The Blood of Dawnwalker: How to Search Vlad’s Hut in The Firebrand

Walk up to Vlad’s burnt-out hut after the prologue and The Firebrand starts on its own, handing you a single vague instruction: search the place. The hut is full of gold-highlighted junk in Focus Mode, and almost none of it matters. One object does.

Quick answer: Go into the back room on the left, inspect the small sack of flour against the wall, look at the mark on the outside, then tilt it back to reveal the Silver Spearheads hidden inside. The objective flips to “Go to the mill” the moment you find them.

Where Vlad’s hut is and what starts The Firebrand

The Firebrand is a side quest that unlocks after you finish “Smoke and Ashes.” There’s no quest giver to talk to. Coen picks it up automatically as he approaches Vladimir’s hut in the sacked village, which sits near the Briar Sloughs and Mert’s Mill.

If you’re coming off the main quest marker for “Search your family home,” the hut is a short run away. You’ll know it triggered when a NEW QUEST card for The Firebrand appears with the objective “Search Vlad’s hut.”

How to search Vlad’s hut and find the Silver Spearheads

Enter the hut and turn on Focus Mode. A lot of objects light up gold, including burned papers, spilled wine, and food scattered across the floor. Treat all of it as optional.

Grab the loot as you pass through if you want it. Onions, garlic, pork, and the rest are ordinary pickups with a standard “Pick Up” prompt, so there’s no investigation minigame attached to them.

The Pick Up Onion prompt on screen inside the ransacked hut in The Blood of Dawnwalker — Food pickups like this onion are optional loot and do not advance the objective. Image: Rebel Wolves

Head left into the back room. Against the wall you’ll find a small, unusually heavy sack of flour. Interact with it to drop into object investigation mode.

Coen holding the small heavy flour sack in object investigation mode with the Search Vlad's hut objective active — The heavy flour sack in the back room is the only object that matters here. Image: Rebel Wolves

Rotate the sack and look at the mark printed on the outside, then tilt it back to see what’s buried in the flour. Silver Spearheads spill into view, which is the proof that Vlad was smuggling weapons for the rebels with help from his cousin, Mert the miller.

The half-burnt letters and everything else in the hut

Two documents survived the fire, one signed “M.” and one signed “C.” They lay out plans involving weapons and the mines, and they’re the clearest bit of context you’ll get on the manumits before you reach the mill. They’re worth reading, but they aren’t required.

A gold-highlighted item being searched in Vlad's hut as The Firebrand quest card appears on screen — The half-burnt letters from “M.” and “C.” are found among the scorched papers inside the hut. Image: Rebel Wolves

Item	Why it matters
Silver Spearheads	Required. Hidden in the flour sack; completes the objective
Half-burnt Letter from M.	Optional. Context on the rebellion and the mines
Half-burnt Letter from C.	Optional. Same, from the other correspondent
Denarius	Optional. Currency scattered in the hut
Garlic, Onion, Radish, Pork, Bread	Optional food pickups
Saffron Milk Cap, Dried Fish, Linseed Oil	Optional crafting and consumable materials

You can also inspect a yellow coat dusted with flour before you leave. It reinforces the flour connection to the mill, and nothing more. The Inspect prompt works the same way on it as on the other flagged scenery.

The Inspect prompt highlighted on an object in the hut with The Firebrand journal update on screen — Inspecting the flour-covered coat is flavor only, not a completion trigger. Image: Rebel Wolves

How to confirm the objective completed

Two things happen the moment the spearheads are uncovered. The tracked objective changes from “Search Vlad’s hut” to “Go to the mill,” and the journal entry updates to note that the miller has been smuggling contraband for the insurgents and needs to be questioned.

If the objective is still reading “Search Vlad’s hut” after you’ve picked the place clean, there are only two realistic explanations. Either you haven’t found the sack in the back room on the left, or you opened its investigation view and backed out before tilting it to expose the flour. Looting food, coins, or the letters will never advance it on its own.

From there, the mill is the next stop, and travelling to it costs one time segment. Note: the encounter plays out very differently depending on when you arrive. Show up at night and Brencis’s soldiers hiding in the shed will stop you and demand a name, which can push the objective to “Return to the mill during the day.” Arrive in daylight and Renna will be in the yard, ready to talk her way around the soldiers still inside her hut.