The Blood of Dawnwalker: How to Show Marat the Book in Who Pulls the Strings

Silas’s Book is the whole point of Who Pulls the Strings, and once you have it, the quest hands you a single remaining objective: get it in front of Marat. He is the rebellion leader the game also calls Crake, and he is not standing out in the open — the marker drops you at a building in Svartrau City, and he is one floor down.

Quick answer: Fast travel to Svartrau City, follow the “Show Marat the book” marker to the manumit hideout, head downstairs, talk to Crake and pick “I’ve got Silas’s book.” Then tell him you’ll be ready in time to end the quest.

Who Pulls the Strings quest details

This is a side quest in Crake’s questline, and it is flagged as missable, so it is worth clearing before you burn too many days off the clock.

Detail	Value
Quest giver	Marat (Crake)
Starting location	Manumit Hideout, Svartrau City
Starts after	Completing What Moves the Dead
Availability	Day and night
Time cost	5 time segments (3 in the tower, 2 returning)
Missable	Yes
Reward	1,000 XP, plus the Life Lock Witchcraft Ability
Leads into	Distant Shadows, then the Rise at Dawn ending quest

Life Lock does not arrive at the end. You unlock it earlier, the moment you inspect Silas’s Book on the table after beating Svetlana, the Dark Prodigy, in Aurelius’s Tower out in The Silts. If you skipped that inspection, the “Show Marat the book” objective will not be active.

How to reach Marat in Svartrau City

Open the map and check the marker. The objective sits inside Svartrau City, between the Goldstein and Greifberg Castle regions on the map. Fast travel to the nearest point rather than walking the whole valley, since the return trip already costs two time segments.

Follow the on-screen distance counter through the city streets. Daytime is fine here, and no fight is attached to this leg of the quest, so you can run straight at the marker without detouring.

Coen running through Svartrau City with the objective marker 21 meters ahead — The distance counter ticks down as you close on the hideout in Svartrau City. Image: Bandai Namco Entertainment

Enter the building the marker points at. The tracker keeps reading “Show Marat the book” right up to the door, which is the easiest confirmation you are at the correct house and not a neighboring one.

Quest tracker reading Show Marat the book with the marker seven meters away — At seven meters out, the HUD still lists “Show Marat the book” as the active objective. Image: Bandai Namco Entertainment

Go downstairs. Marat is not on the ground floor with the townsfolk. Take the stairs down into the hideout and the interaction prompt will switch to “Talk with Crake.”

Objective marker six meters ahead inside the manumit hideout with the family rescue timer visible — Inside the hideout, the marker sits six meters away, with the family rescue countdown still running at the top of the screen. Image: Bandai Namco Entertainment

The dialogue lines that complete the objective

Start the conversation and choose “I’ve got Silas’s book.” Coen hands it over and explains that the hex inside can weaken the gargoyles guarding Greifberg Castle, which is what makes the assault plan viable.

Answer his question about Master Aurelius. If you killed the mage, “I taught him a lesson instead” is the line that matches what happened, and Crake reacts to it rather than punishing you for it.

Dialogue wheel with the option I taught him a lesson instead highlighted during the talk with Crake — Picking “I taught him a lesson instead.” when Crake asks what happened to Aurelius. Image: Bandai Namco Entertainment

Push him on the plan. “Let’s focus on the preparations to attack the castle” and “Will you finally tell me what your plan is?” get him to lay out the strategy, including the alliance with Catalin, Skender’s son. The other lines about the manumits, his name, and Dragos are optional flavor and can be exhausted safely.

Close the conversation. Crake says the attack has to be ready by tomorrow and offers two answers. “I’ll be ready in time” moves things forward, while “I’ll need more time” buys you space if you still have loose ends.

What the point of no return warning means

A full-screen “BE WARNED!” card appears around this conversation, telling you that you are nearing the point of no return and that some upcoming choices can set the final quest in motion. If that happens, every quest and activity still in progress is abandoned, and the game ends once the finale plays out.

Confirming that screen does not end your run on the spot. The actual trigger comes later, in the Rise at Dawn ending quest, when you tell Marat “I’m ready to march on Brencis’s castle.” That single line is what wipes your unfinished quest log.

Tip: Make a manual save before you go back to Marat for Rise at Dawn. It is the cleanest way to keep exploring or to come back later and trigger a different ending without replaying the whole valley.

How to confirm the quest completed

Time passes automatically after the conversation, then a “QUEST ENDED” card shows Who Pulls the Strings with its XP payout. The tracker swaps over to a new objective — “Talk with Dragos” — which is your signal that the book handover registered.

If nothing triggers, the usual causes are narrow. Either Silas’s Book was never inspected on the table in Aurelius’s Tower, or you are talking to the wrong floor of the hideout and have not gone downstairs to Crake.

Loot prompt appearing on screen as Coen moves through the hideout after the conversation — The loot prompt as Coen moves off after the conversation wraps. Image: Bandai Namco Entertainment

What to do next

Before you walk away, ask Crake what else he wanted to discuss. That starts Distant Shadows, which continues his romance track alongside A Closer Look. Skipping it does not lock you out of the assault, but the relationship beats only exist in those quests.

Rise at Dawn opens immediately after, and it makes you wait at least two in-game days — 32 time segments — before Marat will move. Use that window for anything still sitting in your journal, because once the march begins, none of it survives.