In the city of Bruma in Oblivion Remastered you find the A Brotherhood Betrayed quest. Asking around reveals a troubling tidbit of gossip: Bradon Lirrian was a vampire. He was killed by a brave vampire hunter, Raynil Dralas, who took matters into his own hands to rid Bruma of the dangerous blood-sucking monster.
However, there’s something amiss about the whole incident. Bradon Lirrian didn’t seem like a vampire, he was a decent fellow by all accounts and his wife didn’t know anything about his supposed affliction.
To get to the bottom of the mystery, you take it upon yourself to investigate.
Oblivion Remastered A Brotherhood Betrayed quest
Bradon Lirrian’s house is right next to where you find the fence Ongar the World-Weary for the Independent Thievery quest. It’s unlocked and the crime scene remains relatively untouched.
Inside, you’re approached by the guard in charge of the situation, an Imperial by the name of Carius Runellius. Ask him about Raynil and he says that it’s an open and shut case, but he doesn’t feel like discussing the details with some random person off the street.
Open the persuasion wheel and raise his disposition to 70 with bribes or sweet talk. For me he liked Admiration and Boasting.
When you’re in Carius’s good graces, he runs you through the big picture. A while ago, shallow graves were found outside town containing vagrants with the tell-tale neck puncture wounds of a vampire attack. Soon after, Raynil Dralas appeared offering to track and slay the monster. He allegedly tracked it to Bradon, who was only ever seen wandering the streets at night.
Carius bids you farewell, but invites you to question anyone in town if you think you can do better.
If you start by examining the crime scene all you get is a message that tampering with Bradon’s body will net you a fine or jail time. Instead, speak to his wife, now widow, Erline Lirrian.
She tells you about finding the Dark Elf Raynil killing her husband, and how the body of another homeless person was found in their basement by way of evidence – pretty damning evidence at that.
However, she says that the body was planted and gives you a few circumstantial clues of logical inconsistencies. First, why would he stash the third body at home when the other two were buried outside of town. Next, Bradon worked nights, so it made perfect sense for him to be asleep during the day. Then finally, she finds the vampire hunter oddly familiar, as if she’s seen him before.
It’s certainly fishy. Speaking to Carius again reveals that Raynil confirmed Erline wasn’t infected, which is highly unlikely given their proximity. It’s time you found this Raynil Dralas, but is he still in Bruma?
Leave the Lirrian house and out into the cold northern air. Where better to continue your search than the local pub, surely there’ll be someone there to ask?
Make your way to Olav’s Tap and Tack next to the south gate. Speak to the innkeeper Olav, ask him about Bradon, and he finds the whole story a bit rich. As a hub for the local community, he’s seen Bradon awake during the day many times, meaning he can only have caught Porphyric Hemophilia (the vampire disease) very recently.
It’s clear the innkeeper knows more, but won’t divulge anything else about Raynil to someone he doesn’t trust. This means it’s time to whip out your trusty persuasion wheel once again. He likes jokes and coercion. At 70 disposition, he happily hands over the key to Raynil’s room upstairs.
Inside the room at the end of the lodging floor, look behind the drawers on your right as you enter. There you find Gelebourne’s Journal.
The mysterious journal cracks the case wide open. Apparently Bradon and Raynil were both members of an adventuring party who found a mysterious artifact in an Ayleid Ruin. Protecting their find until they could determine its true value, they hid it in a cave not far from Bruma and each took a key to its tripled-locked chest.
Take the diary and ask Olav about Gelebourne. Coincidentally he has heard the name before, from Raynil bragging that it was the name of the last vampire he hunted in Skingrad.
With this proof of Raynil’s deception, return to Carius inside the Lirrian’s house. Enraged and embarrassed by being taken in by the ploy, he runs to rouse a search party to take the faux vampire hunter into custody, telling you to meet him at Olav’s pub in an hour.
As the hour elapses, Carius bursts into the taphouse saying that one of his scouts saw Raynil heading west towards Boreal Stone Cave. This is one of the few timed quests in all of Oblivion Remastered, and you will only have 24 in-game hours to track the vampire hunter down before he’s gone for good.
Take the north gate out of Bruma into the Jerall Mountains before turning due west into the wilderness. Past Capstone Cave, Applewatch and Rielle, you find Boreal Stone Cave.
You’re immediately approached by Raynil and after his villain monologue you’re forced to battle him. He’s a capable spellblade, mixing powerful two-handed attacks with magical buffs and healing. However, like most enemies in Oblivion, there’s not much he can do against many of the best weapons you can acquire by this point in the game.
Grab his levelled sword (which is usually the first of its kind you’ve seen in your adventure thus far), as well as the three keys to the hidden chest from his inventory.
Inside the waterlogged chest is an inert, mundane amulet. Hardly a prize worth all of this fuss and deception. But maybe it can bring some solace to Erline given how excited Bradon was to discover it?
Return to her in the Lirrian house and she’s relieved at the resolution, but nothing can bring her husband back. However, it turns out that there’s more to the amulet than it first seems.
Fearing the treachery that took his life, Bradon had a masking enchantment placed on the amulet, hiding its true power. By speaking the command word, “brotherhood”, Erline restores it to its former glory as the Phylactery of Litheness, a Speed fortifying magical necklace.
As thanks for bringing her husband’s killer to justice, Erline gifts you the restored amulet and bids you farewell on your travels in search of treasure and glory, just as her husband Bradon did with his brotherhood many years earlier.
While you’re in Bruma, why not make a diversion to view Frostcrag Spire, one of the player-owned houses in Oblivion Remastered. But for more great quests, check out our map of Daedric Artifact locations.