THE FIELD GUIDE
Don’t Kill the Messenger: Clues and the Hidden Note
Follow the tracks from the abandoned camp north of Eastridge Outpost, gather the horn and the clues beside the dead messenger, then question his spirit with Compel Soul during the day. Search his shoe after the conversation to recover the hidden note and finish the investigation.
Find the abandoned camp north of Eastridge Outpost
Travel along the road north of Eastridge Outpost in Tantari Woods. Look east of the road for an abandoned camp and inspect it with Focus. The disturbed ground and tracks lead farther into the forest.
You can also encounter arrows in the ground and blood south of Shepherd’s Rest Shrine. Investigating that trail is another way into the same quest. If your journal already says “Follow the trail”, continue from the evidence you found instead of looking for someone to give you the job.
Follow the tracks and take the Severed Uriash Horn
Use Focus to follow the footprints into the woods. On the approach, look beside the rock wall on the right for the Severed Uriash Horn. Pick it up before continuing toward the fight so you have this clue when you reach the body.
Check the pickup name. Broken Uriash Horn belongs to Nish’s separate investigation; this trail uses Severed Uriash Horn even though the two items share an icon.
Severed Uriash HornDefeat the uriashi soldier and inspect the body
At the end of the trail, a uriashi soldier is attacking a human body. Defeat the soldier, then use Focus around the messenger’s corpse. Pick up the Arrow from the ground and the Dead Man’s Sword beside the body before starting the spirit conversation.
The sword is a usable weapon with its own equipment profile. Its sword-related memory clue has a different name, explained below. Collecting the weapon is part of the search; equipping it is not how you present a catalyst.
Arrow
Dead Man’s SwordQuestion the messenger during the day
Use Compel Soul on the human messenger’s corpse in daylight, when you can use Witchcraft. If you found the trail at night, collect the clues and return during the day for this interaction. Reaching the body in vampire form does not mean you missed the investigation.
Work through the memory topics for the items you found. The three catalyst names are Severed Uriash Horn, Arrow and Well-Maintained Scabbard. The scabbard is this investigation’s sword-related catalyst, separate from the equipable Dead Man’s Sword.
If a memory topic is missing, check the corresponding pickup: the horn is back beside the trail’s rock wall, while the arrow and sword investigation are beside the corpse. Once the conversation reveals where the message is hidden, return to the body for the final search.
Well-Maintained ScabbardSearch the shoe for Note From a Shoe
After questioning the spirit, inspect the messenger’s shoe to collect Note From a Shoe. The Arrow is a catalyst for the conversation; it is not the message itself. Finish this shoe interaction even if you have already exhausted the available memory topics.
The note concerns Catalin’s planned return across the mountains and a message intended for the manumits. Recovering it closes the investigation. Completing the quest awards one Skill Point; the sword you collected earlier is a separate pickup.
Note From a Shoe