The Firebrand is the manumit recruitment thread, and it is one of the longer quests in the journal: 22 entries. It is filed under The thirty days with Briar Sloughs as its journal region — an NPC band of roughly 5–12. The introduction is the premise: “The manumits. I’ve heard this name before – they are a group of rebels who challenge Brencis’s rule in the valley. Elusive and secretive, they won’t be easy to find…”
Where the quest sits
The quest is built around Stoneward Post and around Mert the miller, whose corpse becomes a source of information in the journal’s own text. It lists several parallel ways to get inside the post and several leads on the rebels — the overseer, the commander, the prisoner’s wife, a merchant named Yenno, and Vlad’s hut — before it ends on Sara and the rendezvous, which is where Shadows in the Woods takes over. That overlap is why the count is so high relative to the number of beats you play.
Journal objectives
The journal records these 22 entries, in this order:
- Go to the mill — “It appears that the miller has been smuggling contraband for the manumits. I need to speak with him about this.”
- Go to Stoneward Post — “Soldiers are holding captured manumits at Stoneward Post. If I speak with the rebels there, I may learn where to find their leader.”
- Speak to the overseer — “To meet the miller, I must speak with the prison overseer first.”
- Fight Cerbus — “The prison overseer will allow me to speak with the miller if I defeat a soldier named Cerbus, who busted his eye.”
- Go back to the overseer — “I should go back to the prison overseer and tell him about my fight with Cerbus.”
- Speak with the miller — “I can finally go down to the prison cells and speak with the miller.”
- Find Mert’s body — “When I entered Stonward Post, the miller was already dead. I must find his body and compel his soul to tell me how to reach the manumits.”
- Look for catalysts — “To compel Mert’s soul, I need to find items that once held meaning for him.”
- Question Mert’s corpse — “I have to question the miller’s corpse. He could still tell me something relevant about the manumits.”
- Head southeast to find the rendezvous point — “I’ve found the bridge that the miller pointed out. Now, I must head southeast to reach the rendezvous point and rescue that rebel girl. Sara, wasn’t it?”
- Rescue Sara — “According to Mert, a girl named Sara is the contact for the manumits. However, she may have already been captured by soldiers at the rendezvous point. I need to rescue her.”
- Talk with the merchant — “A woman in the Stoneward Post told me she left a blanket for her imprisoned husband – only to find it amidst merchant Yenno’s goods. I should ask him about this and see if I can learn something useful.”
- Talk with the overseer — “I’ve heard that the Stoneward Post overseer is selling belongings taken away from the prisoners. I can confront him about this.”
- Talk with the commander — “I know that the guards in the Stoneward Post are trading items taken away from the prisoners. I can talk about it with the commander.”
- Ask the overseer to let you talk to Mert — “I have told the commander about the dirty business taking place inside the Stoneward Post. Now I can enter the prison and talk to Mert.”
- Talk with the angry woman — “I’ve overheard an angry woman screaming at a soldier about some stolen goods. Maybe I can learn more about the issue.”
- Search Vlad’s hut — “I know Vlad joined the manumits. Maybe I can find some clues in his hut that will lead me to them.”
- Retrieve your weapons — “The soldier at the gate of Stoneward Post confiscated my weapons. I need to retrieve them.”
- Kill the soldiers — “The soldiers sniffing around Mert and Renna’s mill are clearly up to no good. I could save some time by simply getting rid of them…”
- Speak with the commander — “The captured manumits held at Stoneward Post might tell me where to find their leader. But before I try to reach them behind the soldiers’s backs, I should probably speak with the post’s commander and size up the situation.”
- Learn more about the miller’s fate — “Brencis’s soldiers were watching Mert’s mill. Could that mean Mert knows something that might help me? To find out, I have to learn where he is now.”
- Search the guard post for any rebel allies — no journal line is recorded against this entry.
Before you go
A 5–12 band makes the region forgiving, and the quest’s two difficulties are social rather than mechanical: getting the overseer and commander to cooperate, and the choice of whether to wipe out the soldiers at the mill. Run it before the rendezvous content and it hands you Sara and the manumits in one go. The Stoneward Post guide and the Crake page are the companion reads.