Through the Shadows Walkthrough - Dragon Age: The Veilguard Guide - IGN (2024)

Through the Shadows is the final major mission in Bellara's companion quest line. It unlocks after completing Blood of Arlathan in the main story and talking to Bellara for the short Hummingbird's Lament conversation. Here's how to complete Through the Shadows and earn Bellara's Veilguard skill in Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

Exploring the Ancient Capital

Follow Bellara to the Arlathan Forest to start the quest. Your dialogue choice in the ensuing cutscene doesn’t impact your relationship with Bellara, so choose whatever you want. Follow the quest marker over the bridge. Up a few sets of stairs, you’ll need to use the crystal beams to open up the way forward.

First, you need to point the beam you can access at the node above the door north of you. This opens up a path to point the second beam. Go through the door, climb up a few platforms, and point the second beam at one of the nodes to the east. Then, go back down and point the first beam at the other eastern node to open a bridge forward.

Follow the quest marker up the stairs in the next area and drop down into a new room. Bellara will run forward, so follow her up to the platform. Again, your dialogue choice doesn’t matter here. Once the talk is over, activate the orbs and be ready for a fight.

Take down the first wave of enemies and then run around the battlefield dismantling the amplifiers. You’ll then need to go back to the central orb to activate it again, spawning a second wave of enemies. These waves are made up of standard enemies, so there’s nothing special to expect from them. Take down the amplifiers and activate the central orb once again.

This spawns one last wave of enemies. Deal with them and then sabotage the central crystal. That opens up a new path below the battlefield. Follow the quest marker through there, being sure to grab the chest along the path. You'll also encounter several short fights against groups of demons on the bridge ahead.

Solving the Barrier Puzzle

Once you get to the end of the bridge, use the teleporter to move further into the map. Inside the next room, you need to use crystal beams to light five anchors to open the barrier. Start this puzzle by heading west up the stairs. Loop around to your left to find the first beam. You need to link the beam to the correct anchor. Going from the leftmost anchor, this one links with the fourth anchor. The beam will turn green if you link it correctly.

As you leave this area, you’ll notice a chest and a crystal to the right of the stairs you walked up to get to the first beam. Grab that crystal and take it back into the center room. Use it on the west node to activate another beam and point it behind you, toward the node above the elvish statues. This opens up a bridge you’ll need soon.

Go back up the stairs and take the ladder to the second level. Link the first beam with the first anchor and use the bridge you created in the last step to get to the other beam on this level. This one links with the fifth anchor.

Walk down the steps and take a right. This brings you to the final beam. Link it with the third anchor (the one in the middle). Use the ladder to get back down to the ground floor and take the crystal from the west beam, destroying the bridge. Place it on the east beam and activate the final anchor. You can not disable the barrier and move forward.

Anaris Boss Fight

Your dialogue choices won't change your relationship with Bellara. Once the cutscene ends, you’ll finally fight Anaris. Before you can deal damage to Anaris, you need to break the three crystals on the spires surrounding him. This breaks his barrier, opening him up for attacks. Of course, he’ll also spawn several demons as you’re breaking the crystals, so mop them up as you go.

When his barrier is broken, your best bet is to use Neve’s Blizzard to freeze him in place, allowing you to get in your licks. Otherwise, Aranis does several ranged attacks that can be annoying to deal with. Those include an ice beam and a rain of fire that deals AOE damage all over the arena.

After hitting damage thresholds, Aranis will bring his barrier back and you’ll need to take out the three crystals again. He does this twice, so be prepared for a long fight. When you get to his third stage, Aranis shoots out four slow-moving beams to make things even more difficult. Try to shoot the crystals quickly so that you can use Neve’s Blizzard to keep him frozen as much as possible. Bellara’s Time Slow can also come in handy.

Once Anaris is dealt with, you’ll technically finish the quest, earning 400 Gold, 100 Veil Jumpers faction strength, a rare Keepsake for Bellara, and a bond boost with your party members. However, when you go back to The Lighthouse, you'll talk to Bellara and tell her what you think she should do with the Archive. Your choice here determines which Veilguard ability she gets.

If you select “Keep the Archive”, you’ll earn the Lingering Strike skill and the Achrivist’s Mail Heroic Armor. If you pick “Free the Archive” you’ll earn the Chain Lightning Veilguard skill and the Reborn Leathers Heroic Armor. Here is what each ability does:

• Lingering Strike - Bellara's Replenish ability now applies Weakened in a 6-meter radius around you. Whenever Bellara applies Weakened, it also deals 200 Electric damage and renders the target Shocked.
• Chain Lightning - Bellara's weapon attacks chain lightning against Shocked enemies, dealing 100 Electric damage. The effect of Shocked is 10% stronger.

Head back to The Lighthouse to unlock one last outing with Bellara that wraps up her companion quest.