Buried Past is a side quest in The Blood of Dawnwalker. This walkthrough will guide you through all objectives of the Buried Past side mission.
- Starting Location: Maragir Wealds
- Quest Giver: Merchant near well
- Requirement: Finished Prologue and reached the open world
- Fail State: None
- Reward: 250XP, 1 Skill Point, Artery Strike Manual, Pieter’s Garb (Legendary Light Chestpiece)
- Time Required:
- 1 time segment – Investigate Pieter’s secret spot
- 1 time segment – Chop some wood for Volk (optional)
- 1 time segment – Bring the wood back to Volk
- 1 time segment – Track down the wolves bothering Volk using Focus Mode (optional)
- 1 time segment – Visit Volk
- 2 time segments – Gather feverfew by the river bank (optional)
- 1 time segment – Prepare the ointment for Volk (optional)
- 1 time segment – Visit Volk
- 1 time segment – Search for Volk’s knife (optional)
- 1 time segment – Board up the bedroom window (optional)
- 1 time segment – Retrace your steps from childhood memories
- 1 time segment – Look for Pieter’s treasure using Focus Mode
- 1 time segment – Ask about Pieter at the Maragir monastery
- 1 time segment – Tell Volk about your findings
- 1 time segment – Visit Volk
- Quest Description: I realise that I hardly know my father – even though I’ve known him my whole life. He hardly ever talks about his past… But it seems like it’s catching up with him.
Objectives:
- Find Pieter’s secret spot
- Investigate Pieter’s secret spot
- Give Volk a day to rest
- Chop some wood for Volk (optional)
- Bring the wood back to Volk (optional)
- Track down the wolves bothering Volk using Focus Mode (optional)
- Tell Volk about the wolves (optional)
- Give Volk a day to rest
- Visit Volk
- Buy Slivovitz for Volk
- Gather feverfew by the riverbank (optional)
- Prepare the ointment for Volk (optional)
- Give Volk a day to rest
- Visit Volk
- Search for Volk’s knife (optional)
- Return the knife to Volk (optional)
- Board up the bedroom window (optional)
- Spar with Volk
- Look around Parlita for something to jog your memory
- Retrace your steps from childhood memories
- Follow the big stones
- Look for Pieter’s treasure using Focus Mode
- Search the stash
- Ask about Pieter at the Maragir monastery
- Tell Volk about your findings
- Give Volk a day to rest
- Visit Volk
- Look for Volk
Starting Location: Buried Past
If you stop to talk with this merchant in Maragir, he’ll recognize Coen as Pieter’s eldest boy. He’ll mention that he used to stop by once a month to buy a jug of beer, and offers to sell it to you at a discount. Coen enquires further and learns that his father used to take the beer to a spot in the woods east of Svartrau. For 100 denarii you can buy the beer and find out where he was going for yourself.
General Note: This quest consumes a lot of time segments with multiple full day waiting periods between some objectives (16 time segments). If you’re aiming to finish the story goal of saving your family within 30 days, it’s better to do this quest later during cleanup, or at least work on other tasks while you wait a full day for the quest objectives to advance.
Find Pieter’s Secret Spot
The secret spot is a ruined hut in St. Tyna’s Grove, just over the river east of Svartrau.
Investigate Pieter’s Secret Spot (1 Time Segment)
All you have to do is look around. Knocking on the door yields no answer. In Focus Mode, you’ll spot some items of interest. In several places there are snares on the ground, and next to the hut is a tall stump that has many sword cuts of notable precision.
Finally go into the shed near the barn to trigger a reaction. You encounter Volk, a blind friend of your father’s but he won’t believe you at first.
Relieve him of his axe and beat Volk in a fistfight. Now in a more receptive mood, Volk will listen when you tell him who you are, and then feel your face to confirm your story. Then he’ll be all smiles as he jokes that he almost killed his best friend’s son. Coen takes him inside while Volk regales him with the story of how he met your father and their life before Pieter quit the mercenary life. When he toasts to Pieter’s memory, Coen fills him in that he is going to rescue him from the vrakhiri, and Volk obligingly toasts to your memory as well. He has more stories, but says he needs rest. He’ll ask you to come back tomorrow, this time with a bottle of slivovitz, and he can teach you some fighting tricks.
During the conversation if you ask about the snares, he’ll tell you about the pack of wolves that are harassing him, then lays on a massive guilt trip until you agree to help. If you ask him if he needs any other help, he’ll ask you to chop some wood for him. The pile is out by the shed. These are added as optional objectives.
Chop Some Wood for Volk (Optional, 1 Time Segment)
Grab the axe Volk helpfully “provided” for you earlier, and follow the prompts to chop some wood for him. After three logs, you’ll be done and now have the option to bring the chopped wood in for him.
Bring the Wood Back to Volk (Optional, 1 Time Segment)
Talk to Volk, and let him know you chopped the wood. There is no doubt that he asked Coen for the wood, just so he could make this joke.
Track Down the Wolves Bothering Volk Using Focus Mode (Optional, 1 Time Segment)
Behind Volk’s hut, there’s a section of his fence that has been broken. Using Focus Mode you will highlight the tracks, and can inspect them. They can be hard to see during the day, but they’ll show up well in shadows. Follow them until you find their den at the top of the hill, and kill them all.
NOTE: It may be a bug, but this objective says 1 time segment but actually takes 2 to complete.
Tell Volk About the Wolves (Optional)
Stop by Volk’s place with the good news.
Give Volk a Day to Rest
You will have to let a full day pass before you can continue the conversation, that’s a total of 16 time segments. You could wait for 16 time segments at a shrine, or work on other activities and come back later.
Buy Slivovitz for Volk
You’ve probably looted some Slivovitz already, but you can buy some in the tavern in Svartrau if you don’t have any.
Visit Volk (1 Time Segment)
When you come back, it looks like Volk has injured his back and asks for your help again. Give him the slivovitz to help ease his pain. He’ll tell you a story about your father though, and how he got his horse.
Ask him if there’s anything you can do to help, and he’ll point out a recipe on the shelf and tell you that one of the ingredients, feverfew, grows along the banks of the nearby river.
Gather Feverfew By the River Bank (Optional, 2 Time Segments)
Head west to the river and you’ll find patches of feverfew along the banks. Focus Mode will make this task trivial.
Prepare the Ointment for Volk (Optional, 1 Time Segment)
Read the recipe on the shelf, then prepare the oinment.
Give Volk a Day to Rest
Again a full day must pass before you go back to Volk, that’s a full 16 time segments.
Visit Volk (1 Time Segment)
When you visit Volk again, there’s a puddle of puke outside his door. Inspect it before you go inside. If you ask Volk about it, he’ll tell you about how he got drunk and lost his knife. He searched for it but couldn’t find it. He promises to tell you the story of how he got it from the Pope if you can find it for him. If you ask him if he needs any help, he’ll also ask you to board up the windows in the corner of the house by his bed. Both of these become optional tasks.
Then ask him about his last adventure with your father, and he’ll tell you another story, ending with him teaching you some swordplay moves.
Spar With Volk
Volk fights surprisingly well for a blind man, and after you best him you will earn an Artery Strike Manual.
When the fight is over, he’ll bring up the reward that he and your father got after the battle at Cassel, asking if your father had ever mentioned it. Hearing Coen describe your relative poverty, Volk theorizes that Pieter had stashed the gold somewhere. Coen suggests it may have been hidden in a glade near Parlita where his father used to take him berry picking as a child. Coen will have to find his way back to the glade by retracing his steps. He remembers stopping at a stand to get sweet buns for the road which seems a good place to start.
Search for Volk’s Knife (Optional, 1 Time Segment)
Volk mentioned he looked for his knife on his hands and knees for hours, so it’s probably somewhere up high where he couldn’t find it. Look up on roof and you’ll see it sticking out about halfway up. You’ll need to use planeshift to reach it (Shadowstep R2/RT), so you’ll have to do this at night.
Return the Knife to Volk (Optional)
Give the knife back to Volk.
Board Up the Bedroom Window (Optional, 1 Time Segment)
Head to the back of the house, and you’ll find boards and nails waiting for you. Once you’re done you’ll automatically report back to Volk for another one of his off-color stories.
Look Around Parlita for Something to Jog Your Memory
Just inside the village gates will be a run-down stand, that will remind Coen of what happened.
Retrace Your Steps From Childhood Memories (1 Time Segment)
Coen remembers that they would then refill their waterskins at the well, so go down a short ways to find it. Once there, Coen remembers that they would head south towards the setting sun, so go southwest along the road out of Parlita. As you pass a house he will remember that they used to hurry past it because of a big dog the man had (the location where you get the mission “Bakir’s Headhunters: Silent to the Grave“) then turn off the road near a wooden shrine. Keep going down the road until you reach The Wallows shrine, and then head west along a path into the woods. There will be stone markers on either side of the path.
Follow the Big Stones
Keep following the path, dealing with any wildlife in the area that happens to take an interest in you. Eventually Coen will remark that he recognizes a crag, and that the glade is up above. This is where the 1 time segment for retracing your steps will be spent.
Look for Pieter’s Treasure Using Focus Mode (1 Time Segment)
Once you’ve arrived at the glade, look for a tall tree with two stumps next to it. At the foot of this tree you’ll find a rough circle of stones that marks your dig location. Inspect it and Coen will get to work.
Search the Stash
Inside will be a legendary piece of armor, but no gold. Examine everything, including a prayerbook which was copied at the Maragir monastery.
Ask about Pieter at the Maragir monastery ( 1 Time Segment)
Head to the Maragir monastery, and conveniently the monk that you need to speak to is right outside. He will tell you that your father’s donation of gold allowed them to build the scriptorium, so all of your searching has been for nothing. Maybe loot all the monk’s books while you’re there, and you could turn up a skill manual or two. Then head back to Volk to give him the news.
Tell Volk About Your Findings (1 Time Segment)
Volk does not appear to be well chuffed by the news. After a lot of profanity, he tells you to come back tomorrow and you will talk some more.
Give Volk a day to rest
Allow another full day to pass, that’s a full 16 time segments, before you return.
Visit Volk (1 Time Segment)
As you approach, it’s clear that something is wrong. There’s the corpse of a Brencis soldier with a severed arm lying in the yard, and there’s blood everywhere.
Look for Volk
Inside his hut, you’ll find another corpse with Volk’s Sword sticking out of it. Grab that, inspect the corpse, then look at the note on the table. Apparently Volk was approached by Brencis’s men who wanted to ambush you, and instead they got the surprise of their life. Volk leaves you with his sword as a present.
ALTERNATE ENDING:
If you haven’t gone out of your way to help Volk over the course of the mission, doing optional objectives to help him, then in the end Volk agrees to set up an ambush for you, and you’re instead met by Brencis’s men.
After you have defeated them, you have the option to either fight Volk, or walk away leaving him to his fate.
This finishes Buried Past side quest in The Blood of Dawnwalker.
For all other Quests refer to The Blood of Dawnwalker Walkthrough.
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