Bakir’s Transports: Ill-Gotten Gains is one of the shortest Court activities in The Blood of Dawnwalker, and it has no fight attached to it. The whole thing is a single loot interaction. The problem is that the game drops a wide search area on your map and then says nothing else, so people wander the forest hunting for a chest that isn’t a chest.
Quick answer: Travel to The Sifts in the southern part of the map, run to the large bare tree standing alone in the forest, and interact with the loot prompt at its base to take 198 Denarius and a pair of Golden Earrings. The quest ends the moment you loot it.
How to unlock Ill-Gotten Gains: spare the soldiers in Fool’s Gold
Ill-Gotten Gains does not appear on its own. It branches off Bakir’s Transports: Fool’s Gold, one of Bakir’s payoff transport activities. After you clear the transport, let the surviving soldiers walk away instead of finishing them. They buy their lives by telling Coen where the gold they were supposed to hand over to the uriashi is buried, and that tip becomes the treasure-map lead.
The journal entry spells out the setup plainly. Bakir’s men claimed to have hidden the gold and pointed Coen at the spot in exchange for their lives, so the objective is written as a gamble on whether they were honest. Bakir’s region is tuned for around level 20 and up, which is why he’s usually the second Court target after Ambrus.
Ill-Gotten Gains stash location in The Sifts
Open the map and track the quest. The marker sits in The Sifts, down in the southern stretch of the world map, well away from the roads Bakir’s transports patrol. Fast travel to the nearest shrine in that direction rather than running the whole way, since travel eats into your 30-day clock only through the activities you actually start, but the trip is long.
The objective marker covers a patch of open forest, not a precise point, and the terrain here is scrubby and flat. That is the part that trips people up. Nothing glows from a distance, and there is no camp, cart, or enemy group to orient yourself against.
How to collect the gold from the hidden stash
F key by default. The pickup and the quest completion happen in the same action, so there is nothing to hand in afterward.Ill-Gotten Gains rewards and time cost
The payout is modest but the activity is cheap in effort, and it still counts toward Bakir’s Anger like any other Court entry.
| Detail | Value |
|---|---|
| Court activity | Bakir’s Transports: Ill-Gotten Gains |
| Unlocked by | Letting the soldiers go in Fool’s Gold |
| Area | The Sifts, southern part of the map |
| Time cost | 3 Time Segments |
| Loot | 198 Denarius, 1 Golden Earrings |
| Combat | None at the stash itself |
Note: three Time Segments is the standard cost for Bakir’s activities, the same as his transports and distilleries. If you are budgeting the 30-day clock tightly, this one is worth doing on a trip you are already making south rather than as a dedicated run.
How to confirm the quest completed
You get three confirmations at once. The loot window lists Denarius (198) and Golden Earrings (1), a “QUEST ENDED” banner appears, and Coen mutters, “Hah. True to their word.” The journal then closes the entry with a line confirming the gold was really there and that these particular crooks kept their end.
There are only two ways this goes wrong. If you killed the soldiers during Fool’s Gold instead of releasing them, the treasure-map branch never opens and the activity will not exist in your Court menu. And if you move on to confront Brencis before collecting, the quest closes out with Coen deciding he has no time to deal with it, which means the stash is gone for that run.
Once it’s done, the entry clears out of Bakir’s Court list and you’re free to carry on with his remaining activities. If you’re working toward his duel, the pillory and distillery groups will move his Anger far faster than a buried purse of coins.
