Forge It Anew: Executive Order Walkthrough in The Blood of Dawnwalker

Forge It Anew: Executive Order is the one Sword Shard hunt in The Blood of Dawnwalker that doesn’t end in a kobold cave. The nest near Tantari has already been picked clean by the time Coen arrives, and the shard he needs for St. Mihai’s blade is sitting in a soldier’s tent guarded by a small army. It is the most combat-heavy of the three Forge It Anew branches, and the one most likely to kill an underleveled character.

Quick answer: Search the ransacked kobold cave southeast of St. Tyna’s Grove near Tantari, read the Soldier’s Letter and the cave paintings, then travel to Xanthe’s camp near Tantari Woods, wipe out the guards, and loot the Sword Shard from the chest inside the central tent.

Before you start: level and time costs

Executive Order sits at the harder end of the Forge It Anew chain. Around level 21 is a comfortable place to attempt it, and the encounter can read as “nearly impossible” if you show up much lower than that. There is no fixed order to the three shard quests, so if this one feels punishing, take Do Not Disturb or Hostile Takeover first and come back.

Investigating the cave and picking up shards costs time. Each shard pickup burns three time segments, so factor that into your night before you commit.

Find the ransacked cave near Tantari

Open the map, track Forge It Anew, and select the objective “Search for the nest near Tantari.” The marker sits southeast of St. Tyna’s Grove, close to the inn where Anca is staying. Take the road south of the lodge and follow it up into the hills to reach the cave mouth.

Head inside and follow the glowing footprints. There is an abandoned campsite just past the entrance, and the quest name updates to Forge It Anew: Executive Order once you’re in.

Quest Updated notification for Forge It Anew: Executive Order with the TRACK option highlighted inside the cave — The quest updates to Forge It Anew: Executive Order as you follow the trail through the cave. Image: Rebel Wolves

Push deeper until you find the dead soldiers and kobolds, then inspect the bodies. One of them carries the Soldier’s Letter, which places the Uriash blacksmith on the road north of Parlita toward the mountains. That’s what eventually feeds the “Find the uriashi blacksmith” objective.

Highlighted investigation tracks in the cave with the Forge It Anew: Executive Order objective active on the HUD — Highlighted tracks lead you to the bodies holding the Soldier’s Letter. Image: Rebel Wolves

Inspect the cave paintings. They show the creatures celebrating with the shards before soldiers arrive and take them. That’s the confirmation that the shard is no longer here, and the objective flips to “Search the camp for items from the cave.”

Quest HUD showing Forge It Anew: Executive Order while searching the camp inside the cave — After the paintings, the objective points you at the soldiers’ camp. Image: Rebel Wolves

Clear Xanthe’s camp near Tantari Woods

The camp is a short trip from the cave, close to the Tantari Watermill shrine. Before you walk in, there’s a branch on the hillside overlooking the camp wrapped in strips of fabric. Interacting with it scouts the location and tells you exactly how many soldiers you’re dealing with. It doesn’t reduce the fight, but it removes the surprise.

Enter the camp. You’ll immediately get a Trespassing warning and the objective “Clear out Xanthe’s soldier’s campsite” appears, which also starts the side quest Xanthe’s Blood Guards: Unquenchable Thirst.

Fight the guards in manageable groups rather than standing in the middle of the camp. Pulling them up the road along the side of the camp works well, because they eventually stop chasing and give you a window to heal or use consumables.

Coen attacking several of Xanthe's soldiers on a wooden bridge with health bars visible — Fighting Xanthe’s soldiers in tighter spaces keeps the group from surrounding you. Image: Rebel Wolves

Loot the bodies once the camp is quiet. This is where The Kingslayer drops, a level 21 Legendary Greatsword that carries you nicely through the rest of the Forge It Anew chain.

Loot prompt highlighted over a defeated soldier after clearing Xanthe's camp — Loot every body in the camp before you head for the tent. Image: Rebel Wolves

Tip: if the straight fight is going badly, there’s a way to skip most of it. Attack a soldier from the northern edge to drag the whole group up the sloping path, sometimes pulling wild boar into the brawl too, then sprint around through the swamps. Once you drop aggro, you can slip into the central tent and take the shard before anyone wanders back.

The prisoner choice at the camp

With the guards dead, a man tied to a post triggers the optional “Free the Prisoner” objective. Talk to him and he admits he was a blood slave. The two closing lines split the outcome, either “I won’t let a murderer walk free.” or “Leave before I change my mind.” Neither is required to finish the shard hunt, so treat it as a character decision rather than a gate.

Where the Sword Shard is hidden

The shard is in a chest inside the tent at the center of the camp, not on any of the bodies. Open it and you take both the Sword Shard and a Letter from Xanthe. That pickup is what closes out Executive Order.

Reward	Where it comes from
Sword Shard	Chest inside the camp’s central tent
Letter from Xanthe	Same chest as the shard
Small Vial of Yrakhiri Blood	Completing Xanthe’s Blood Guards: Unquenchable Thirst
1 Skill Point	Completing Xanthe’s Blood Guards: Unquenchable Thirst
The Kingslayer (level 21 Legendary Greatsword)	Looting soldier bodies in the camp

How to confirm the quest completed

You’ll see Forge It Anew: Executive Order marked complete the moment the chest is looted, and the tracker moves to “Find the uriashi blacksmith.” Xanthe’s Blood Guards: Unquenchable Thirst closes separately when the last soldier drops, with its own completion notice and the skill point.

If nothing updates, the usual causes are simple. Looting corpses in the camp doesn’t count, since only the tent chest holds the shard, and a stray surviving guard will keep the clear objective open. Skipping the cave paintings also leaves you stuck on the earlier objective, because the camp step doesn’t appear until you’ve seen them.

With this shard banked, you’re one of three pieces closer to the Restored Sword of St. Mihai. The Uriash Hermit in the northwest of the map, west of Briar Sloughs, takes all three shards along with the broken sword, and the blade still needs one more trip into a cave before it becomes the Imbued Sword of St. Mihai.