Release or Kill Nish? A Friend Like This Choice Guide

Nish is the first branch point of Lacra’s entire questline — and the game rewards one specific order of operations: talk first, decide second. Get it right and Lacra’s chain advances immediately and you can loot a Master-tier consumable from his corpse. Get it wrong and you are hunting a village location the hard way. This guide covers the interrogation, the dialogue that works, and both fates.

The Setup: A Friend Like This

After leaving Laslea Glen, a note in a Svartrau well about a “Suspicious Vrakhir” starts A Friend Like This — the quest that introduces Lacra. The note warns that a man named Nish has been alerting guards to a vampire in the city; following it leads to a house confrontation where Lacra attacks first and questions later. Win the fight while keeping Nish alive (he needs at least a sliver of HP — a perfect-block-heavy approach or Piercing Shriek stun helps avoid accidental kills), and the interrogation becomes the quest’s centerpiece. It ends with Nish, one of Brencis’s soldiers, captured. Lacra wants what he knows: the location of the Uriash village. What Coen does with Nish afterward is the choice.

Step One: Make Nish Talk

Before deciding anything, interrogate him. The peaceful dialogue path that opens him up:

1. “Gladly. But we will actually talk.”
2. “What happened? Your side of the story.”
3. “You’re one of his soldiers.”
4. “What did he do to you?”
5. “Brencis is our common enemy.”
6. “I cannot let this go, because of my family.” (or “Is it your choice to make?”)
7. “You have my word.”

Nish reveals the village location, Lacra’s quest advances immediately, and only then do the fate options unlock. You can also “give in to the hunger” mid-conversation — killing him before the information means losing the easy path.

Step Two: The Fate Options

Choice	Result
Release Nish (after interrogation)	Lacra’s chain advances; a short follow-up dialogue with Nish appears later in the game. No loot
Let Lacra kill him (after interrogation)	Chain advances; you loot Uriash’s Blood from his body — a Master consumable that restores a full Vampiric Health segment
Decide before interrogating	The chain does not advance. Fallback: use Compel Soul with the Uriash Trinket as a catalyst during the day to make his corpse reveal the village — but you forfeit the loot

Which Is Better?

The dominant strategy is the darkest one: talk, extract, then let Lacra kill him and take the Uriash’s Blood. A full Vampiric Health segment is a serious consumable, and the “mercy” of releasing him pays nothing mechanical — just a small later scene. If you are building a restrained Coen, release him and accept the cost; Lacra’s chain advances identically either way.

The structure here is worth noticing because it repeats across the game: the information is the quest’s real reward, the prisoner’s fate is the flavor, and the loot is a bonus for players willing to role-play the hard answer. Once you see that pattern, choices like this stop feeling ambiguous — you decide who Coen is, then take whatever the game pays for it.

It is also the first real look at Lacra’s methods. Her chain — through Song of the Mountain and beyond — repeatedly tests whether Coen will do the necessary thing when mercy and advantage point in opposite directions. Players who balk at Nish’s fate should read the later chain carefully before committing to her finale; players who took the loot without flinching will find her ending speaks their language.

For completionists: the Compel Soul fallback exists precisely so no decision here can brick the chain — every path advances the quest, one way or another. The only true failure state is killing Nish in the opening fight before learning his name, and even then the trinket ritual recovers the thread. This is unusually forgiving design for a game that elsewhere lets choices close doors permanently.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Nish survive if released? Yes — and he resurfaces briefly later for a dialogue scene. His long-term fate beyond that is not confirmed in community documentation.

Does this choice affect the Lacra romance? No. The romance depends on later chain decisions; Nish’s fate only gates how smoothly the chain starts.

What if Nish dies in the initial fight? He needs to survive the fight (at least a sliver of HP) for the interrogation to happen. If he dies early, the Compel Soul fallback covers the village location.

Is Uriash’s Blood missable? Yes — it is on Nish’s corpse only in the “let Lacra kill him” branch. One per playthrough.

Related Guides

• Marat and Lacra allies compared — where Lacra’s chain leads
• Release or kill: how the drain choice echoes — the hunger option’s long game
• Lacra character guide — the ally this quest unlocks
• Anca’s chain start — the other early ally web