Guide to the Heart of Fire Tall Tale

Pendragon and Flameheart’s story continues

A dark ritual threatens to consume the souls of a proud and noble crew…

Tall Tales are story-based voyages in the Sea of Thieves that you can experience with your crew in the game’s shared world. They tell a narrative and involve solving puzzles, using unique mechanics, and overcoming perils.

The Heart of Fire is the second part of the Flameheart saga, which begins with The Seabound Soul.

This guide walks through the Heart of Fire Tall Tale, detailing what to expect at each step, as well as where to find those pesky hidden Journals. This guide may contain spoilers, so read at your own risk.

Rewards for Heart of Fire

• Complete the Heart of Fire Tale for the first time to unlock the Ashen Dragon Hull ship cosmetic skin.
• Complete the Tale three total times, discover all the hidden journals, and take all three of the different door “paths” in each play through of the tale, and you’ll unlock the Ashen Curse body skin, which applies a molten lava curse to your pirate’s skin.
• Every time you complete the Tale, you also pocket 8,000 Gold

Completing Heart of Fire

Starting Location: Begin the Tale by voting on the Tall Tale book on the bar in the Charred Parrot tavern on Morrow’s Peak Outpost

Chapter 1: Tellulah the barmaid will tell you to step outside and talk to Captain Morrow, and the Captain will tell you to track down Stitcher Jim at his secret hideout. The Quest Book will tell you to head to the island “Liar’s Backbone” where he has a secret hideout.

On Liar’s Backbone, there is a lever to enter the hideout (pictured in the Quest Book), and inside* is a shrine with a puzzle mechanism you need to solve in order to open it. The mechanism lets you rotate three blocks to change the symbol pictured on each, and then pull a lever to enter the correct answer- but what is the answer? Look all around this hideout to find the answer. Once opened, you’ll find more pages for your Quest Book, and a ruby gemstone Key.

*Inside the cave, along the left wall, is the first of five hidden journals for the Tall Tale. You must find and read all 5 to earn every commendation in the Tale, but it will take multiple play throughs to discover all 5.

Final Chapter: The new pages in the Quest Book will lead you to Devil’s Thirst. As the Quest Book explains, you’ll find a place under the water off the north coast of Devil’s Thirst where you can use the key to open a doorway. If you have trouble finding this, head to the north clifftop and light a small chalice, and it will light a trail of torches leading you to the water where you can swim to the doorway.

Once in the door, keep swimming through tunnels and moving forward (the path is linear) until you reach an open cavern with a flowing lava stream and THREE doorways. The resource barrels in this room contain firebombs which you should stock up on because this room introduces Fire Skull Switches.

Fire Skull Switches

These large skulls located on walls through the Heart of Fire tale require you to throw a firebomb at them/into their open mouth in order to activate an effect, which may involve triggering a trap or opening a doorway. They have a cool down while the fire burns before you can activate them again.

The three doorways in this chamber* represent three alternate paths you can follow, each offering similar but unique challenges as you move through the Tale.

*inside this chamber is one of the 5 hidden journals you need to find and read- it is located between the second and third doors on a rock

There is a commendation for completing EACH of the three paths, so you’ll need to repeat the Tale THREE TIMES to earn every reward.

To open one of the doors and begin that path, you need to throw a firebomb at the Fire Skull Switch that is marked by the symbol matching the symbol on the door you want to open. We’ll walk you three EACH of the three paths below, so when you complete that path, skip past the other path walkthroughs down to the section labeled “The Paths Converge”.

Each path is linear and moves from corridor to corridor, with each section of hallway offering a challenge in order to progress.

There are THREE more things to know before entering one of the three dungeons:

#1: Fire Traps

In previous Tall Tales, traps (such as stabbing spikes, spinning saw blades, or swinging logs) were always Instant Kill. In Heart of Fire, these traps return, but new Fire Traps allow for more forgiving dangers- if you get hit by a Fire Trap, you’ll catch on fire and lose health gradually, but will usually survive as long as you continue to eat fruit and heal yourself!

You’ll also encounter:

#2: Skeleton Fight Rooms

Many times on each path, you will enter a room and get bombarded by waves of skeletons to fight before you are able to move on to the next room. In each of these instances, the skeletons are standard/“white” skeletons (ie not shadow, gold, or plant varieties), and culminate in a wave containing one leader with a lot more health than the rest. These rooms always contain resource barrels with fruit and firebombs inside.

These fight rooms also always contain one or more Fire Skull Switches, which will activate a trap when you throw a firebomb in their mouth. These traps are to help you clear the skeleton waves faster, but careful not to accidentally hurt yourself or your crewmates!

And finally, what happens if you die?

#3: Mermaid Respawn Statues

As you progress through the dungeon, you’ll see benevolent Mermaid statues. If you interact with them, they will return you to your ship like regular ocean mermaids- but more importantly, they act as respawn save points. If you die down in these dungeons, you respawn (after leaving the ferry of the damned) in the room you died in or close to it, so you don’t have to start all the way back on your boat above the surface. (Your boat is safe from volcanic eruptions on Devil’s Thirst too!)

Path of the Eternal King

The first corridor contains flame thrower fire traps that turn on and off periodically, so time your walk to navigate through them. You can open the door by interacting with the Pulley system and pulling down to lift the door up. You’ll enter your first Skeleton Fight Room, and the Fire Skull Switch in this room activates a spike trap in the floor- so don’t activate unless everyone is standing aside!

The next corridor has fire traps in the floor that move forward through the path, so walk behind the moving column to not get burned. Then there’s a spinning fire trap/capstan that you can get through by traveling the direction it rotates. Hop across the rocks in the lava* (touching the lava on the floor is INSTANT DEATH), and then swim through the tunnel but watch out- there are underwater spike traps that trigger on and then retract, so swim past them after they retract so you don’t get spiked.

*a hidden Journal can be read on one of these lava rocks- you must read all 5 in the Tale to complete every commendation

The second Skeleton Fight Room’s Fire Skull Switch activates a spinning fire trap to burn the skeletons with.

The next corridor contains fire traps and swinging blades- the flame throwers are always shooting so you’re supposed to jump over them while timing the swing of the blade- but keep in mind that if it’s easier to just run through the fire, it won’t instant kill you… only the blades will! At the end is a swinging log, when it swings towards you run under neath it to get by.

There is a ravine in the middle of the next hallway with spikes down in it, so don’t fall in. On each side are moving fire traps, and on the right side is a pool of lava. You can move from side to side hopping across the ravine in time with the fire traps, but it’s probably easier to just walk straight through the left side and heal yourself from the fire- touching the lava pit or falling in the ravine are both instant death.

After the ravine, lift the pulley to pull rocks out of the lava pool that you can hop across. As soon as you let go of the pulley, the rocks begin to sink back into lava, so have one crew mate hold the pulley until all the others have made it across, and then they can hop across last.

Hop down to a platform and climb the ladder to reach the end of the Path of the Eternal King- use the lever to open the door, and then skip down to the section below labeled The Paths Converge.

Path of the Forsaken Flame

Walk through the corridor following behind the fire traps as they turn off in sequence. The door is locked, and to the left you can hop across rocks to reach a Fire Skull Switch, which when you throw a firebomb at it will unlock the door. As you hop back where you came from, you’ll have to avoid a swinging blade over the lava. The unlocked door can be opened by interacting with the pulley.

In this path’s first Skeleton Fight Room, there is a Fire Skull Switch that will drop a swinging spiked log to take out the skeletons.

The next hallway* has spinning fire traps with a gap you can run through. Then, spike traps pop up and retract throughout the floor, and you can avoid them by jumping between wooden boardwalks.

*a Tall Tale Journal can be read by some skulls on the left wall- you must read all 5 in the Tale to complete every commendation

An area that ends in a closed metal fence contains a wooden mast. You can lower the mast down using the pulley on the left, and then walk across the mast to jump over the metal fence. As soon as you let go of the pulley the mast begins to raise again, so have one crew mate hold it so everyone can make it across.

There are two chain pulleys in this next room that each move a caged skeleton. The one on the right will simply move the cage across the room and light a Fire Skull Switch with the torch it is holding. The one on the other end of the room will get pulled straight up to another Fire Skull Switch- but the torch it is holding isn’t lit… you’ll have to fix that. Once both Fire Skull Switches are activated the door automatically opens.

A capstan in the center of this next hallway has on-off fire traps on each side. Raising the capstan will open a door behind you on the left wall, revealing a small hidden space with a lever. The lever opens the door at the end of the room, but it also activates multiple swinging blade traps. Navigate across the pit towards the door, and you’ll reach the end of the Path of the Forsaken Flame. Use the lever to open the door, and then skip down below to the section labeled The Paths Converge.

Path of the Burning Heart

The first room has a locked door that can only be opened once you’ve activated two Fire Skull Switches on the walls by throwing firebombs at them. If you have trouble spotting the, look for glowing runes nearby- one is on the left if you’re looking AT the door, one is on the left if you stand in front of the door and turn around. To GET to the door you have to jump onto a bridge over spikes and run through some spinning blades.

In the next hallway, walk through a rotating fire trap and drop down into an open area with some water on the floor. The corridor ahead has two spinning blades that are too fast to run through, but you can turn the blades off by finding four levers in this cave. Most are easy to spot, but one is hiding underwater.

Now you’ll have to hop over spikes on the floor while timing it through spinning fire traps. When you reach a giant pit of lava, you’ll see a ladder on the cliff across the way- you have to run and jump across and grab this ladder, while avoiding the gigantic swinging axe. This is one of the trickiest jumps in the entire Tall Tale, but if you die repeatedly don’t give up- it IS doable.

In this path’s Skeleton Fight Room, the Fire Skull Switch activates three flame thrower fire traps.

There is a pulley at the start of the next room which opens the door all the way at the end of it, and as soon as you let go of the pulley that door begins to slowly close. But careful springing down the hill- the wooden switches on the floor activate fire traps, and there’s a small lane of lava flowing through the middle you need to hop over too.

The next section is a long hallway of spikes that retract on and off. When they retract, you need to run through and duck into the small safe cavity in the rock opposite the spikes, and wait for them to retract again before you again move forward to a safe cavity*. One more time forward after they retract should get you to the end, where the lever to open the final door of this path is. You are now at the location where all three Paths converge.

*In one of the safe cavities along the spike trap section is one of the 5 hidden journals you need to find and read

The Paths Converge

Whichever path you chose to trek through, they all merge into one large cavern of lava, with rocks to hp across towards a ladder that leads up to the cliffside on the opposite wall. Here you’ll find a Chest of Rage that you must bring with you through the rest of the dungeon to complete the Tall Tale. The Chest of Rage will periodically explode in a burst of flames, unless you cool it off in the water pools that you’ll find in most of the rooms through the rest of the Tale.

You’ll run into a closed door marked with a symbol/rune, and you have to throw a firebomb at the Fire Skull Switch on the wall to the left to unlock this door.

Fire traps in the next section will blink on/off or spin, so navigate through these until you reach a waterfall. Across from the waterfall is a Fire Skull Switch that you need to firebomb to open the door to the left of the waterfall.

Climb up the hill while avoiding the vertical fire traps, some of which are stationary and some move around. At the end is a waterfall, and you must jump across to the other side- if you fall down the waterfall, it takes you to the spot from the previous waterfall where the Fire Skull Switch was and you’ll have to walk back up the hill filled with vertical fire traps.

The next section is a hallway with swinging skeletons- you can’t kill them, and they aren’t instant-kill either if they hit you, but they do deal a good amount of damage. Hop across the platforms between the swinging skeletons, but watch your step, as one of these platforms also has an on/off fire trap.

You’ll enter a Skeleton Fight Room, this time with no Fire Skull Switch or traps to activate- but you can use your Chest of Rage against the skeletons! Attacking the chest will create bursts of flames, but if you don’t want to bother you can cool it off in the water pool on the left side of the room. Raise the ship capstan to open the door.

There are thin beams to walk across while avoiding swinging blades and an on/off fire trap. When you reach the final waterfall, walk through it and swim through the channels until you reach the surface. Then give the chest to Pendragon on the beach, and the Tall Tale will be over!

Reminder:

Beating the Tale once earns the Ashen Dragon Hull, but if you repeat the Tale to complete all three unique paths and find all five hidden journals, you earn the Ashen Curse as well.

So there you have it! Everything you need to complete the hot new tall tale and earn every commendation! Make sure to follow us on twitter @GoldenSandsBlog and let us know what you thought of this guide and of the Heart of Fire Tall Tale!