THE FIELD GUIDE
Dead Drop Walkthrough: Grave Location and Rewards
Start Dead Drop by inspecting the fresh flowers on a forgotten grave at Outcast’s Burial Ground, east of Coen’s House. Follow the Focus trail to the fallen tree, recover the Mysterious Letter and read it to finish.
Find the grave east of Coen’s House
Dead Drop is a prologue side quest available after All Good Things. It costs no time segments, so finish the investigation before choosing to wait with Pieter for the mass. Seeing Sacred Covenant in your Journal does not by itself close this window: its “Pass time until sunset” and “Go back to Pieter to wait till the Mass” objectives can remain while you explore. If you are returning to this area, check whether Dead Drop is already in Completed Quests.
Use Coen’s House as your starting landmark. It is northeast of the Laslea Centre shrine. Take the hillside path east from the house into the wooded Outcast’s Burial Ground. On the map, 2 is the starting grave, 3 is an optional cave and 4 is the final stash for this same quest. Follow the actual hillside paths between these areas.
Inspect the flowers beside the thatched shelter
At the burial ground, check the old grave near the entrance on the southern side, beside a small thatched shelter. Fresh flowers on the grave are the clue. Use Focus and investigate them to trigger Dead Drop. Its first objective is “Look for clues around the grave using Focus Mode”.
If you have found Crina and the Disturbed quest instead, you are at a different graveyard. Return to the house landmark and look for the wooded burial ground east of the village.
Optional detour: the cave north of the cemetery
Before following the trail east, you can search the cave near the northern end of the burial ground. Walk behind the north-side trees and look for a climbable rock ledge. The map marker identifies the cave area, so use the surrounding rock face to find the entrance.
Climb onto the ledge and look beneath the overhang for a low opening. Green-lit plants are visible inside. The entrance is tucked under the rock at ledge level; scan that lower opening rather than continuing farther up the exposed cliff. Approach closely and crouch if the low roof catches you.
This cave is optional. Its loot is separate from the letter investigation, and you can return to the starting grave afterwards to continue the quest trail.
Check the chest and the floor loot separately
Inside, search the chest on the wooden boards, then check the nearby remains and floor for other Loot prompts. We opened three separate loot panels in this PC recording. The table records those pickups; check your own panels for the current contents and amounts.
| Loot panel | Contents in the recording |
|---|---|
| Chest | 34 denarii; Blacksmith’s Blade; Minor Fortitude Paste ×1; Ruby Brooch ×1 |
| First floor-loot panel | Broken Scissors ×1 |
| Another floor-loot panel | Broken Hammer ×1; Ribwort Plantain ×1; Mouldy Page ×1 |
What the cave finds are useful for
Check Blacksmith’s Blade against your equipped weapon. Our level-3 copy was a fast shortsword showing 57 DPS and −6% Block Stamina Cost. Those are the displayed values of that copy; compare the version you pick up instead of assuming that every copy has identical numbers.
Minor Fortitude Paste is a consumable. The recorded tooltip listed +5% Weapon Damage and +5% Bare-Handed Damage, so keep it for a fight where you want that temporary damage boost. Ribwort Plantain is also an ingredient for making the paste, though the one leaf found here is only part of the recipe.
Ruby Brooch is a sale valuable with no equipment slot or combat bonus. Broken Scissors and Broken Hammer are trade goods too. Mouldy Page is separate background reading about the plague; it does not replace the Mysterious Letter needed for Dead Drop. Keep the two papers distinct when checking your inventory.
Follow the footprints and inspect the tree markings
After the optional cave detour, return to the fresh-flower grave. Use Focus to find the fresh tracks nearby. The trail leads into the woods, with carved symbols on trees showing the next part of the investigation.
- Investigate the footprints around the grave, then follow them uphill until you find the first carved tree symbol.
- Inspect the symbol before following the next tracks. Continue through the markings towards the large fallen tree. If the trail seems to stop, use Focus again around the next tree rather than searching a wider area at random.
- Examine the final marking on the fallen tree. The objective changes to “Search the stash under the fallen tree”. If it still says “Follow the tracks”, investigate the marking before trying to finish at the stash.
- Look directly below the marking, behind the rocks at the base of the fallen trunk, and interact with the hidden stash.
Read the letter and check the remaining loot
Open the stash and read the Mysterious Letter. Reading it completed Dead Drop and awarded 100 XP in our recorded PC run. The scene then returned to Sacred Covenant’s waiting objective.
Check the loot panel before leaving: the stash also contains a Ring of Purging and coins. The recorded panel showed 18 denarii; use the amount displayed in your own loot list. The completion notification can appear while loot remains in the stash.
The Ring of Purging gives a damage bonus against supernatural enemies. The level-4 ring shown in this recording listed +3.2%. Compare that specific bonus with the other rings you have before equipping it.
If you return to the tree after finishing the quest
The fallen-tree marker is the ending location of this same investigation. If you revisit it using a save made after reading the letter, open Journal and check Completed Quests for Dead Drop. A completed entry means you have already finished the route described here.
Sacred Covenant can be the tracked objective both before and after Dead Drop, so its presence on the HUD alone does not show whether the side quest is unfinished. If Dead Drop is still active, select it and use its current objective to choose the next step: grave clues, tracks, or the stash.