[News] Midnight Suns Stained Soil locations: quest solution and walkthrough

[EVIL BABY.]

The Stained Soil locations quest is the first thing that truly stumped me in Midnight Suns. It's not exactly an Easter Egg hunt: you're looking for evidence of the remains of witches killed by Hiram Shaw, the cruel Reverend of Salem in the Marvel universe.

Had I unlocked enough of the Abbey locations to be able to locate the Stained Soil samples? Did I need to complete the Standing Stones puzzle? Midnight Suns doesn't give a ton of direction.

The good news: if you're struggling with it, there's no hurry to complete the quest. The Abbey stuff, for the most part, runs independently from the campaign, and I was able to do a bunch of story missions even though I hadn't made progress on finding the Stained Soil. If you need help, though, here's a step-by-step walkthrough.

Right before you start the Stained Soil quest, Midnight Suns asks you to "Search the Study" in Shaw's Church, a centuries-old building on the east side of the map. Agatha keeps going on about "There must be something we're missing." Not very helpful, ghost grandma!

Turns out, you have to cast the second Word of Power, "Atum," at the desk in the middle of the room, where a magnifying glass overlooks an otherwise empty table. The first clues ("Coven Suspects," as sketched contemporaneously by Shaw), about the location of the Stained Soil are revealed once you do this.Find Stained Soil A, B, and C
The same photographs you found in Shaw's Church are magically transported to the library room of the Abbey, adjacent to the Mirror Table. You can revisit them there to put the image fresh in your mind, or find the solutions below.

Stained Soil A location
Fast travel or jog over to the Standing Stones. While standing on the stone monument surrounded by large vertical totems, look north to find a cave in the distance (you can use the map to orient north by looking at the Hunter's icon), down the hill from the Standing Stones.

Shaw's sketch, I eventually figured out, was not of the more prominent cave to the east. This one was the hardest to locate for me.

 

link: https://www.pcgamer.com/midnight-suns-stained-soil-locations-quest-solution-search-the-study/