House of Ashes Bearings guide: Major decisions during your playthrough

House of Ashes – Ultraviolet and Infected bearings

Let’s talk about the Ultraviolet and Infected bearings in House of Ashes. This is about how vampiric creatures are weak to sunlight and UV rays.

Ultraviolet bearing

During After the Fall – Slayer, Salim can inspect the creature that was crushed by a truck. It will come back to life, and he’ll have to escape from it. If you jump across a gap, the monster will attempt to grab you, but sunlight will burn its arms. Salim will then know about the weakness of these creatures.

• In The Truce, Salim will mention this to Nick. The two will then have to cooperate to kill one of the vampires.
• It’s imperative that you succeed in all QTE sequences here. If you fail the button prompts, it’ll lead to a “Don’t Breathe” minigame.
• If you still fail that, the creature will wound one of your characters and escape.

• Assuming the vampire was killed, the soldiers will bring its corpse back to the temple so Eric can examine it. Eric finds out that the UV light works against it, burning the creature into a crisp. This nets you the “Illuminating Evidence” achievement.
• From this point onwards, Eric will try to use the UV wand against enemies. He might look like a goof, but the item is important for the Infected bearing in House of Ashes.

Infected bearing

This one occurs during The Horror. Both Rachel and Eric need to be alive here because they’re integral for this part.

• During the encounter with dozens of vampires in The Horror, Rachel will get attacked by one of the creatures. This happens just as Salim is aiming at a creature that’s trying to attack him.
• If you shoot the creature that’s got Rachel pinned, you can save her but Salim gets wounded. Rachel, for some reason, still gets pounced on by a different creature. So, yes, it seems that this is always guaranteed to happen.
• The Infected bearing will say that Rachel was infected, but there’s no mention of her death.

• In The Ancient One, you’ll see that Rachel survived, though the parasite is gestating inside her.
• Continue onwards until you reach the Strange Aeons chapter. Rachel receives a strange vision of the aliens arriving on Earth many eons ago as the parasite causes her great pain. You’ll receive the “Visions of the Past” achievement.
• The remaining characters watch as Rachel struggles in pain:
  • Suicide by immolation – If you have the white phosphorous with you, Rachel will stab the canister which will cause her to get incinerated.
  • Suicide by gunshot – Jason wants to put her out of her misery. If you agree, she’ll get shot in the head.
• If you don’t choose the options that lead to certain death, then the group offers another suggestion. It might be possible to save Rachel by covering her in the strange goop that keeps organisms alive. Rachel has the following choices:
  • Disagree with getting placed in a cocoon – Rachel will attempt to struggle via a QTE sequence. If successful, she’ll be able to run away. This will cause her to turn into a demon-vampire-zombie hybrid. You need to fight her off at the end of the Semper Fi chapter (similar to the Doctor Stokes bearing/Clarice encounter).
  • Agree to the plan, but Eric is dead/you don’t have the UV wand – The group will exit the Star Chamber and place Rachel in the pool of goop. Don’t worry, you’ll see her again during the mid-credits scene.
  • Agree to the plan, but Eric is alive and he’s using the UV wand – If Eric saw the dead vampire’s corpse burn due to the UV light, he’ll use it to force the parasite out of Rachel’s body. There’s a short sequence where Rachel will need to find the parasite and stomp on it. You’ll get “The Thing” achievement, too.

All right, let’s go to the next part of our House of Ashes guide to talk about the Air Support and Semper Fi bearings.