Smoke and Ashes is the sixth mission in the Prologue of The Blood of Dawnwalker's story. It begins automatically at the end of Bad Blood, regardless of the outcome of the final fight. As usual, throughout this walkthrough we'll avoid as many spoilers as possible while giving you all the tips and directions you need to make sure you don't miss anything along the way. For this playthrough in particular, we'll also be following the optimal route to see as many endings as possible in a single playthrough, saving you the trouble of starting over unnecessarily.
This is going to be a heavily story-focused mission, with no major threats and another tutorial later on. Follow Anca towards the objective marker. It's worth pointing out that you can now take anything you find without worrying about stealing. After all, for someone to report a theft they would have to... you know... still be alive. Watch out for the wolves and continue following Anca until a cutscene begins.
Head towards the objective marker and ignore The Firebrand if the side quest activates along the way. For now, continue to your house.
Once inside, use Focus Mode and investigate all the yellow-highlighted clues. There are objects to examine near the entrance to the house, in the kitchen, in the courtyard and in the bedroom on the other side of the courtyard. Be careful not to miss the piece of cloth caught on one of the windows along the northern wall of the kitchen.
Once you've examined everything, leave the house to trigger a cutscene. Afterwards, follow the tutorial instructions to cast Compel Soul on the dead soldier.
Directly northwest of the corpse, you'll see Brencis's Banner, which you can interact with.
Pick it up and return to the dead soldier, then cast Compel Soul again and use the banner as a catalyst to extract more information. This is where the game explains the 30-day deadline to save your family, although you still won't have full freedom to explore just yet.
Finally, head to the village entrance and remove the rubble blocking the gate. This is what consumes most of the mission's time.
Once the following cutscenes are over, you'll finally have full freedom to explore Vale Sangora, with roughly 29 days remaining before Brencis's coronation. From this point onwards, you'll need to decide what to do after the Prologue.
