Vigil of Ash

Category: medium

Prerequisites: complete the_bone_orchard

The Firewatch Begins

Once a generation the order keeps the Vigil of Ash: nine nights of fire on every mound, to burn the year's grief out of the ground. Maren has decided this is the year. Nine nights of fire starts with a mountain of timber — start felling.

Objectives:

• CHOP: Yew Logs ×130

Rewards:

• ✨ 60,000 Woodcutting XP
• 4,000 gp

The First Night

The first vigil-night belongs to the newly dead. Tend the yew fires from dusk to dawn; Tobin rings the hours, voice cracking on the cold.

Objectives:

• BURN: Yew Logs ×90

Rewards:

• ✨ 15,000 Firemaking XP
• 4,000 gp

Gatecrashers

Firelight draws the restless like moths. Skeletons shamble out of the fog toward the second night's pyres. Turn them back — and keep their bones for the rite.

Objectives:

• KILL: kill skeleton_1 ×40

Rewards:

• Bones ×50
• 4,500 gp

The Bitter Smoke

The third night is for the forgotten dead, and its fires are mahogany — the bitter smoke 'carries names the living no longer say.' Burn it in every brazier on the mound-line.

Objectives:

• BURN: Mahogany Logs ×100

Rewards:

• ✨ 13,000 Firemaking XP
• 4,500 gp

Ash to Earth

The gatecrashers' bones go back where they belong, buried in the still-warm ash of the third night's fires. 'Warm earth settles them quickest,' Maren says, working beside you.

Objectives:

• BURY: bones_normal ×70

Rewards:

• ✨ 5,500 Prayer XP
• 5,000 gp

Ember-Beds

Nine nights of fire eats fuel beyond reason. The braziers need coal ember-beds under the timber or the order will be bankrupt by night six. Dig deep.

Objectives:

• MINE: Coal Ore ×150

Rewards:

• ✨ 8,000 Mining XP
• 5,000 gp

The Children's Night

The fourth night is the hardest — it belongs to the children of the mounds, and its fires are maple, 'sweet smoke for short lives.' The order keeps this night in silence. Keep it with them.

Objectives:

• BURN: Maple Logs ×120

Rewards:

• Bones ×70
• ✨ 12,000 Firemaking XP
• 5,500 gp

Kept Flame

Halfway through the vigil, Maren hands you the fire-warden's iron ring — the vigil is yours to lead now. Lead it: bury the night's offerings at every pyre on the line, and ring each one down yourself.

Objectives:

• BURY: bones_normal ×80

Rewards:

• ✨ 4,500 Prayer XP
• 5,500 gp
• 💎 28 gems

Provisioning the Watch

Nine nights of firewatch means nine nights of hungry watchers. Land swordfish for the vigil-kitchens before the fifth night falls.

Objectives:

• CATCH: raw_swordfish ×120

Rewards:

• ✨ 60,000 Fishing XP
• 6,000 gp

The Vigil Kitchens

The kitchens run through the night, passing hot food up the mound-line hand to hand. Take a shift at the fires — the watchers eat what you cook.

Objectives:

• COOK: raw_swordfish ×100

Rewards:

• ✨ 45,000 Cooking XP
• 6,000 gp

The Ash-Buyer

A robed 'collector' moves through the crowds that gather to watch the vigil, buying pouches of pyre-ash — and paying in the same old grave-coin the robbers carried. Pick the cult's go-betweens clean.

Objectives:

• THIEVE: mage ×90

Rewards:

• ✨ 9,000 Thieving XP
• 6,500 gp

The Long Sixth Night

A storm front rolls in for the sixth night and the fires gutter under the first rain. The vigil does not pause for weather. Burn yew against the wind until dawn.

Objectives:

• BURN: Yew Logs ×130

Rewards:

• Bones ×70
• ✨ 17,000 Firemaking XP
• 6,500 gp

What the Rain Uncovered

The storm stripped the turf off a pauper's trench nobody knew was there. The seventh night halts while you do what must be done: every bone, buried right, before the fires relight.

Objectives:

• BURY: bones_normal ×100

Rewards:

• ✨ 6,000 Prayer XP
• 7,000 gp

Frames for the Storm-Lanterns

The storm shredded half the grave-lanterns on the line. The smith's answer is mithril frames — light enough to hang, strong enough to shrug off weather. Smelt the bars.

Objectives:

• SMELT: Mithril Bar ×80

Rewards:

• ✨ 6,000 Smithing XP
• 7,000 gp

Thieves at the Ash-Heaps

The ash-buyer's employers have stopped paying and started taking — armed men raking the sacred ash-heaps into sacks by dark. The eighth night's watchers catch them at it. Help end it.

Objectives:

• KILL: kill bandit_1 ×45

Rewards:

• Bones ×60
• 7,500 gp

The Bitter Smoke, Again

For the eighth night the order burns mahogany a second time — once for the forgotten, once for the taken. The ash-thieves' haul is poured back onto the fires as the names are read anew.

Objectives:

• BURN: Mahogany Logs ×130

Rewards:

• Bones ×80
• ✨ 15,000 Firemaking XP
• 7,500 gp

Warden of the Vigil

Maren says nothing when she sees the fire-warden's ring worn easy on your hand — she just stops checking your work. Before the final night, walk the whole pyre-line alone and settle every mound it guards, offering by offering.

Objectives:

• BURY: bones_normal ×90

Rewards:

• ✨ 5,000 Prayer XP
• 8,000 gp
• 💎 30 gems

The Ninth Night

The ninth night belongs to the dead who have no one else. Every fire on the mound-line burns at once, and the order sings the year's grief into the smoke until sunrise. When the last pyre falls to embers, the ground under the Hallowed Barrows feels — for the first time — light. Deep below, something that fed on that grief goes hungry. And angry.

Objectives:

• BURN: Yew Logs ×150

Rewards:

• ✨ 20,000 Firemaking XP
• 10,000 gp
• 💎 36 gems