The Blood of Dawnwalker: How to Acquire Andrei’s Memento (Take the Ring)

Ocha needs something personal from Andrei before she can cast her hex, and the quest marker in Svartrau City drops you outside a butcher’s shop that doubles as the crime boss’s hideout. Three objects sit in that room, and only one of them carries enough meaning to Andrei for the hex to bite.

Quick answer: Take Andrei’s Ring, not the pendant or the cleaver, then return to Ocha and pick the line “The ring. Must be important.” The safest way in is to wait for nighttime and climb the balcony.

Why the ring is the correct memento

A hex needs an object tied to the target. Andrei tells you the answer himself during the trade conversation, when he recalls his father hitting him hard enough that the ring on his hand nearly split his skull open. That scar, and the ring he later took for himself, is the memory the hex latches onto.

Item	Result
Andrei’s Ring	Correct. The hex succeeds and Andrei starts slamming his own head into the wall.
Andrei’s Pendant	Wrong. It belongs to Katja, not Andrei, so the hex fails.
The cleaver	Wrong. It carries no personal weight for him.

Note: if you hand Ocha the wrong memento, Nora is in real danger later. You then have to shout “Step away from her!” instead of staying hidden, or she can die.

Two ways into Andrei’s hideout

The hideout sits behind Dragan the Butcher’s shop. You can either climb in from above after dark or buy an audience by pretending to be a silver seller. Both routes end with the same three objects on the desk, but they carry very different consequences.

Route	What you need	Trade-off
Balcony at night	Nighttime plus your vampiric climbing power	Skips every conversation and every fight risk. Nora is never taken hostage.
Butcher’s door	50 denarii for the beggar (or 400 for Katja) and a silver item in your inventory	Andrei’s goons take Nora hostage afterwards, and hostile dialogue starts a fight.

Do not try the balcony during the day. Climbing in while the NPCs inside are still on their daytime routine breaks their scripting, and the quest can no longer progress.

Balcony route: Take the ring at night

Open the map and travel to the hideout marker in the Swiety Krzyz district of Svartrau City. Wait until night before you approach the building.

Quest tracker showing the Acquire Andrei's memento objective with a distance marker — The tracker keeps “Acquire Andrei’s memento” active with a distance marker pointing at the hideout. Image: Rebel Wolves

Climb the outside wall up to Andrei’s balcony and slip through into his room. Nobody is inside at this hour, so there is no timer and no dialogue to manage.

Coen moving through the dark interior of Andrei's room with the quest tracker on screen — Inside Andrei’s room after the balcony climb, with the quest still tracking the memento. Image: Rebel Wolves

Loot Andrei’s Ring from the desk. The objective updates the moment it enters your inventory.

Optionally open the chest in the same room. It holds the Ring of Quick Strikes, a level 24 legendary ring, and the epic Recipe for Powder of Sharp Mind.

You can also grab Andrei’s Pendant from the shelf. Picking it up is harmless as long as you do not offer it to Ocha later.

Pickup notification reading Andrei's Pendant appearing on screen — The optional pendant pickup on the shelf, which belongs to Katja rather than Andrei. Image: Rebel Wolves

Head back out to the balcony to trigger the scene with Ocha, then choose “The ring. Must be important.” If you never picked up the pendant, the ring is the only option she can use.

Dialogue wheel with the option The ring. Must be important. highlighted — The dialogue choice with Ocha, with the ring line selected over the pendant. Image: Rebel Wolves

Butcher’s door route: Safe dialogue answers

Talk to the beggar sitting in the alley near the butcher’s stall and pay him 50 denarii. He explains that people get inside by passing silver to the butcher. Speaking to Katja by the stone wall and paying her 400 denarii reveals the same thing.

Make sure you are carrying a silver item, then approach Dragan the Butcher and pick “I have some silver to sell.” He unlocks the door and walks you in.

Inside, Dragan demands proof before letting you upstairs. Show him the silver and follow his instructions without pushing back.

Andrei is mid-punishment when you arrive, cutting a debtor’s finger off with his cleaver. Stay silent and let it happen. Interrupting him is the fastest way into a fight you do not want.

Hand over the silver and keep your answers conciliatory through his two test questions.

Moment	Safe reply	Starts a fight
Showing the butcher your silver	“Here it is.” / “Alright, here.”	“Just move.”
The debtor losing a finger	[stay silent]	“I said let him go.”
Handing Andrei the silver	“Here’s what I’ve got.”	“I’m here to talk about Ocha.”
“Nervous, are we?”	“I don’t trust you, is all.” or “Who wouldn’t be? What we’re doing here is illegal.”	“You don’t impress me.”
The cleaver threat	“You know how to handle it, that’s for sure.”	“Your threats bore me.”

Andrei leaves the room when Dragan announces that Nora has arrived. You now have a short window with three prompts on the desk: take the cleaver, take the pendant, or take the ring. Pick [take the ring].

Let the trade finish. Andrei pays you 100 denarii and has Dragan walk you out the back door, which completes the objective.

Tip: killing Andrei’s men locks the The Outcast trophy, and killing Andrei himself puts Ocha at odds with you because it wrecks her plan.

How to confirm the memento worked

The first confirmation is the Journal. Once the ring is in your inventory, “Acquire Andrei’s memento” clears and “Return to Ocha” appears as the new objective, with “Look for more of Andrei’s mementos” listed as optional.

Journal entry for The Heart Wants What It Wants updated with the Return to Ocha objective — The Journal entry updating to “Return to Ocha” once the memento is secured. Image: Rebel Wolves

Returning to Ocha costs two time segments. If you used the butcher’s door, she tells you that Andrei’s men have grabbed Nora and dragged her into the hideout you just left. Answer with “We should stick to the plan” rather than letting Ocha charge in.

Go back outside, use Focus Mode, and either open the pig cage by the fence or pay Katja 50 denarii to pull the guard away. Then look through the ground-floor window. With the ring as the memento, the hex lands and Andrei starts driving his head into the wall, which is the visual proof you picked correctly.

Reasons the memento step fails

Only a handful of things actually break this objective, and all of them are avoidable.

Climbing to the balcony during daylight, which breaks the NPC scripting inside and stalls the quest.
Approaching the butcher without a silver item, since the “I have some silver to sell” option needs one in your inventory.
Choosing an aggressive line with Dragan or Andrei, which turns the meeting into combat before you ever reach the desk.
Giving Ocha the pendant or the cleaver, which makes the hex fizzle and puts Nora at risk.

If you are after a clean run with no bodies and no hostage sequence, the night climb is the shortest path. Grab the ring off the desk, sweep the chest for the Ring of Quick Strikes and the Recipe for Powder of Sharp Mind while you are there, and walk back out with everything Ocha needs.