Find a Relic of Old ‘fore the Ode – Soulframe Quest Guide

Soulframe has a few quest objectives that are written in a rather cryptic or archaic manner, something that can be a little confusing for new players, especially if you are not a native English speaker.

The worst culprit is probably “Find a Relic of Old ‘fore the Ode“, which is not only a confusing sentence but also doesn’t come with any kind of description of the relic we’re supposed to find. This objective can appear in Faction Tale quests that send you into the Undercity.

In this quick guide, I will explain exactly what you need to do when you get this objective in Soulframe. This guide is up to date with Soulframe Preludes 11.

What Does “Find a Relic of Old ‘fore the Ode” Actually Mean?

If you aren’t a native English speaker, you might struggle even to read this sentence. I am a native English speaker, and even I had to read it a couple of times to unravel it. It doesn’t help that you need some knowledge of Soulframe’s lore to know what it is talking about.

Find a Relic of Old ‘fore the Ode can be more easily written “Find a Relic of Old, from Before the Ode“.

So what’s the Ode? You might have already figured this out, but if not, no worries. The Ode is the main enemy faction in Soulframe – the guys in black armour who patrol most locations and who come from the floating structures in the sky. Their exact purpose and motivation aren’t completely clear (hopefully this will change when more story quests are added to Soulframe), but they are aggressively extracting resources from Alca (the world), enslaving its inhabitants and corrupting its natural habitats by pouring ichor into the waters to make it drinkable for their kind.

So we are searching for a relic from before those guys arrived.

Now that we’ve unravelled the wording of the objective, let’s look at how to complete it.

How to Find a Relic of Old ‘fore the Ode in Soulframe

This objective can only appear in the last stage of a Faction Tale quest. It is one of the potential objectives that can appear if the quest leads you down into the Undercity.

The game doesn’t give you any information about what kind of relic you are looking for, where it might be found or even a map marker to follow. However, once inside the Undercity you can use your Sparrow guide to head in the right direction.

Keep following the Sparrow, and defeat any enemies, loot any chests and break all crates and barrels along the way for extra crafting materials and Dracs.

Eventually you will reach a doorway that has been blocked off by vines. Nearby, there should be a statue holding a mirror. When in the right area, a message appears at the top of your screen: “A sleeping Sprite. A beam of sunlight should wake it. What of the old contraptions?”

This is a clue that you need to direct a beam of sunlight to the statue to open the way. There are many different versions of this puzzle that can appear in different Undercity layouts, but they all have the same objective.

Take the following steps to complete this objective.

Step 1 – Find a Beam of Light

Explore the area around the statue. Look for a lit area where the sky is visible and look up. There should be a hole in the ceiling with a beam of sunlight coming through.

Follow the beam of sunlight, and it usually leads to the first mirror in the puzzle.

Step 2 – Direct the Light Beam

Go to the first mirror and see if you need to move, realign or unblock it. Most mirrors can be moved by hitting them with a ranged attack. Sometimes you will have to go to the mirror and interact with it to rotate it. Some mirrors can be blocked by a crate or some other object that must be broken or moved out of the way.

Once you have fixed the mirror, the beam of light will be pointed towards a second mirror in the puzzle. Go to that mirror and repeat the process.

As I mentioned, there are different versions of this puzzle, some of them have only a couple of mirrors, while others have more. Some puzzles are a little harder to solve than others, but in all of them the concept is the same – keep following and redirecting the light beam until it reaches the final mirror being held by the statue near the blocked door.

Step 3 – Return to the Statue

Once you’ve directed the light beam at the statue, return to it and the vines blocking the door will open, unlocking a secret room.

Inside the room, you are looking for an open chest containing a scroll. Find it and loot the scroll, and this will complete the objective.

While in the room, search for treasure chests – there is usually at least one rare treasure chest containing an item fragment and a rare crafting material.

Alternative Puzzles

There is one tileset in Soulframe that contains an alternative version of this puzzle that doesn’t involve light mirrors. In this puzzle, you need to find a nearby statue (use Spirit Vision to highlight it), pick it up, and carry it to the pedestal to unlock the door.

Currently, this only appears in Undercity dungeons that contain the big room with the rotating tower. The images below show the process of solving this puzzle (you can click on the images to make them larger).

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