Comprehensive Guide to The Blood of Dawnwalker Prologue and Quest Sequence

I dedicated 15 hours to replaying the prologue of Blood of Dawnwalker multiple times to pinpoint the best quest order. Almost every quest in this section is labeled as time-sensitive, but there simply isn’t enough time to tackle them all. That’s the first lesson of Dawnwalker. I’ve compiled every quest available in the prologue, identified which ones can be skipped, and charted the optimal path for the most rewarding story outcomes. You can grab the quick quest order list below or dive into the detailed walkthrough for every dialogue nuance.

Your initial decision in the prologue is whether Coen should force-feed his mother, Esme, with his father Pieter’s direction. In short, this choice doesn’t have long-term consequences, but you’ll need to start managing your time as the prologue kicks off.

Time segment	Quests
1 Morning	Live Bait
2 Morning	Dead Drop Withering Away
3 Noon	(Optional) Page-Turner, or substitute with Into The Den in the afternoon
4 Noon	Withering Away part 2
5 Afternoon	Enter Not If A Tree Falls Deep Down
6 Afternoon	Blasphemy
7 Evening	Disturbed
8 Evening	Like Father, Like Son

After leaving Coen’s house, head down the hill to chat with your sister Yanna, who’s hanging out with Lunka and Mirto.

Next, locate the four fishing rods hidden under a bush just northwest of Yanna and place them in the designated spots along the bank. The choices in the following conversation don’t have lasting effects, but they subtly influence the siblings’ interactions. Here’s the version I recommend:

The same goes for your encounter with Brencis’s officer, the unpleasant character. You can choose to fight him if you wish, but I prefer to avoid that. You can also gain more lore from the conversation with the Uriash guard who joins afterward.

Once you finish fishing, take some time to explore Laslea village and pick up quests. Grab these quests but hold off on pursuing them just yet:

After accepting a few quests, snag some extra coins and loot by taking the small path up the hill directly east of Coen’s house to the outcast’s graveyard marked by a large, twisted tree on the map.

Next, head to Anca’s house down the small western path out of town for the Withering Away quest, where you’ll gather herbs for Coen’s mother as directed by Pieter. Your choices here don’t significantly impact the story, aside from Anca’s immediate reaction to Coen’s demeanor. Here’s what I consider the best options:

If you’re interested in developing a relationship with Anca later, make sure to spend some extra time with her before heading home. Despite how the dialogue choice appears, this only consumes one additional time slot, meaning your total time with her to complete Withering Away and Page Turner takes just two slots.

With the herbs in hand, rush back to Coen’s house. You’ll witness a mysterious argument between Pieter and Vladimir, which we’ll delve into later. For now, assist Coen’s dad in brewing Anca’s recipe for Esme. Don’t mess up the recipe, or things will go very poorly for Coen’s family during mass tonight. If you’ve forgotten what Anca said, it’s:

After that, respond to Pieter about his training plans however you like, then persuade Esme to drink the brew. Just say “Let’s” to Pieter instead of pressing him for more conversation. Either option works, but I like to think Coen understands the kind of man his father is.

DO NOT follow Pieter to train together up the hill. He’ll wait around until Coen returns at the end of the day.

Cross the bridge north of Anca’s house into the forest and follow the road until you reach an abandoned house on the left side of the path. Approach it to trigger the Enter Not quest, then find your way into the plague house by climbing the lower roof on the right side and dropping down inside. Collect the following items from the house:

You’ll complete Enter Not later in the day by returning the figurine to the church. For now, keep following the road north. When you reach the Blackwater Hollow shrine, do two things:

Forget about Lazar for now and continue north towards the Northern Foothills shrine. Right next to it is a fallen tree that has killed someone. Follow the trail of the dead body along the road (you’ll have to fight some wolves along the way) until it leads to a gorge where you’ll pick up the quest If A Tree Falls by looting the Orders: Patrol from the body of an Uriash guard. We’ll turn that one in later too.

If you’re feeling adventurous, you can take a detour to fight a bear at its den on the east side of the bog. The fight can be tough, but you can manage it if you’re confident in your ability to execute directional blocks to conserve stamina. Loot the body in the cave to obtain:

If you didn’t spend extra time with Anca, you can complete Into The Den by looting treasure from a hut at the logging site you’ve already passed through in the bog. Digging up the treasure uses a time slot, so if you already did Page-Turner, skip this one. You’ll need to finish this quest before you can sell silver later in the game, but it isn’t time-sensitive, so you can return for the marked treasure after the prologue.

Head back south into Blackwater Hollow and pick up Lazar’s trail, moving west until you encounter a couple of wolves guarding a clearing. Defeat the wolves and drop down into the deep hole in front of the gnarled tree. Good news: Lazar is alive down there and in decent shape. That’s why we’re doing this quest now. If you wait until evening to do Deep Down, you’ll find Lazar’s corpse instead, which is a bummer.

The conversation with Lazar isn’t crucial, but you’ll get the most out of it if you don’t dismiss his concerns and choose these dialogue options:

When you reach the round room with a sarcophagus, inspect all the murals on the left wall to uncover some ancient vrakhiri lore. Inspecting the last image allows you to open the stone coffin and loot the Mireleaf Bracers (30 extra armor, which you’ll want soon) and the Claw Art active ability. Go ahead and equip those.

In the next room, you’ll face The Forgotten Guardian. By now, you should be level three with a decent sword and those new bracers. The guardian hits hard, but you can deal damage as long as you dodge its unblockable double sword slash. The fight isn’t as lengthy as the bear encounter.

Loot the Forgotten Guardian and equip its Undead Warrior’s Sword to replace whatever standard blade you’ve been using. Also, loot the chests in this room to gather some gold valuables to sell back in Laslea later.

Make your way out of the ruins with Gavril and wrap up this section:

Now that you’re back in Laslea, it’s time to run some errands:

Next, find that missing banner for Gremla to complete the Blasphemy quest. Head back to her house near the Laslea Center shrine. Use Coen’s focus to uncover three clues:

You can go straight for the guilty party (it’s Premysl), but if you want the full investigation experience, here’s all the neighbors you can interrogate until you find the truth:

Confront Premysl and decide whether he should return the banner to Gremla.

If you want to finish the prologue with all of Coen’s neighbors alive (for now), tell Premysl to return the banner. Regardless of whether he returns it himself, you’ll need to head back to Gremla to complete the quest.

You can choose either path for this quest. Honestly, I think the mass and Pieter’s reaction afterward make the most sense if it gets gruesome. Perhaps Gremla is the necessary sacrifice to truly illustrate that Laslea is on the brink under Brencis.

Head to Crina at the graveyard and inspect Kvet’s grave site for clues. You’ll find footprints in the red soil that lead you to the culprit. Use Coen’s focus to follow the footprints down the hill, into the center of town, and to the right of the blacksmith’s where the trail ends. Continue straight ahead towards the house in front of you and inspect a broken shovel covered in red soil outside Kostel’s shed. Go inside the shed and examine the trap door on the floor to confront Kostel and Vladimir.

You’ll have a few yellow dialogue options with Kostel and Vladimir, but they all lead to essentially the same conversation. You do have a chance to warn Vladimir that Brencis’s guards are onto something, given how they pressed Coen at the river earlier, but he doesn’t seem too concerned.

Return to Crina to hand over Kvet’s silver cross and complete the quest:

Before you head off to train with Pieter, grab a final bit of experience by visiting the keep and the church. Speak with Father Florin to finish the Enter Not quest by giving him the Figurine of St. Jude.

Finally, go back to Coen’s house and follow Pieter up the hill to train together. He usually follows up his unblockable attack with a quick swing afterward, so be ready to dodge and block right after. You’ll have a couple of dialogue choices here, but they’re just for roleplaying Coen since Pieter is going to get involved in this rebellion scheme regardless. Brace yourself!

If you’ve followed this walkthrough so far, here’s how mass should unfold:

During mass, Coen has two chances to speak out or conform. These are presented as timed choices that you must make quickly, but they don’t seem to affect how the night plays out, so roleplay as you see fit.

No matter what happens during mass, Pieter will ignite his revolutionary spirit at home afterward and drag Coen off, sword in hand, to assist Vladimir’s crew in breaking into the silver mines in an attempt to overthrow vrakhir rule. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t go well!

Quest	Start Point	Time required
Withering Away	Automatic, from Pieter	2⌛
Live Bait	Yanna, between Coen’s house and Laslea Centre	1⌛ (2⌛ if you play tag)
Blasphemy	Gremla, Laslea Centre	1⌛
Page-Turner	Optional extra time with Anca during Withering Away	1⌛ (if you stay when it rains)
Someone Needs A Lesson	Vasil, running around town	1⌛
Deep Down	Gavril, fields near Laslea Gate	1⌛
On The Run	Iorgu, south of Laslea Centre	2⌛
Enter Not	Abandoned house northwest forest	0⌛
Dead Drop	Grave with flowers at the outcasts burial ground east of town	0⌛
Disturbed	Crina, graveyard outside the keep	1⌛ (2⌛if you help refill the grave)
If A Tree Falls In A Forest	Dead body by Northern Foothills shrine	0 ⌛
Into The Den	Bear den east of Northern Foothills	1⌛
Like Father, Like Son	Pieter, after completing Withering Away	1 ⌛