The Blood of Dawnwalker: Return to Laslea and Save Your Family in Bad Blood

After Coen claws his way out of the silver mines, Bad Blood hands you its longest stretch of open ground. “Return to Laslea and save your family” is the seventh objective in the quest, and it costs time segments you may not want to spend. It also hides an optional branch that makes the trip cheaper rather than more expensive, which is unusual for a game built around a 30-day clock.

Quick answer: Clawride down the cliff outside the mine exit, deal with the two soldiers on the path below, then follow the compass marker to Laslea. Rescue Vladimir first and the objective’s cost drops from 2 time segments to 1.

What the objective costs and what it pays out

Bad Blood is the fifth main mission in The Blood of Dawnwalker and starts at Laslea Glen / Silver Mines once “Sacred Covenant” is done. There is no fail state on the quest itself, but every segment you burn here is a segment gone from the wider countdown.

Objective	Time cost	XP
Escaping the mine	—	250 XP
Return to Laslea and save your family	2 segments (1 if Vladimir is saved first)	—
Find Vladimir (optional)	1 segment	250 XP
Bad Blood completion	—	500 XP

Because saving Vladimir refunds a segment on the main objective, the detour is effectively free. There is no scenario where skipping it saves you time.

Getting down the cliff: the clawride prompt

Squeeze out through the narrow gap at the end of the mine tunnel and walk to the edge of the cliff. Smoke and firelight are already visible in the direction of the village, and the game stops you at the lip with a new prompt.

Press and hold circle / B to clawride. Coen drops over the edge and drags his claws down the rock face to slow the fall, landing in the water at the bottom of Laslea Glen. Hold the button for the whole descent — releasing it early is what turns a controlled slide into a drop.

Clawride is a permanent traversal tool from this point on, and you will use it again after the optional Vladimir conversation on the crag above the village.

The two Brencis soldiers and the Blood Craving warning

Run along the path toward the village and two of Brencis’s soldiers stop you with a “Who goes there?!” They have orders to escort you to their master, and the dialogue gives you a genuine fork. You can let them lead the way, or you can end the conversation and fight.

Bad Blood quest tracker updated with the Laslea objective marker 411 meters ahead — The quest updates to “Return to Laslea and save your family” as you close on the soldiers blocking the path. Image: Rebel Wolves

The catch is Blood Craving. If your Vampiric Health has dropped to a single segment, the journal spells out what happens next.

When Vampiric Health drops down to 1 Segment, you become hungry and start to Crave Blood. While in this state, you may lose control during a dialogue and drain the person you are talking to. Right now, you are Craving Blood and will drain anyone in your way – even a friend.

In that state the conversation can offer a “[give in to the hunger]” option, which drops you straight into combat with both soldiers. It is a short fight, they give 5 XP, and their bodies can be looted. Note: the same rule applies later to Vladimir, so top up on blood from wildlife or rats before any dialogue you care about.

Find Vladimir: the optional branch worth taking

After killing the soldiers, inspect the corpse they were standing over. Coen spots a stab wound in the back and reads it as Vladimir’s work, which opens the optional objective and puts a trail of blood and footprints on the ground.

Follow the trail. It runs through a ruined camp where more of Brencis’s men are patrolling, and the trail shows Vladimir was wounded and being chased. Two more attackers wait along the way, a human and an Uriash.

Coen moving through a ruined camp with the Bad Blood objective tracked on screen — The ruined camp on the way to Laslea, where patrols can be fought or slipped past. Image: Rebel Wolves

At the end of the trail, two enemies stand outside a burning building with Vladimir trapped inside, waiting for the smoke to finish him. One is a standard soldier, the other a Vrakhiri Banneret. Kill both, then talk Vladimir out of the house before he suffocates.

Take the conversation on the crag above Laslea, where he fills in what happened during the attack. Afterwards, clawride down the cliff and continue toward the village. His route is a shortcut, which is why the main objective’s cost drops to a single time segment.

Reaching Laslea: patrols, the mountain path and the trigger

If you skip Vladimir, the route to the village runs through the same camp and up a rocky mountain path. Nothing here is mandatory combat. The patrols can be walked around entirely, which is the faster and cheaper option since fights cost health you would rather keep for the encounter waiting at the village.

Coen following a forest path with the compass marker pointing toward Laslea — The compass marker is the only navigation you need on the way down. Image: Rebel Wolves

Keep the compass marker centered and the distance counter falling. There are pickups along the way, including Saffron Milk Cap, but nothing on this stretch is required to advance the objective.

Objective distance reading 263 meters as Coen moves past a patrol toward the mountain path — Slipping past a patrol on the rocky climb, with roughly 263 meters left to the marker. Image: Rebel Wolves

Coen comments on the smell as you get close — the scent of blood, then “Something’s burning…” — which is the audio cue that you are within range of the trigger.

Coen crossing rocky ground on the final approach to Laslea with the Bad Blood objective active — The final rocky approach before the objective hands off to a cutscene. Image: Rebel Wolves

How to confirm the objective completed

Crossing into the village area triggers a loading screen followed by a cutscene of Laslea in flames. That transition is the confirmation — the objective does not tick over on proximity alone, and it will not advance while you are still on the cliffs or working the Vladimir trail.

In the cutscene, Brencis is standing over Coen’s father. He cuts the older man’s cheek and orders you to drink. Refusing sets him off — he declares that the change left you malformed and that you have to be destroyed — and the fight starts immediately.

The Brencis fight is a scripted loss

You are meant to lose this one. Treat it as a free look at Brencis’s moveset, since you will face him again for real much later. He opens with a blood lance at range, telegraphed by a drawing animation, and closes distance with a shadowstep followed by a slow sword swing that is easy to dodge.

Beating him here is possible, even at this point in the game, and doing so unlocks the bronze Realmwalker trophy early along with a look at his true form. Either way the story lands in the same place. He tries to drink from you, spits your blood back out, and with dawn coming he pins you to a tree with a pickaxe and leaves you in the sunlight before Anca pulls you out.

Talking to Anca closes out Bad Blood. From there the open world of Vale Sangora is yours, the 30-day clock is running, and the segments you saved by rescuing Vladimir are already working in your favor.