Study After Ashera, 2025. Brown ink on vellum, 4 x 6 in.

In Ashes and Dust, if the player solved enough puzzles and opened enough of the mysterious reliquaries, a new character would have appeared while the priestesses were sleeping during the second ashfall.

Arazue, waking up early to start cooking, finds an albino girl lying curled up in Leoba’s washbasin by the stove in the shrine’s kitchen. The girl is unable to speak and can only utter “ahh” sounds. The priestesses dress her in a spare, oversized shrine attendant’s uniform and try to figure out who she is and how she suddenly appeared in the shrine.

Leoba recognizes her from a prophetic dream she had in which a pile of ashes turned into a girl who uttered nonsense sounds before exploding. She decides to name the girl “Ashera” after a porcelain doll she had as a child. The doll, in turn, was named after a character from a popular book about an artificial girl made out of porcelain and imbued with the soul of the inventor’s daughter.

Teccla tries to teach Ashera how to speak, and she’s able to parrot a few words, but it’s unclear if she understands anything she’s saying.

There’s someone else who’s interested in Ashera, as well: a Zeelean nobleman calling himself “the Collector” who has been pursuing her and the reliquaries across the ashfields.

This drawing is a new pen and ink version of a sketch of Ashera done for the game in 2020.