The Blood of Dawnwalker: A Friend Like This Walkthrough

A Friend Like This is the Svartrau City quest that ends with a vampire boss fight, a tied-up uriash, and a decision about whether anyone walks out alive. It runs on 21 objectives, costs 3 time units off the 30-day clock, pays 150 XP, and can be failed outright if you let the coronation deadline swallow it. The clean ending hands you the route to the uriash village and rolls straight into Song of the Mountain.

Quick answer: Scan the alley by Svartrau’s north-east wall with Focus Mode, follow the roof-tile trail across the rooftops at night, drop at the claw marks, enter the building, beat Lacra, then talk Nish down with “Gladly. But we will actually talk.” → “What happened? Your side of the story.” → “You’re one of his soldiers.” → “What did he do to you?” → “Brencis is our common enemy.” → “I cannot let this go, because of my family.” → “You have my word.” → “I promise.” → “You’re not killing him.”

Quest requirements and rewards

There is no quest giver and no prerequisite. You can pick it up by hearing about a rogue vrakhir in the city, or by simply walking into the alley and scanning it. The rooftop portion is night-only, so if you arrive during the day you will need to burn time until dark before the trail continues.

Detail	Value
Start location	Svartrau City, alley at the north-east edge below the city walls
Region	Boar’s Back / The Cathedral Complex area
Time cost	3 time units
Time of day	Trail can be started by day; rooftop steps require night
Reward	150 XP
Missable	Yes — one of its three endings is a failure state
Leads to	Song of the Mountain

Follow the trail through Svartrau with Focus Mode

The whole investigation runs on Focus Mode. Hold L2 on PlayStation or LT on Xbox, and anything interactive glows yellow. Every clue you inspect pushes the objective forward, so if the marker stops moving, you missed one.

Head to the alley at the north-east edge of Svartrau City, tucked under the walls. Scan with Focus Mode and inspect the container, the damaged wall, the smashed debris, and the scrap of torn uniform in Brencis’s colors. That torn cloth is what ties the mess to Nish.

Move just south of the wall corner and inspect the roof tile lying on the ground. Coen works out that whatever happened here carried on above street level, and the objective switches to the roof.

Wait for night if it is still daylight, then use your vrakhiri climbing and leaping abilities to scale the wall onto the rooftop. Human Coen cannot make this climb, which is why the trail stalls during the day.

Quest tracker showing the objective to use vrakhiri skills to investigate the roof above the alley — The objective flips to the roof once the fallen tile is inspected. Image: Rebel Wolves

Keep Focus Mode up and follow the broken roof sections southwest, hopping between buildings. Coen comments on the signs of a struggle as you go, which is a decent confirmation you are still on the correct roofline.

Crouching on a Svartrau rooftop with the objective to follow the rooftop tracks on screen — Broken tiles mark the route southwest across the rooftops. Image: Rebel Wolves

The trail ends at claw marks on a roof edge pointing down. Drop to ground level and inspect the large impact mark and the damaged fence there. That fence sits right beside the abandoned building you need.

Take the steps up and go through the doorway on the left. A cutscene fires immediately, with Lacra standing over Nish, who is tied to a chair.

The Lacra, the Envoy boss fight

Nothing you say in that first exchange avoids the fight. Whether you open with “I’m not with the guard,” “Who are you?” or “Why are you torturing the uriash?”, Lacra attacks and the objective changes to Defend yourself. She is a vrakhir, so she is fast and she closes distance hard.

Sword attacks with well-timed dodges are enough. You do not have to kill her, either. Once her health drops to roughly half, the fight breaks off into a cutscene and she agrees to talk.

Fighting Lacra, the Envoy inside the abandoned building with her boss health bar on screen — Lacra’s health bar appears at the top; halving it ends the fight. Image: Rebel Wolves

In the conversation that follows, Lacra explains she is hunting Brencis and needs to reach Isbrand to get to him. Nish knows the way to the uriash village, and the village is the thread that leads to Brencis’s sire. Offer to handle the interrogation yourself rather than letting her keep working on him.

Cinematic dialogue scene after the Lacra fight with the skip prompt in the corner — The post-fight scene sets up the alliance and the interrogation. Image: Rebel Wolves

Interrogate Nish without killing him

This is the part that decides the quest. Nish will hand over the route if Coen treats him as a person and promises the uriashi will be protected. Pick these lines in order for the non-violent path.

Gladly. But we will actually talk.
What happened? Your side of the story.
You’re one of his soldiers.
What did he do to you?
Brencis is our common enemy.
I cannot let this go, because of my family.
You have my word.
I promise.
You’re not killing him.

Note: the two promise lines matter. “I’ll try, but I can’t promise you that” and “That’s not my problem” are weaker commitments and pull the scene toward pressure rather than cooperation. The threatening options are all there — “I can talk to your corpse,” “Tell me or she interrogates you again,” “[give in to the hunger]” — and they exist to give you a worse outcome, not a faster one.

Nish’s directions are simple. Go west into the mountains, climb, find a big rock, and wait. Lacra will move to finish him once she has what she needs; “You’re not killing him” is the line that stops her.

Nish explaining the route west to the mountains and the chime to listen for, shown in subtitles — Nish gives the route west and tells you to listen for a chime. Image: Rebel Wolves

How the quest can go wrong

Three outcomes exist. Only one of them leaves you with a partner and a destination.

Outcome	What happens
Alliance	Nish talks and lives. You and Lacra head for the mountains to follow the windchimes to the village. 150 XP.
Walk away	You refuse to work with Lacra. She remains in Svartrau if you change your mind later. 150 XP.
Failure	You decide the rogue vrakhir is not your problem, and the coronation clock eventually takes the quest off the board.

If Nish dies during the interrogation, the quest does not end — it detours. The objective becomes finding the village location from another source, and you can use Compel Soul on his corpse during the day to pull the directions out of him. Refusing to let Lacra torture him and then falling out with her entirely turns into a second fight where only one of you leaves the house.

You will know the good path landed when Coen and Lacra arrive at a mountain camp, hear faint chimes in the distance, and she suggests hunting a shepherd in the nearby meadow. The journal adds the sub-objective Hunt with Lacra, and Song of the Mountain opens. If the hunt turns your stomach, “Hunt a person? Absolutely not!” is on the wheel — and a later step asks you to meet her near the Crown Rock at night, so keep the clock in mind before you commit to more detours.