The Trials of Durance is a side quest and companion quest for Durance in Pillars of Eternity.
Synopsis[ | ]
Durance says he and I are meant to travel together, and that we can teach one another. He is a man of many words, who seems to raise more questions than he answers, but if I travel the road long enough with him, perhaps I may discover something worth learning.
Walkthrough[ | ]
This quest requires the player character to experience two visions to learn about Durance. Progress in this quest is made through conversing with Durance after camping with him in the party. Note that it is necessary to camp – resting at an inn won't trigger the visions. However, resting at Caed Nua Brighthollow can also can trigger the vision.
First vision[ | ]
This triggers 3 rests into Act 1, or after Act 2 has begun. Exhaust all dialog options after confronting Durance about the vision.
You awake to see Durance, his staff held in both of his hands before him. A flame flickers at its top end, casting long shadows across his face as he stares in contemplation.
Still, for all the light of the fire, your eyes can't focus on him... perhaps it is awakening from sleep, or a trick of the light, but he seems... indistinct, blurred around the edges, everything except for the staff.
The staff... he seems to be studying its engravings. As you watch, the engravings glow thinly red, like through the cracks of heat-suffused wood.
The lines stream like molten metal, burning along the edges of his staff, then branch out in an intricate series of fiery veins, bunching thickly where his hands clutch the wood, pulsing as if a heartbeat.
As you watch, the veins spiral into a dozen, separate circles... circles that spiral again until they are arranged in a circle of their own. They pulse, wait, and all is strangely silent... and...
And then, suddenly, there is a great light from the fire, a rushing of air, a great flash... and you awaken again, to see Durance in the same place, still holding his staff, but he is solid, real.
He doesn't seem to have noticed you... or reacted to what occurred.
Second vision[ | ]
In the second cut-scene, the Watcher again wakes up to find Durance staring at his staff. This triggers 3 to 6 rests into (or after) Act 3. Exhaust all dialog options after confronting Durance about the vision.
Your eyes open to a familiar scene. Durance sits with his staff laid across his lap, a malignant flame sprouting from one end.
He is difficult to make out, his features soft, bleeding together. But the staff you can see clearly, its etchings aglow in molten orange. Though Durance's face is difficult to distinguish, there is no mistaking the hardened expression, the furrowed brow. His voice hisses and sputters, low and unintelligible, as though having a private argument with the staff. Traces of spittle catch the firelight as they fly from his lips like sparks.
...and to your surprise, there is a female figure behind him. You are about to call out a warning, when you realize it is the Magran statue where you met Durance at the Fork...
Yet... she seemed almost... alive for a moment... her cast shadow seemed as if it was moving, cloaked, then it is still, frozen with the night at its back.
[Examine the staff.]
There is something odd about one of the symbols. A circle of twelve smaller circles. One of the small circles glows brightly, but the other eleven give off little light. They flicker and fade like dying embers.
Between his hissing curses, Durance lowers his face close to the staff and blows on the fading circles with panicked rapidity, coaxing light from them, but they do not ignite. One by one, the light of the circles dies, and smoke rises from their ashes. Only one still burns.
Durance hurls his staff at his feet, and it clatters to the ground. Its edges have become soft, difficult to find. Like its owner, the staff has become a blur.
You close your eyes and reopen them, and Durance is there, picking up his staff from the ground, but the blur is gone, and you are awake.
Final conversation[ | ]
After the two visions, you need to complete Council of Stars and speak with Durance a third time. Your choices affect his end-game slides.
- First ask Durance, "Does what we learned about Woedica trouble you?"
- Select any dialog options EXCEPT for "I'm not certain - it's just a feeling I have" to convince Durance of the plot between Woedica and Magran.
- Failing to convince him of the plot will give a different end-game slide.
- Exhaust all other dialog options. This will complete the quest.
Journal[ | ]
| quests\companions\companion_qst_durance | ||
|---|---|---|
| ID | Objectives | |
| 0 | The Trials of Durance | |
| 10000 | I met a strange priest in Magran's Fork who claims we have something to gain from questioning one another. | |
| 1 | Spend time traveling with Durance. | |
| 10001 | Durance says he and I are meant to travel together, and that we can teach one another. He is a man of many words who seems to raise more questions than he answers, but if I travel the road long enough with him, perhaps I may discover something worth learning. | |
| 2 | Discuss your vision with Durance. | |
| 10002 | I had a dream about Durance. My eyes seemed unable to focus on him, and a blinding light burst from his staff. Something about the dream seemed all too real - as though something in his soul was revealing itself to me. I should ask him what I saw. | |
| 3 | Continue to get to know Durance. | |
| 10003 | Durance revealed to me that he was one of the engineers of the Godhammer bomb. There must be more to this that he isn't telling me - at least not yet. | |
| 4 | Find out from Durance what the fading symbols meant. | |
| 10004 | I had another dream about Durance. I saw a burning symbol on his staff - a circle of twelve smaller circles, and as I watched it, eleven of the twelve faded out. In my dream Durance seemed to try to rekindle them, but it was no use. Perhaps Durance will know what it meant, as he did with the last dream. | |
| 5 | Continue to journey with Durance. | |
| 10005 | Durance was evasive when I asked him about the fading circles on his staff. He claimed it represented his lost connection with the other engineers of the Godhammer, whom he left behind to follow his own path after the destruction of Eothas. When the time is right, I'll see if there isn't more to be learned about this. | |
| 6 | Talk to Durance about Woedica. | |
| 10006 | Learning that Woedica is responsible for Waidwen's Legacy leaves many questions about the circumstances of the Saint's War and the destruction of Eothas. Durance may have further insight. | |
| 20000 | Durance was unsettled in discussing Woedica's plot and the death of Eothas. It seems probable that Magran would've been in league with Woedica, given that the Godhammer was Magran's work. But Durance still seems to be in denial. If I can make that case to him using his own words as my evidence, I may be able to break Magran's hold over him. | |
| End states | ||
|
Completed | |
| 30000 | I was able to get Durance to see that Magran had conspired with Woedica in creating the Godhammer, and that her refusing to speak with him wasn't because he had wronged her, but rather was because she had intended him to die with the other Godhammer engineers, in order to keep secret her direct involvement in Eothas' destruction. Though it appears this alliance between the goddesses was short-lived, it sheds new light on the Saint's War and the epidemic of Hollowborn infants that followed. Durance, for his part, has renounced his goddess and sworn revenge. As a man who's killed one god already, it would seem that he might be one of the only people alive who could make good on such a threat. | |
|
Failed | |
| 30001 | Durance has died. | |
|
|
Failed - Too Late | |
| 30002 | This matter can no longer be resolved. | |