A Deal with the Devil is the last main quest in The Blood of Dawnwalker, and it behaves differently from everything before it. There is no location to travel to and no quest giver to find. Brencis comes to you once Coen has done enough damage to his court, and the meeting that follows decides how the 30-day rescue attempt ends.
Quick answer: Defeat Ambrus, Bakir, and Xanthe to reach maximum Infamy, then advance time to the next day. Brencis sends an offer of parley, the quest lands in your journal, and you complete it by lighting the signal fire at Shrike’s Crag and choosing how to answer him.
Unlock requirements for A Deal with the Devil
The quest is gated entirely behind the Court system. Each of Brencis’s three vassals has an Anger meter that fills as you clear Court Activities in their region. Max a vassal’s Anger and you unlock their duel quest; win all three duels and Coen’s Infamy hits its ceiling, which forces Brencis into the open.
| Requirement | Detail |
|---|---|
| Vassals defeated | Ambrus, Bakir, and Xanthe, in any order (recommended level order: Ambrus, then Bakir at 20+, then Xanthe at 25+) |
| Infamy | Must be at maximum after the third vassal falls |
| Time | Advance to the next day; the cutscene reading out Coen’s notoriety triggers the offer |
| Deadline | All of the above must happen inside the 30 in-game days |
| Map marker | None — the quest is added straight to the journal |
Note: Time in this game is spent, not counted down. Exploring costs nothing, while quests, Court Activities, training, and some dialogue choices burn Time Segments. Focusing purely on Court Activities can finish the vassals in roughly 7–10 days, which leaves a wide margin before the parley.
Save before you start the quest
Once the parley begins, the game funnels straight into an ending. Make a manual save in a fresh slot the moment the quest appears — the game supports 54 manual slots. Reloading that save afterwards lets you set up and view the other endings without replaying the whole campaign, and it also leaves the world open for any side content you skipped.
Light the signal fire at Shrike’s Crag
The parley: what each choice locks in
Brencis offers terms rather than a fight. The conversation is where the campaign branches, and the option you pick is effectively an ending selection. Coen can demand his family back and hand over the rebellion, or refuse outright and settle it with claws and steel.
| Choice at the parley | Result |
|---|---|
| “Enough. Time to End this.” | Skips the deal and starts the Brencis boss fight. Winning gives The Folk Hero ending. |
| Ask for your family back, then mark the Manumit Hideout on the map for Brencis | The Turncoat ending. You only know the hideout’s location if you completed The Firebrand, Shadows in the Woods, and Where Loyalty Lies. |
| Accept Brencis’s offer while allied with Lacra or Crake | Also routes into The Turncoat, betraying that ally. |
Two other finales bypass this meeting entirely. Finishing Lacra’s chain — A Friend Like This, Song of the Mountain, Hive and Seek, Our Rotten Roots, and Midnight Reckoning — lets you speak to her to begin The Patricide. Completing Crake’s Manumit chain through Rise at Dawn and Fall Before Dusk unlocks The Knyazmaker instead.
Brencis boss fight: both phases
Refusing the deal drops you straight into the duel. The health bar names him Brencis, the Knyaz of Vale Songora, and he does not fight alone for the whole encounter — you will be clearing space around you while chipping at the boss bar.
The first phase keeps Brencis in his human-like form on solid ground. Drain that bar and the arena changes: he transforms into the Grotesque Ascendant and the fight relocates to a hellish realm for the second phase. Coen’s claws hit harder than his sword at night, so leaning on the vampiric form is the stronger option here, with bites topping up health between exchanges.
After the fight: Pieter, the cemetery, and the epilogue
Beating Brencis does not hand Coen a clean win. His father, Pieter, is found dead in the aftermath, and the quest closes on Coen grieving at a cemetery alongside Crina. On the routes that support it, the epilogue quest Things Will Be Different Now follows on from there.
Why the quest never triggers
If the journal entry has not appeared, one of a small number of things is true. All three vassals must be dead — a maxed Anger meter alone does nothing until you win the duel it unlocks. Infamy must be at its cap. And the day has to tick over, since the notoriety cutscene fires when time advances rather than the instant Xanthe falls.
Running out of the 30 days is the one hard failure. Let the clock expire without ever approaching Brencis’s castle and the family dies there, producing the Time Runs Out ending. The world stays open afterwards, but that particular rescue is gone for the playthrough — which is the strongest reason to bank a save the moment the parley invitation arrives.
