Quick answer: Head to the Reinforced Reception on the Blue Gate map, zipline underground, ferry three batteries to the Security Wing locked door, play the recording inside the red room, loot the Dusty Film Reel from the cabinet on the left, stash it in your safe pocket, and extract back to Speranza to turn it in to Shani.
"A Dead End" is a side quest given by Shani, Speranza's head of security, who wants you to dig into the Mantikor group and their role in shutting down the earthquake-resistance housing initiative known as Project Heartwood. The entire quest chain must be finished in a single raid — if you die before extracting with the key item, you start over from scratch. Bringing an augment with a safe pocket is practically mandatory, because the quest-critical Dusty Film Reel needs to survive the trip home even if you don't.
All five quest objectives
The quest tracker breaks down into five sequential steps, all completed within one round on the Blue Gate map:
- Find Mantikor's underground facilities.
- Find a way into the locked room in the Security Wing.
- Search the locked room for records on Project Heartwood.
- Find the Dusty Film Reel.
- Deliver the Dusty Film Reel to Shani.
Locating Mantikor's underground facilities
The underground facility sits beneath the Reinforced Reception point of interest, roughly in the center of the Blue Gate map between the Village and the Headhouse. Open your map, find Reinforced Reception, and head to the building on the north side. Unlock the door and look for an open elevator shaft with a zipline — ride it straight down into the basement. A large Mantikor logo on the lobby wall confirms you're in the right place.
There is an alternative entrance to the southwest that lets you bypass the Leaper and any players camping the main door. Either way works, but the primary zipline entrance drops you closest to the next objective.
Battery door puzzle — Opening the Security Wing locked room
From the underground lobby, follow the blue line painted on the floor. It leads southeast and then curves south through a hallway until you reach a massive shuttered door. A battery terminal sits to the right of this door, and it needs three capacitor batteries inserted before the door will power up and open.
The batteries are carried in both hands, not stored in your inventory. That means you move slowly and can't fight while holding one — drop it immediately if you run into trouble. You'll need to make three separate trips to ferry all of them to the door terminal.
Where to find the three batteries: All three spawn together in the Security Wing, but their exact location can shift between raids. Two confirmed spawn points are:
- Upstairs near the staircase room — follow the red line from the lobby up the stairs. Look for the batteries next to a small circular passage beneath a large overhead pipe, near yellow graffiti and the official battery dispenser.
- Downstairs in the filing cabinet room — check the room underneath the staircase, at the end of a row of filing cabinets. Red graffiti on the wall marks the area.
A third possible location is the central computer room, where the battery occasionally appears among the computer banks. The Security Wing is compact, so even if the batteries aren't in these exact spots, a quick sweep should turn them up. There's also a chance another player has already done the heavy lifting — if the door is already open when you arrive, walk right in.
Finding the Project Heartwood records and the Dusty Film Reel
Step 1: Enter the red room and head to the back-right corner. You'll see an old terminal next to the large screen on the wall. Interact with the "Play Recording" prompt. The screens at the front of the room will activate, and a short recording will play, satisfying the Project Heartwood records objective.
Step 2: Cross to the opposite side of the room — the back-left area. A hip-height searchable cabinet sits near the screen. Interact with it, and the Dusty Film Reel drops out as a physical item on the ground.
Step 3: Pick up the Dusty Film Reel. This is a separate interaction from searching the cabinet, so make sure you actually loot it. Immediately place it in your safe pocket. Items stored there persist even if you're killed before reaching an extraction point.
Extracting and turning in the quest
With the film reel secured, leave the underground facility the way you came in — or use any exit you prefer — and make your way to the nearest extraction elevator, metro station, air shaft, or raider hatch. Prioritize survival over looting on the way out. Once you're back in Speranza, speak with Shani to hand over the Dusty Film Reel and complete the quest.
"A Dead End" rewards
| Reward | Details |
|---|---|
| Coins | 2,000 |
| Cosmetic | Patchwork (Warden Color) variant skin |
| Follow-up quest | "A Rising Tide" unlocks after completion |
The trickiest part of "A Dead End" isn't any single step — it's the requirement to do everything in one life. Equip a safe pocket before you drop in, move quickly through the battery puzzle, and resist the urge to linger in the red room's loot pile until the film reel is safely pocketed. Once you've turned it in to Shani, "A Rising Tide" picks up the Mantikor storyline from there.