The Heart Wants What It Wants Quest in The Blood of Dawnwalker – Full Choices Guide

TL;DR

• The Heart Wants What It Wants is Ocha’s quest in Svartrau City – find her in the tavern near Altenmarkt Shrine.
• Beat Ocha in a fistfight, then help her and Nora deal with the crime boss Andrei.
• Enter Andrei’s hideout via the balcony at night or through the butcher’s shop during the day.
• Always take the Ring – not the cleaver or the pendant. Taking the wrong item can get Nora killed.
• Give Ocha the ring, release the pigs to distract the guard, and let the hex work.
• Catch three crayfish at the river and choose dialogue carefully to shape Ocha’s ending.
• Rewards: 250 XP, 150 Denarii, Broad Swing Manual, and The Outcast trophy or achievement.

The Heart Wants What It Wants Quest in The Blood of Dawnwalker

The Heart Wants What It Wants is one of the most layered side quests in The Blood of Dawnwalker. It involves Ocha, a young Uriash woman from Clan Bakr – the largest Uriash clan in Vale Sangora – who is being held in Svartrau City under the thumb of a dangerous crime boss named Andrei. She has a plan to deal with him using an old hex, but she needs your help to pull it off. One wrong item pick and her friend Nora could die. One careless dialogue choice and Ocha’s future changes entirely. This guide covers every step and every choice so you know exactly what you are doing before you walk in. If you are early in the game and still figuring out the world, our Blood of Dawnwalker prologue walkthrough is a good starting point. And if you just finished the Good Home questline, check our Good Home quest choices guide to compare how Dawnwalker handles its branching side content.

The Heart Wants What It Wants Quest in The Blood of Dawnwalker

How to Start The Heart Wants What It Wants

There are two ways to trigger this quest:

• Through the A Mother’s Plea questline – This is the intended route. You must complete A Study in Crimson, A Friend Like This, and Song of the Mountain first. Song of the Mountain takes you to the hidden Uriash village, where you meet the matriarch Bakr-Erga. She gives you A Mother’s Plea and asks you to find her missing daughter Ocha. That leads directly into this quest.
• By finding Ocha yourself – Even without doing the questline above, you can stumble into this quest by visiting the tavern in Svartrau City on your own. Head to the Altenmarkt Shrine first, then look for the tavern marked with a cup icon on your map, on the west side of the city. Use Focus Mode inside to spot Ocha and speak to her.

Either way, once you talk to Ocha, the quest begins.

Step 1 – Beat Ocha in a Fistfight

Your first introduction to Ocha is not exactly warm. No matter what dialogue option you pick when you speak to her – whether you try to keep things civil or push back – she drags you into a fistfight. Both opening choices lead to the same outcome, so do not stress about which one you say.

Beat Ocha, Heir of Clan Bakr in the duel to move the quest forward. This is a straightforward fight. Once it is done, her friend Nora appears, Ocha apologises for the chaos, and the two of them explain their situation.

Ocha and Nora are effectively being kept as workers by Andrei, the crime boss who runs his operation out of a butcher’s shop in Svartrau City. They want to cast a hex on him to free themselves – but they need a personal memento of his to make the spell work.

Step 2 – Gather Information (Optional)

During the day, you can gather optional information about Andrei before heading in. There are a few ways to do this:

• Speak to the beggar outside the butcher’s shop. Pay him 50 Denarii and he will give you useful information about how to get inside.
• Speak to Katja near the butcher’s shop. You can pay her 400 Denarii after hearing her problem. This is tied to the pendant item – more on that in the memento section below.

This step is completely optional. You can skip it and go straight to entering the hideout. It only adds some background dialogue and does not change the core of what you need to do.

Step 3 – Enter Andrei’s Hideout (Day or Night Route)

There are two ways to get inside Andrei’s hideout, which is located behind the butcher’s shop.

Night Route – Climb the Balcony (Recommended)

Wait until nighttime and use your Vrakhiri vampire powers to climb up to the balcony on the upper floor of the building. This is the cleanest entry method. You bypass the whole front-of-house situation entirely and land directly in the room where Andrei’s mementos are kept. No confrontation, no complicated dialogue to manage. Just go in, take the ring, and leave.

Day Route – Through the Butcher’s Shop

During the day you can enter by going through the butcher’s front door. Tell the butcher you have some silver to sell – that is the code phrase to get through to Andrei.

Once inside, you will walk in on Andrei threatening a man and about to cut off his hand as punishment. This is where your first real choice comes up.

You get two options:

• Step in and intervene – Choosing something like “Leave that man alone” will provoke a confrontation.
• Stay silent and observe – This keeps things non-violent and lets you stay in the room to grab a memento.

If you want to steal the memento peacefully without a fight, keep Andrei calm with these types of responses when he confronts you:

• “No wonder people don’t want to work with you.” – when Andrei threatens you.
• “You know how to handle it, that’s for sure.” – same situation.

Nora will cause a disturbance outside to create a distraction. The moment Andrei turns away, you have a short window to grab one of three items.

Step 4 – Pick the Right Memento (Critical Choice)

This is the most important decision in the entire quest. Inside the hideout, there are three items you can take:

• The Cleaver – Wrong choice. This has almost no personal significance to Andrei. The hex will fail.
• The Pendant – Wrong choice. This actually belongs to Katja, not Andrei. The hex will also fail.
• The Ring – Correct choice. This is Andrei’s most personal possession. The hint comes from Andrei’s own story – he once recalled his father hitting him so hard with this ring that it nearly caved in his skull. That core memory is what gives it power for the hex.

Always take the Ring. If you pick either of the other two items and the hex fails, Andrei’s goons will threaten Nora. In that situation, your response matters – if you stay hidden instead of shouting “Step away from her!”, Nora will die. The Ring prevents all of this from happening.

If you accidentally pick up multiple items, Ocha will ask which one you are giving her when you meet outside. Make sure you select “The ring” at that prompt.

Step 5 – Return to Ocha and Deal With the Guard

Once you have the ring, leave the hideout and meet Ocha outside. This travel costs 2 time segments. When you speak to her, she has some bad news – while you were inside, Andrei’s men grabbed Nora and took her back into the hideout you just walked out of.

Ocha wants to storm the place immediately, which would put Nora directly in the middle of a fight. Choose “We should stick to the plan” to talk her down. This keeps things calm and sets up the hex properly.

Now you need to draw the hex symbol on the outside wall of Andrei’s butcher shop. But there is a guard standing in the way. You have two options to move him:

• Open the pig pen – Go to the pigsty nearby, use Focus Mode to spot it, and pick the option to open the cage. The pigs run loose and distract the guard.
• Pay Katja 50 Denarii – She can distract the guard for you instead.

Either works. Once the guard is busy, draw the hex symbol on the window. Then peer through the ground-floor window to watch what happens next.

Step 6 – The Hex and What Comes After

If you gave Ocha the ring, the hex works exactly as planned. Andrei starts slamming his head into the walls repeatedly until he is no longer a threat. Ocha calls it “emptying his head.” It is as grim as it sounds.

After the hex, Nora is safe. The immediate danger is over.

If you gave the wrong memento or killed Andrei yourself during the quest, the outcomes diverge:

• If you killed Andrei – Ocha will be angry because you went against her plan. You can still finish the quest and guide Ocha toward going home, but certain ending options are locked or changed.
• If the hex fails – You and Ocha will have to kill Andrei together by force. This also affects Ocha’s possible endings.

Step 7 – Meet Ocha at the River and Catch Crayfish

After everything with Andrei is resolved, tell Ocha you would like to eat and agree to meet her outside the city. Head west from Svartrau City toward the river. The Svartrau West Shrine is along the path if you want a fast travel point for later.

At the riverbank, collect three crayfish from the water trap. Use Focus Mode to find them easily. Once you have all three, sit down next to Ocha by the campfire to start the final conversation of the quest.

All Ocha Endings – How the Riverside Dialogue Works

The conversation by the river has three questions. Each answer you give scores a hidden point toward one of three possible endings for Ocha. Whichever ending has the most points wins. Two points out of three is enough to lock in a path.

Ending 1 – Ocha Returns to Her Village (Home Ending)

To send Ocha back to her mother and the Uriash settlement, pick the home-leaning answers across all three questions. These include responses like:

• “Meh. Nothing better than homemade food!” – when asked about missing home.
• “Other villagers just cared about themselves.” – when discussing her community.

This ending is available regardless of how Andrei died. If you pick two or three home-leaning responses, Ocha chooses to go back. This is the ending that satisfies Bakr-Erga in the A Mother’s Plea quest.

Ending 2 – Ocha Stays in Svartrau City (City Ending)

This ending is only available if Andrei died via the hex. If the hex worked, Ocha and Nora take over Andrei’s criminal syndicate and set up shop in his old hideout. To push toward this ending, choose the city-leaning answers at the river:

• “New things can be exciting, sure.” – when asked about missing home.
• “Our neighbours helped a bit.” – when discussing her community.

If Ocha stays, she sets herself up as the new boss in Svartrau, teaches you Swordmastery skills, and connects you to a contact named Vacho – which ties into the Study in Crimson questline.

Ending 3 – Ocha Explores the World (Explore Ending)

This ending is only available if you personally killed Andrei. In this case, Ocha and Nora leave to travel together, but Ocha will stick around long enough to teach you Swordmastery before heading out. This is the most open-ended outcome for her character.

What Happens After You Finish the Quest?

Once the riverside conversation ends and the quest completes, return to the Uriash Matriarch Bakr-Erga and report back on what happened. She gives you an additional 250 XP, 150 Denarii, and the Soul Stigma Manual regardless of which ending Ocha chose.

Ocha’s connection to the Uriash settlement also comes up again later. If she went home, she can teach Swordmastery skills there when you arrive during Lacra’s questline in Song of the Mountain. Her name being mentioned also unlocks access to the Uriash village in that quest. For more on how side quests in this game connect to bigger systems, check out our pages on A Study in Crimson and how to ally with Xanthe. You can also see how meaningful choices play out over time in our Blood of Dawnwalker review.

Full Quest Rewards Summary

• 250 XP from The Heart Wants What It Wants quest itself.
• 150 Denarii in coin.
• Broad Swing Manual – a Swordmastery skill manual.
• The Outcast – trophy or achievement, earned regardless of which ending you get.
• 250 XP + 150 Denarii + Soul Stigma Manual – additional rewards from Bakr-Erga when you complete A Mother’s Plea after this quest.

You can pick up The Blood of Dawnwalker on PlayStation Store, Xbox, or Steam.

Quick Tips Before You Start

• Always take the Ring. There is no upside to taking the cleaver or the pendant. The Ring is the only memento that makes the hex work and keeps Nora safe.
• Use the night balcony route if you want the easiest path. It skips all the front-door dialogue management and gets you straight to the mementos.
• Talk Ocha down when Nora is taken. If you let Ocha storm the building, it escalates into a messier outcome. Say “We should stick to the plan.”
• Open the pig pen to move the guard. It is free and reliable. You do not need to spend 50 Denarii on Katja’s help unless you prefer that.
• Think about Ocha’s ending before you sit down at the river. The point system is simple but it locks in fast. Have a clear idea of which ending you want before you start the campfire conversation.
• The city ending requires the hex to succeed. If you want Ocha and Nora to take over Andrei’s operation, you must use the ring and complete the hex cleanly.

Frequently Asked Questions