the quest instead asks you to find someone who knows what the ring is, which is where the rewards live.

• 3

  The three other recipients, and what each gives

  Each costs two Time Segments. Anca, at the Crossroads inn, destroys the ring and gives you the Quick Fighter’s Ring — Epic, with more maximum human health, more human health restoration and reduced Swordmastery cooldown, good for a human or Swordmastery build. Bakr-Erga or the Sanzhan Tsarina each give Vrakhir’s Endurance instead: physical damage reduction, magical damage reduction and better restoration from drinking blood, which is the Vrakhir-build answer. There is a fourth thing you can do with it — show it to the Matriarch witchcraft vendor — but what that yields is not documented. A coda: give it to anyone but Farkas and then visit him in Parlita, and you learn that Bakir lied, and the ring has no healing properties at all.

• 4

  Is it missable? The sources say opposite things

  PowerPyx says no fail state, not missable, and one or three Time Segments depending on what you choose. Game8 says the quest is missable — because reaching the ring requires having beaten Bakir — that it is available only at night, and that it costs zero Time Segments. Only the first contradiction has a consequence, and Game8’s reading is the cautious one: search the treasury while you are standing in it, rather than leaving and coming back.

Bakir Completion

✅ Before Moving On to Xanthe...