Should you kill or spare Vaeric? Starfield has expanded the Settled Systems with the sizable Shattered Space story expansion. Its main questline, while full of mystery, cosmic horror, and a surprising amount of intrigue, is fairly straightforward. Still, you might be having trouble with some of the House-related quests that must be completed before venturing into the Scaled Citadel on the Va’ruun homeworld.
One of these three House-centric missions is Conflict in Conviction, which introduces House Veth’aal and its problem. For you, this is just a matter of convincing the leaders to restore access to the power grid. Unsurprisingly, getting them to cooperate will be far more difficult, as Viktor, the House’s Elder, wants to punish his son Vaeric for suddenly deserting the House and his duties as heir (plus, his daughter died during the cataclysm that’s affected everyone on Va’ruun’kai).
The Conflict in Conviction Quest tasks you with the choice of either sparing or killing Vaeric
Viktor wants to follow Va’ruun tradition and kill his son for disobedience, as he thinks their House would suffer in the public eye and politically otherwise. The rest of the family, including Vaeric’s aunt, thinks he’s gone mad and should forgive his son, especially after the tragic death of his daughter. This is where you come in: You need to find Vaeric and dispense justice… however you see fit. The important thing is the matter is resolved.
Where is Vaeric in Conflict in Conviction?
The first step of the quest will send you to Herald’s Rest, the local bar of sorts, to search for information about Vaeric’s whereabouts. There are three different people that you can converse with and try to persuade. In my case, the bartender proved to be easy to convince to give up some information. Just tell her that you’re very worried about your friend (Vaeric) and his health until she’s persuaded.
She’ll point you to Tane, a shady individual who also happens to be an outsider. You can either intimidate him or give him 1,000 credits to give up information on Vaeric. Regardless of your choice, he’ll join you as a companion in your search for the missing heir with a tracker that will beep more frequently the closer you get (also look to the top right of the screen for the distance in meters).
Exit the city through the suggested gate and head northwest like Tane suggests as soon as you cross the gate. You’ll soon spot a large, rocky mountain to the left. The tracker will continue to beep and show a descending number of meters if you continue straight ahead and down the valley to the right of the rocky formation, but at some point, you’ll need to turn left and won’t be able to easily climb the wall of rocks.
Instead, turn towards the mountain as soon as you see it, slightly to the left of your initial direction and completely ignore the aforementioned valley. You’ll quickly spot a path that goes up and eventually leads to Abandoned Camp halfway through the climb. It’s slightly to the right of the path, but you can’t miss it (check the image below for the exact location).
Abandoned Camp clues
Vaeric isn’t at the camp, but he’s been there. You’ll need to look for five items next to progress the quest:
- A glowing creature that’s dead on the ground.
- The tracking device next to the bed.
- Vaeric’s camp log on a table nearby.
- Bloodstains just by the tent.
- Footprints on the ground, next to the tracking device.
These are all easy to spot, as markers will pop up once you’re close enough to them. Just go through the objects and furniture at the camp. Once you’ve found all five, the investigation will be interrupted by a group of vortex horrors. This might be a tough fight depending on your level, so make sure you’ve got enough ammo and healing items on you.
Finding Apostate’s Refuge and the final clues
The quest will automatically send you northwest of the abandoned camp and straight into Irina’s farm, where you have to do some light questioning and convincing. There should be no issues here, and she’ll quickly point you straight north of her farm towards another farm that was abandoned (now marked as Apostate’s Refuge on the map).
The trek is short, and you can enter the main building without issue. Here, you need to find a room on the first floor with a computer and read all of Vaeric’s logs. Next, go up the stairs and look for another log on top of a table. It’s hard to miss. This will trigger the next step of the quest right outside; you need to speak with Tane.
Killing or sparing Vaeric
The search ends here, as Vaeric shows up with his gun up and pointing at you and Tane. You can either aggro and kill him or talk him down and hear his side of the story. Even if you end up murdering him in cold blood, he’s worth listening to.
The best (and most profitable) choice is letting Vaeric live in exchange for 10,000 credits, later asking him for a signet ring so his father buys the lie that his son has been executed and is gone for good.
The other options are the following:
- Killing Vaeric as you were instructed and taking the ring back to Viktor at The Keep to prove the mission is complete. This leads to the same result when it comes to the reactions and behaviours of those at House Veth’aal and the city, and includes a brief confrontation with Tane, who you can either let go or kill just to make sure the secret of Vaeric rejecting his House never ever gets out. His loot rewards aren’t great, so just letting him go is fine if you’ve taken this route.
- Persuading Vaeric to return to his family. This requires persuasion, and you might need to quicksave and reload until you get it right, but it’s the ‘happiest’ ending in the sense that no one’s hurt physically or emotionally. Of course, the heir’s future is tied to his House’s tradition and position, but we don’t know that for sure. The ‘deal breaker’ for most players will be the lack of extra credits.
After returning to The Keep and sharing the news with those at House Veth’aal, the main questline continues and you’re granted access to Dazra’s main armory, which is found inside The Keep. You might need to leave the area and come back later for the vendor NPC to allow you to shop though.
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