The Blood of Dawnwalker Deep Down Walkthrough

Keep this prologue route in context with the On the Run Walkthrough, Best Quest Order, Prologue Walkthrough and Patch Notes.

Deep Down at a glance

Deep Down is a missable prologue side quest in Laslea Glen. Launch walkthroughs place the start at Gavril's Farm, with Gavril asking Coen to look for his missing brother Lazar near the peat bogs.

For route planning, the important facts are:

• Requirement: complete All Good Things first.
• Fail state: finish Deep Down before Sacred Covenant closes the prologue opportunity.
• Time cost: the quest consumes 1 time segment when you discover Lazar underground, rather than when you simply accept the quest.
• Documented reward: 250 XP and 25 Denarius for completion.
• Patch warning: Hotfix 1.0.4 fixed a progression issue that could leave Coen stuck in the cave during Deep Down.

If you are deciding when to fit it into the opening day, use the Best Quest Order and Prologue Walkthrough alongside this page.

How to start Deep Down

Go to Gavril's Farm in Laslea Glen after completing All Good Things and speak with Gavril. His brother Lazar has not returned from gathering peat, and Gavril tells you Lazar had a two-wheeled cart with him.

The cart becomes your first useful trail marker. From the farm, follow the road northwest, cross the bridge, and continue toward the peat bogs. Near the bog area, the abandoned cart confirms that you are on Lazar's route.

Do not spend a time segment just because you are walking to the bogs. The documented time trigger comes later, after you descend underground and find Lazar.

Search the peat bogs

Continue past the cart and inspect the area where Lazar had been working. When the trail becomes less obvious, use Focus Mode to pick up his footprints.

The footprints lead to a dropped basket with blood and wolf tracks nearby. Keep following the trail. The spacing of the tracks shows that Lazar was running, and the route eventually reaches two wolves beside the opening where the footprints disappear underground.

You can deal with the wolves or get past them, then descend into the hole to continue the quest.

Follow Lazar underground

At the bottom, the path narrows into a cavern. Follow the available route and the underground river. A small gap later forces Coen through a tighter passage before the trail continues into another cave.

Eventually you find Lazar's body. This is the key progression point for the quest and the point the launch walkthrough identifies as consuming the quest's one time segment.

The scene also changes the mystery: Lazar was not simply lost to the bog or killed by the wolves. The evidence indicates he was killed with a blade.

If your campaign clock is tight, this distinction matters. You can scout much of the route without assuming the entire trip continuously drains time; watch for the actual commitment point instead.

Find a way out of the ruins

From Lazar's location, continue through the cavern and climb toward the opening into the underground ruins.

This section is worth exploring instead of sprinting directly for the exit. The ruins contain loot, skeletal tracks, and environmental story clues. Continue through the halls until you reach the large circular chamber with the central sarcophagus.

The murals in this chamber depict an old warrior fighting the vrakhiri and show methods used against them. The sarcophagus also contains the Mireleaf Bracers. The launch walkthrough records the bracers as reducing block stamina cost by 7%, raising critical-hit chance by 2%, and providing 33 armor.

Those values are useful for this specific early-game route because the next obstacle is a combat encounter rather than another investigation step.

Forgotten Guardian fight

The exit route is guarded by the Forgotten Guardian, an ancient undead swordsman.

A safe approach is to treat this as a defensive timing fight rather than trying to overwhelm it. The documented attack to respect most is its glowing, unblockable twin attack. Dodge that sequence rather than trying to absorb it through normal blocking.

For the rest of the fight:

• use directional defense carefully;
• look for perfect-block openings;
• counter with short, controlled attacks;
• avoid committing to a long combo while the Guardian is recovering;
• reset to defense quickly so you are ready for the next swing.

After the fight, loot the Undead Warrior's sword before leaving if you want the weapon pickup noted by the launch walkthrough.

Then follow the exit route back to the surface.

Return to Gavril

Return to Gavril and report what happened to Lazar. This completes the quest and awards the documented completion rewards.

Gavril may also ask you to inform the elderman. The walkthrough treats that follow-up as optional rather than a requirement for finishing Deep Down itself.

Because Deep Down belongs to the prologue set, do not assume you can safely leave it until much later in the campaign. If you want to complete it, handle it before the prologue closes at Sacred Covenant.

Deep Down stuck in the cave: current patch status

This quest had a real launch-window progression problem, so not every report of being trapped was a routing mistake.

Hotfix 1.0.4, released September 9, 2026 for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S, explicitly fixed an issue that could leave Coen stuck in a cave during Deep Down.

If you are stuck underground now:

1. Confirm your platform is updated to Hotfix 1.0.4 or later.
2. Reload a recent save from before the cave transition if the quest state still appears broken.
3. Follow the river and the intended gaps through the cave before assuming an exit is missing.
4. If you reached the ruins, continue through the sarcophagus chamber and Forgotten Guardian route toward the surface exit.
5. Avoid relying on launch-day workarounds before checking whether the official patch already fixed the problem you are seeing.

For the site's current version tracking, see the Patch Notes.

Should you do Deep Down early?

Yes, if you care about prologue completion. The reason is not that the quest is mandatory for the main story; it is that it is missable once the prologue advances too far.

It also gives you a useful early package of investigation practice, Focus Mode tracking, environmental lore, a dedicated combat encounter, and equipment before the open-world portion fully takes over.

A practical opening route is therefore:

1. complete the urgent main objectives that protect family outcomes;
2. fit Deep Down into the remaining prologue window before Sacred Covenant;
3. keep a manual save before entering the cave if you want a clean recovery point;
4. update the game before following any old stuck-cave workaround.

For the broader campaign route after this quest, continue with the Quests Hub and Best Quest Order.

Sources

• Official Hotfix 1.0.4 notes
• PowerPyx: Deep Down Walkthrough
• PowerPyx: The Blood of Dawnwalker Walkthrough — All Quests