In Frozen Flame, the first major story quest is called Search for the Keeper. When you first emerge from the starting area, you’ll see a road, and within just a few meters you’re going to find a character named Hornhead at a camp. You really can’t miss this guy — he’s the first NPC you will encounter in the game.
Hornhead is going to be your guy for kicking off the game’s story, so you’ll definitely want to talk to him. He’s going to ask you to seek out another character named Bonehead, who will give you further instructions.
Help the Hornhead
Before you do any of that, though, you’ll need to get through a couple tutorial quests. Hornhead will ask you to retrieve his backpack, which can be found in an enemy camp not far from where Hornhead is. I’ve marked the exact location on the map above.
Simply visit this camp, clear out the enemies (there should be two), and open the chest. Hornhead’s backpack is inside the chest. Pick it up and return it to him.
Total Recall
Next up, Hornhead is going to ask you to bring him a Fruit Dessert. Before you can make one of those, you’re going to have to build a bonfire. To do this, go to your crafting menu (not your building menu) and select the Bonfire icon. This recipe will cost you 4 Branches and 4 Stone. Then interact with the bonfire and add a log to get your cooking project started. Be careful, because if you’re standing too close when it ignites, you will start on fire and take damage.
Now you want to find some Luminous Apples, which grow on trees all over the place. Seriously, they’re not hard to find, and if you’re struggling at all, there are some apple trees behind Hornhead’s camp. Cook one Luminous Apple on the fire to unlock the recipe for Fruit Dessert. Note that the game was updated after launch so that any cooked food that includes an apple as a part of the recipe will count for this quest, but the easiest possible recipe is just making Fruit Dessert from a single apple.
Now, return to Hornhead and give him the Fruit Dessert (or any other apple-based item).
Hornhead has another favor to ask, and this one is a bit more tedious, but I’ll walk you through it step by step.
- Build a Makeshift Foundation (costs 8 Branches in your Build menu).
- Craft a Workbench (6 Logs and 2 Stone, found in your Crafting menu) and place it on top of the Makeshift Foundation.
- Use the Workbench to craft a Pickaxe (1 Branch, 3 Stone, 1 Fiber).
- Go mine some Flint with your Pickaxe.
This last step took me a bit of time initially, but you’re looking for large, ore-filled boulders, which can generally be found on the rocky areas near cliffsides. This is what they look like:
Bring some flint to Hornhead and you’ll complete the quest. You are now ready to begin the Search for the Keeper quest.
Search for the Keeper
After all that monkeying around, you’ll be asked to visit Hornhead’s old pal Bonehead. I’ve marked his location on the map above. When you talk to Bonehead, he’s going to give you the Master’s Mask. This is the first of four masks you’re going to need to collect for this quest.
Walk up the stairs next to Bonehad, and you’ll see a series of four alters surrounding a portal. In order to activate the portal, you’re going to have to collect all four masks, and put one on each alter. You can place the Master’s Mask now, or you can wait to do it later. it’s up to you (but it’s easier to just do it now, in my opinion).
At this point, you’re going to need to collect the other three masks. Here’s a map that shows all three locations:
Each one of these locations has an alter that looks like this:
In front of each alter, there’s a bowl, which will ask you to make a particular sacrifice. This basically just means you have to leave an item in the bowl (so if you’re asked to sacrifice five Noble Mushrooms, you’ll just interact with the alter and the required amount of mushrooms will be removed from your inventory).
Once you make the sacrifice, a boss will appear. Defeat the boss to get the corresponding mask. Once you beat a boss, you can always respawn that same boss by making the sacrifice over again. It’s not super helpful, because the XP gain isn’t great compared to the difficulty of the fight, and it’s usually just faster to hack away at grunts if you want to level up.
Mask of the Smoldering Warlock
You can do these bosses in any order, but the Smoldering Warlock is the closest to Hornhead, so that’s the one I usually do first. The Smoldering Warlock can be found in the location shown on the map above. When you reach the correct location, you’ll see a tower that looks like this:
The alter is inside the tower (you can probably see the alter in the image above). You’ll be asked to sacrifice five Noble Mushrooms, which you can find growing near the road that leads to the tower. Once you make the sacrifice, the boss will spawn at the very top, so you’ll have to go up the spiral staircase inside the tower to reach the top and fight the boss.
The boss here is the Smoldering Warlock, who has 500 HP, and also has several adds. You’ll encounter these adds as you make your way up the staircase. You might be thinking that you should get out ahead of this by clearing the stairway before triggering the alter, but this doesn’t work, because the adds don’t appear until after you’ve made the sacrifice.
The Smoldering Warlock isn’t super hard; just make sure you have a lot of food on hand and you avoid those magical attacks. There are two main attacks to look out for: One that draws a massive red circle on the ground (which you really can’t miss), and one where the Smoldering Warlock waves his staff and summons a flaming cloud. This cloud will set you on fire, causing you a ton of damage over time. If you watch the Warlock, though, you can see him swing his staff as he casts this spell, which gives you just enough time to dodge it.
You also want to make sure you have a weapon of some kind — I prefer the Stone Sword — because chipping away at this guy with just the axe will take you a ridiculous amount of time.
Once you kill the Smoldering Warlock, you can loot his body to pick up the Mask of the Smoldering Warlock. Killing him will also earn you the Flames from Above achievement. There’s a treasure chest at the top of the tower that should be unlocked now, and it contains the [Refined] Rawhide Armor, so you’ll definitely want to pick that up.
Mask of the Furious Grunt
The Furious Grunt can be found not too far from the portal, in the location shown on the map above. When you get here, you just need to find a little temple area, and the alter is at the top of a set of stairs.
The alter will ask you to sacrifice one Fried Meat, which you can make by cooking a single piece of meat on a bonfire. If you don’t have any meat on you, there should be some boars near the river in between the portal area and the temple location.
Once you make the sacrifice, the Furious Grunt will spawn in. He has 600 HP, but he doesn’t have any attacks that hit as hard as the Smoldering Warlock’s magic attacks. While he will occasionally respawn his adds, he’s a pushover. Just keep whacking away at him until he drops.
Once you’ve killed the Furious Grunt, you’ll earn the Furious Slaughter achievement, which for some reason refers to him as the Raging Slayer. I don’t know if maybe they’ll change the name of the boss at some point, or maybe they’ll change the text on the achievement. I have no idea.
If you open the nearby chest, you’ll find a Wooden Bow. Yeah, it’s not really a great find compared to the armor from the Warlock chest, but at least it’s something.
Oh, and there’s an additional chest beneath the alter, but you’ll have to approach it from behind. There are some leafy vines covering a hole in the wall, but you can just walk right through these vines to reach the chest. You don’t have to remove them with a torch, like the spiney vines you’ll find elsewhere. There’s an Energy Potion in this chest.
Mask of the Skull Hunter
Now you want to get the fourth mask, the Mask of the Skull Hunter. The location is shown on the map above, but the alter is in a courtyard surrounded by walls, There is a broken section in the wall that allows you to pass through, though.
The alter will ask you to sacrifice one Solid Essence. Now, the process for acquiring a Solid Essence takes a little explaining, but I’ve already written a complete guide to that elsewhere. The short version is that you can grow your own Solid Essence in a planter.
When you sacrifice one Solid Essence, the Skull Hunter will appear at the top of the stairs that are in the courtyard. The Skull Hunter has the lowest amount of health of the three mask bosses, with just 400 HP, but he also has some really annoying habits. For one, he has a bow, and if you’re not right next to him, he’ll shoot you from afar. You can attempt to fight him from a distance if you want to, but I find it easier to get up close and personal. He does have a vicious dagger flurry that he’ll whip out if you get up in his face.
However, the most obnoxious thing he does is cast these sizzling circles of electricity that will stun you. They’re easy enough to avoid, but he also really likes to stand in them to lure you into the danger zone. It’s really hard to pull him away from these electric traps, so I generally just devour some food and rush in headfirst, just waiting out the stun effect.
Once you’ve defeated the Skull Hunter, you’ll earn the Arrows of Discord achievement, and you can loot his body to collect the Mask of the Skull Hunter.
Oh, and you can now open the chest, which contains a [Refined] Stone Greataxe.
Enter the Portal
At this point, you’re ready to activate the portal. If you’ve already forgotten the location, I reposted the map image above.
Place the masks on their proper pedestals, then make sure you’re ready for a tough boss fight. Repair all your weapons and armor, and cook up a bunch of food. Now, got through the portal to fight the Ice Elemental, which is the most ferocious adversary you’ve encountered at this point in the game. The Ice Elemental has 1,000 HP and hits like a truck, but if you put on the Rawhide Armor and use the Stone Greataxe (both of which you should have acquired by defeating the previous bosses), then you should be able to handle this fight. I don’t really have any advice except to hide between the Elemental’s legs and whack at them with the greataxe like you’re chopping down trees.
By defeating the Ice Elemental, you will earn the Cold Welcome achievement. You’ll then need to talk to a poor soul who’s trapped in ice in a room just off the arena where you fought the Elemental. Talk to Mithra the Keeper to complete the quest and be teleported to the next area.
And that’s how you finish the Search for the Keeper quest in Frozen Flame.
