A Monk and a Saint
A mad monk who only talks through charcoal, a cathedral you can question by day or climb into by night, a graveyard where one slab opens, and a saint who is not as dead as the stone says. The prize is the broken sword that Forge It Anew rebuilds.
Anca's lead, after the convent and the book at the inn, is an old monk called Albertus living in the Middens outside Svartrau. What he knows sends you under the cathedral. Game8's quest table puts the whole quest at 2 time segments, which is what the night route costs; the day route's steps add up to more, and the columns below show where each one goes.
The two routes are different enough to be different quests, and which phase you arrive in decides which one you get. They meet at the graveyard. What you win at the bottom is the Broken Sword of St. Mihai, which is only half a weapon until Forge It Anew.
How to do "A Monk and a Saint" Quest in Blood of Dawnwalker
ConCon · 5:11
Five minutes on the night route: Albertus's house, the climb into the cathedral, the fresco, the well and the grave.
Albertus answers in writing
Every attempt to talk goes nowhere. Pick up the piece of charcoal and finish his sentences on the wall, five of them, starting with Abelard the Sorrowful. Method and Eurogamer open by asking about St. Mihai’s sword first. All five lines, in order sit on their own page, with the shortcut into the Middens and where each guide puts the house.
Where the house is, what the finished chapter says and who Abelard turns out to be are on the Albertus page. He ends on the sword lying in a crypt beneath Svartrau Cathedral, in the east of the city, and the quest moves there.
Day or night: two ways into the same crypt
Both routes need the same two things: St. Mihai’s symbol, so Coen recognises the slab, and the fact that his crypt is under the courtyard. By day you earn them from the congregation. By night you take them.
DayAsk questions
Longer and full of people, and TheGamer advises against skipping time just to come at night. TheGamer also notes one day-only extra: afterwards you can compel St. Mihai.
1. Walk in the front door
A baptism cutscene, and Father Florin asks whether you know each other. Whatever you answer, he offers to hear your confession. It is optional.
Time: Confession: 1 segment (TheGamer, Eurogamer)
2. Get the symbol, one of two ways
The quick one: wait for the Believer to finish praying and ask about the crypt, then help the Acolyte move his boxes; the ledger in his room holds the Treasury key. In the Treasury, move the bookcase and inspect the Golden Chalice — Eurogamer says its sigil looks like a set of scales. The slow one comes after the caretaker: glass shards from the caretaker's shed, which the craftsman sets back into the window (Method puts his fee at 50 denarii). With the chalice you can skip the window entirely.
3. Find out what happened to the caretaker
The Deacon trades the library key for it, which is also the side quest A Dubious Gift. In the almshouse, learn about the sealed wing by paying the asylum resident 100 denarii (Polygon, Game8) or by cleaning Stefan's wound (Method, Eurogamer); TheGamer simply walks upstairs to the first door. Upstairs, the scratches on the floor give the bookcase away. Below it waits the Almshouse Monstrosity; it carries the caretaker's key, and a corpse down there can be compelled.
Time: Bookcase: 1 (Polygon, Game8, Eurogamer) · Stefan: 1 (Eurogamer) · reporting back: 2 (Eurogamer)
4. Read the chronicle
In the library, go upstairs and left: Eurogamer says the shelf you want is the only one that glows in Focus Mode, and TheGamer notes gold butterflies around it. Read the book at the pulpit beside it. The crypt is under the side courtyard.
Time: Reading it: 1 (Eurogamer)
NightBreak in
Shorter, and it goes over Xanthe's head. It runs on Shadowstep, so it only exists after dark.
1. Go in through the roof
Shadowstep up the scaffolding on the cathedral's tower — south-west tower for Polygon and Game8, the tower right of the entrance for TheGamer — and drop onto the balcony. Below, Xanthe is holding a blood ritual. Stay on the scaffolding: TheGamer warns that falling into the nave starts a fight with her, and her fight is not an easy one early. Save before you go in.
2. Find the fresco
Three frescoes can be inspected from the scaffolding. The one you want is furthest to the left (Polygon, Game8), nearest the ritual (Method, TheGamer). The interaction point sits on the scaffolding, not on the painting. Method adds that a Cathedral Roof Key waits on the platform above the ritual, so you can leave without climbing back.
3. Down the well: Night Terrors
Howling in the courtyard north of the cathedral starts Night Terrors. Clear the guards, open the well, drop in, and deal with the kobolds. The corpse by the wall is a thief who was digging for St. Mihai's sword; his pouch holds the note. Push the boulder to climb out among the graves. Method describes a second way down, under the wooden planks near the almshouse, to the same dead thief.
Time: Inspecting the thief: 1 (Game8, Polygon, GameRant); PowerPyx lists 1 for the whole of Night Terrors
Polygon adds a hybrid: speak to the Deacon by day, then wait for dark and Shadowstep into the library, which skips the caretaker and drops you onto the night route from the fresco onwards.
Which grave is St. Mihai’s
Method counts five highlighted slabs. Every guide picks the same one while describing it differently:
- Polygon, Game8: second from the right, facing the cathedral.
- Method: fourth from the left, of five highlighted graves.
- TheGamer: the second-to-last slab.
- GameRant: start at the bottom-right corner and move one grave left.
- Eurogamer: the fourth along, to the right of the grave with the large stone crucifix.
The crypt, and who is in it
Save before you go down. At the dead end, something is moaning behind a cracked wall; breaking it costs one segment (Game8, GameRant) and starts the fight. Mihai uses a sword, fills the room with fog and teleports behind you — Game8's advice is to watch your back, Method's is directional blocks. Method calls it straightforward as bosses in this game go; Polygon suggests waiting for nightfall so you have your vampire powers for it.
What he tells you (story spoiler)
He was a Dawnwalker, like Coen, betrayed and chained by someone called Tobias. The sword is shattered and the kobolds took the pieces. He tells Coen to find the Augurs, and dies.
GameRant lists the reward as the Broken Sword of St. Mihai, 1,000 XP and a skill point. Eurogamer adds the sheath and Mihai's Notes from the hole in the wall. Search his cell with Focus Mode before leaving: what you pick up there starts Forge It Anew, which ends with the Uriash blacksmith who also forges the Arbiter armour.
On the day route the Treasury is worth a second look for more than the chalice: Eurogamer found a Vial of Xanthe's Blood upstairs. And the prize itself is silver — Eurogamer and TheGamer both call it St. Mihai's Silver Sword — a metal banned under Brencis, which is why any silver you loot on the way only sells at the silver trader.
If you are stuck
- The quest never showed up
- It opens after Between the Words, the quest that follows Echoes of Silenced Bells. Polygon's shortcut skips all of that: go to the cathedral courtyard at night and start Night Terrors, which has no requirement of its own (PowerPyx). Albertus is no use until one of those has happened.
- Albertus just rambles
- Talking gets nothing. Pick up the charcoal and write the lines above, in order.
- You cannot find his house
- The Middens are the plague slum outside Svartrau's west gate, and the map marker is a wide circle. Walls all over the district carry his scribbles; the house to enter is the one covered in them, lit yellow in Focus Mode. TheGamer and Polygon put it on the western edge; Game8 says the far north of the slum.
- The grave will not open
- Coen has to have seen St. Mihai's symbol first — on the fresco at night, or on the chalice or the restored window by day. Clear the leaves off the slab, then inspect it.
- The cathedral door is shut
- Eurogamer says the cathedral only lets you in during the day. At night the other guides go over the roof instead, as in the night column.
Where it leads