The Blood of Dawnwalker: Mysterious Instruction Puzzle Solution

The Mysterious Instruction in The Blood of Dawnwalker is a cipher note that never becomes a tracked quest. Nothing appears in your journal, no marker lands on the map, and most players read it once and move on. It is a real treasure hunt, though, built around eight saint papers stashed in Manumit caches around Svartrau City. Pull one word out of each paper and you get a location.

Quick answer: The decoded phrase is “North of Svartrau Into Waterfall by Great Bridge.” Fast travel to Sandy Gorge Shrine, head northwest until you hit the river, then turn west and enter the cave behind the waterfall near the Great Bridge.

Waterfall stash location and loot

The cave the note points to sits northwest of Sandy Gorge Shrine, in the river basin under the Great Bridge. There is no icon for it, so the bridge is your landmark. Drop a custom marker on the river directly below the bridge if you want a visual anchor, then climb down the cliffs and walk through the falling water to get inside.

The hidden cavern north of Svartrau that the Mysterious Instruction cipher points to — The cave behind the waterfall near the Great Bridge, the answer to the Mysterious Instruction. Image: Rebel Wolves

Inside, work through every chest, crate and sack rather than grabbing the obvious containers. The haul includes Black Knight Greaves, a Woodland Knightly Longsword, Lizard Skin Loafers, the Second Skin II and Perfect Riposte manuals, and a pile of silver chalices, platters and crosses you can sell in Svartrau for Denarii.

Loot prompt over a chest inside the hidden waterfall cave — The loot prompt over one of the chests tucked inside the cave. Image: Rebel Wolves

Loot window showing the stats for the Lizard Skin Loafers — Lizard Skin Loafers, one of the gear pieces stored in the cave chests. Image: Rebel Wolves

The headline item is the Arbiter’s Medallion, a legendary amulet looted from a skeleton in the cave. Its stats all feed stamina economy, so Coen can swing and block more often, and it stays relevant well past the point you find it.

Loot screen showing the Arbiter's Medallion legendary amulet and its stats — The Arbiter’s Medallion, the legendary amulet stashed with a skeleton in the cave. Image: Rebel Wolves

HUD notification for picking up Silver Bowl items in the cave — Silver valuables pile up fast in the cave and sell for a solid amount of Denarii. Image: Rebel Wolves

Note: the cave exists whether or not you have decoded anything. If you swim past it during normal exploration, loot it anyway.

How the word-count cipher works

The Mysterious Instruction tells you to pull a single word out of each saint paper, counting either forward from the start or backward from the end. Read in the order below, those eight words form the location phrase.

Paper	Word to count	Result
From Life of St. Cuthbert	13th word	North
From Life of St. Tyna	9th word	Of
From Life of St. Mihai	2nd from the end	Svartrau
From Life of St. Tobias	12th word	Into
From Life of St. Teotim	22nd from the end	Waterfall
From Life of St. Anthony	31st word	By
From Life of St. Gregory	7th word	Great
From Life of St. Benezet	15th word	Bridge

You do not have to count anything by hand to reach the cave. The counting only matters if you want to see the puzzle resolve in-game.

Unlocking the Manumit caches in Svartrau City

Before any of the papers matter, you need a green book called Searching for Manumit Caches. It is a random drop from soldiers, and guards patrolling Svartrau City are the most dependable source. Kill and loot guards until it turns up, then read it to learn that the Manumit have hidden caches across the city.

All eight papers sit inside Svartrau City and can be collected in any order. Focus Mode is close to mandatory here, since most caches are tucked under rocks, inside wall tiles, or buried in carts.

Paper	Where to find it
From Life of St. Benezet	Southwest of Silberstein, in a crate surrounded by potted plants
From Life of St. Cuthbert	By the Cathedral Complex entrance, under a rock beside the stairs where a rebel symbol is painted on the wall
From Life of St. Tobias	Altenmarkt, south toward the Medic shop, hidden inside a wall tile
From Life of St. Mihai	Just north of Altenmarkt near the blacksmith, in a small wall alcove
From Life of St. Gregory	Southwest of the North West Gate, under a rock at the top of a short staircase
From Life of St. Teotim	Further southwest from the St. Gregory cache, near a group of thugs
From Life of St. Tyna	West of Neustadt, at the dead end of an alley
From Life of St. Anthony	North of Svartrau West Shrine, inside a hay cart

There is one extra cache worth mentioning near the St. Tobias paper. Under a rock on the stairs close to Svartrau North East Shrine, you can pick up equipment, coin and a potion. It is not one of the eight required papers.

Where the Mysterious Instruction note itself spawns

The cipher note is separate from the eight papers, and where it turns up varies between playthroughs. It can drop from one of the Manumit caches you loot in the city. It can also appear on the northern side of Svartrau, at the spot marked with the Curious House icon, or east of Neustadt.

For the Neustadt version, start at Silberstein Shrine and head west until a ledge appears to the southwest. Jump across, drop to ground level, and search the stash sitting below.

Initial Instructions: the tree at St. Rudel’s Cemetery

Initial Instructions shows up randomly in one of the eight caches, and it opens a second reward route that uses the exact same papers. Handing them over does not lock you out of the waterfall, so run both.

Travel to St. Rudel’s Cemetery, northwest of Svartrau City, and head inside the grounds.

Look for a tree bearing the Manumit symbol. Turn on Focus Mode and the correct tree glows gold, which saves a lot of wandering between headstones.

Interact with the tree and place your collected papers inside the hollow. Coen receives a note called Final Instructions, which says the cipher was never worth decoding and tells him to come back for payment.

Let a full in-game day pass, then return to the same tree. The stash holds Denarii, silver items and a recipe. The recipe can vary; the Recipe for Potent Keen Eye Potion is one confirmed drop.

Confirming it worked, and why it might not

There is no quest completion popup for either half, so the confirmation is item-based. For the cemetery route, Final Instructions landing in your inventory is the signal that the papers went in correctly, and the refilled tree the following day is the payoff. For the cipher route, reaching the cave behind the waterfall is the confirmation.

Two things stop progress. Without Searching for Manumit Caches in your inventory, the cache hunt never starts, so any loose paper you stumble across just sits there as flavour text. And the tree in St. Rudel’s Cemetery only accepts a complete set, so a missing saint paper means another sweep through Svartrau with Focus Mode on.