Valor Mortis: How to Complete the Sleeping Beauty Side Quest

In Valor Mortis, Sleeping Beauty is a brief side quest set in the swamp by the Village Church. It takes place in Cursed Hollow during Chapter VI: Punishment and requires no progress in earlier chapters. The quest is easy to overlook: its starting point is tucked behind a broken fence, and there is no map to guide you there. It concludes with a choice at a spinning wheel, and either ending awards the same upgrade material.

Quick answer: At the shrine beneath the dead tree, read the Headman’s Daughter’s Prayer. Defeat the Headman in his stilt house and take the Headman’s Key. Use it to open the chamber, then choose “Let Her Sleep” or “Wake her up” at the spinning wheel.

Where Sleeping Beauty starts in Cursed Hollow

Valor Mortis has no in-game map, so you find this quest by landmarks. Start at the Village Church lantern. If you come from the Deep Water lantern instead, you reach the same area after fighting an Iron Marshall. The shrine that starts the quest sits in a clearing against a large dead tree. The water around it is poisonous, so stay on the wooden planks.

From the first lantern in Cursed Hollow, climb the shortcut ladder and kill the Volunteer on your left. Then look right, into an open area with a patrolling enemy. That is your path.

Don’t head straight for the big tree. Crouch under the gap in the broken wooden fence. On the other side, a blue Echo plays a short conversation between villagers about the headman’s daughter.

Look for the cabin with a locked door near the Echo, on your right. You can’t open it yet. It is the daughter’s chamber, and you will come back to it at the end.

Go up the ramp, jump to the next building, and keep crossing the raised platforms toward the clearing. Winged stingers fly over the flooded ruins and enemies climb out of the swamp, so keep your pistol ready. Grab the Nephtoglobin Vials on the way.

Beneath the dead tree, locate the stone altar lit by candles and collect the Headman’s Daughter’s Prayer. The appearance of a “NEW SIDE QUEST” banner for Sleeping Beauty signals that the quest is underway.

Inspect shrine and trigger quest — Reading the Headman's Daughter's Prayer at the shrine starts Sleeping Beauty. Shown at 01:40 in Ghosts of Reykjavik’s video. Image: One More Level

In the prayer, the girl asks the Shrike for help. She says her father has not been himself since her mother died. He keeps her at the spinning wheel from dawn on, her fingers are pricked until they bleed, and he watches her as if he is waiting for something.

How to get the Headman’s Key

The key is on the headman himself. He waits inside his stilt house a short walk from the shrine, ready to ambush you.

From the shrine, follow the wooden boardwalk to the house on stilts. Ignore the swamp enemies if your health is low and head for the door.

Cross boardwalk to Headman's house — The boardwalk from the shrine leads straight to the headman's stilt house. Shown at 02:02 in Ghosts of Reykjavik’s video. Image: One More Level

Go inside and walk toward the bedroom. The headman attacks there. He wears a top hat, swings an axe, and is a tougher, red-eyed Shambling Civilian with a large health bar.

Dodge his swings and hit back while he recovers. Many of his attacks can’t be blocked, so trying to parry through the fight goes badly. Fire combined with the Blunderbuss or Rapier kills him without much trouble.

Pick up the Headman’s Key once he is dead. It shows up in your inventory with a Catalyst payout, and William guesses it opens the sleeping girl’s chamber.

Slay Headman and collect key — With the headman down, the Headman's Key is ready to pick up. Shown at 02:48 in Ghosts of Reykjavik’s video. Image: One More Level

At the candlelit table, read the Cryptic Note – Spindle. Its anonymous craftsman says the spindle is complete, no one will identify its true nature, and the headman should conceal who made it.

Inspect Cryptic Note — The Cryptic Note – Spindle shows the spinning wheel was made on purpose. Shown at 02:50 in Ghosts of Reykjavik’s video. Image: One More Level

The fastest way back is to leave through the bedroom window. Run along the blue Nephtoglobin Wall, drop onto the plank below, and jump across toward the locked cabin.

Unlocking the daughter’s chamber

Head back to the cabin near the fence gap. Read both notes before you touch anything in the bedroom. They explain the choice you are about to make.

Use the Headman’s Key on the locked door. A message then confirms it has been unlocked.

Navigate to locked cottage — This is the cabin door you passed at the start; the Headman's Key opens it. Shown at 03:13 in Ghosts of Reykjavik’s video. Image: One More Level

Read the Apothecary’s Note on the small round table downstairs. Doctor Jan Nowicki tells the headman the cure has failed. The Red Plague, delivered through the spinning wheel, held back the girl’s consumption at first but has now taken over her body. If she wakes, she will become a bloodthirsty creature.

Head upstairs and retrieve the Headman’s Daughter’s Diary from the desk. In the final entry, the girl says she would choose death over turning into one of the mindless creatures.

Go upstairs and read Diary — The diary upstairs is the only place the girl says what she wanted. Shown at 03:36 in Ghosts of Reykjavik’s video. Image: One More Level

Walk to the spinning wheel next to the plague-covered bed and press the interact prompt. William says spinning the wheel will make the plague growth thicker, and removing the spindle should make its threads fade. Then the two choices appear.

Let Her Sleep or Wake her up: what each ending does

Prompt	What William does	Result	Item reward
[E] Let Her Sleep	Pushes the pedal	She sleeps forever, no fight	Distilled Transmutation Material x1
[F] Wake her up	Removes the spindle	She turns into a monster you must kill	Distilled Transmutation Material x1

Both endings also pay Catalysts. The item reward is the same either way, so choose based on the story. Letting her sleep matches what she asked for in the diary, but William’s journal still calls it an ending she would not have chosen. Waking her leads to a short fight, no harder than a normal villager. William regrets it right away, though the journal notes it at least saved her from living as a monster. Neither ending is a happy one.

Quest log menu showing the main quest Revival, Chapter I, with a text entry and a sepia illustrated card of a banner and hourglass. — The Quests tab of the journal shows the active main quest “Revival” from Chapter I, with its story entry and illustrated card.

The choice is permanent. Once you pick, the journal says it’s too late to change it, so read the diary first.

Sleeping Beauty reward and key reference

The Distilled Transmutation Material is an upgrade material for Transmutations. Its shop price is $8,000. Each of the three Transmutations below needs two of them to reach level 4, so one from this quest covers half of an upgrade.

Upgrade	Distilled Transmutation Material needed
Fire Transmutation level 4	x2
Stasis Transmutation level 4	x2
Shield Transmutation level 4	x2

You can find more outside this quest:

Chests: The Outskirts (2), University (2), Caverns, Vale of Wrath, Cursed Hollow, City of Orphans, Napoleon’s Prison
Lying in the world: University and Fortress
Given in two conversations
Louis’s Laboratoire stocks one from chapter 9 (In Ruins)

Dropped by Shambling Civilians, the Headman’s Key is found in Cursed Hollow. It serves only to open the house where the headman’s daughter sleeps, and has no use after the quest is complete.

How to confirm Sleeping Beauty is complete

As soon as the choice plays out, a “QUEST COMPLETE” notice appears and the Distilled Transmutation Material goes into your inventory. If you let her sleep, this happens as the plague closes over her. If you woke her, it happens after she falls in the fight. The Sleeping Beauty journal entry then shows one of two final stages, and nothing in the chamber can be interacted with anymore.

Journal stage	When it appears
1. The daughter feared her father	After reading the prayer
2. Key to her chamber retrieved	After killing the headman
3. Sleeping beauty found, nearly consumed	On entering her chamber
4. Remove the spindle or push the pedal	At the spinning wheel
5. Let her sleep forever	Ending: Let Her Sleep
6. Woke her, had to kill her	Ending: Wake her up

Only one of stages 5 and 6 appears, depending on your choice. If you skip the quest in Chapter 6, you can come back to Cursed Hollow and start it later, but it is quickest to do it while you’re already there.