Availability: After Killing Your First Bolter
Location: Dahlia is in a Safe Zone West of the Tower
Rewards: 1,500 Survivor XP and Blueprint: Dahlia’s Shroom Potion
Difficulty: Easy
Jared Upper Tower mentions the Witch. She lives in a Safe Zone to the west. Go to her and start the quest. Wait for evening and go to a cave where you can pick Mushrooms for the witch. The entrance is hard to find; it’s below the waterline in a drainage canal. Go there at night and dive into the water. Swim below the surface to find the entrance, and proceed.
Your UV Flashlight and Flares are helpful in the cave. There are Volatiles and a few Biters inside. Kill them before doing anything with the Mushrooms. Drop a Flare, attack the Volatiles at the base of the cave, and then use the UV Flashlight to disrupt their buddies that run down from the upper reaches. Once the cave is clear, turn off your regular Flashlight. Find the Mushrooms by looking for their telltale green glow, and harvest each patch of them. There are several in the lower portion of the cave, and then you have to hop between rocks on the upper ledges to get the remainder of them.
Return to Dahlia once you have the all of them. She sends you away with a Blueprint and a few comforting words. They’re actually not that comforting. Meet Dahlia again later to chain this quest into “Hunting Goon.”
To make a better potion, Dahlia needs better ingredients. Find her a Goon, kill it, and search the body for a Putrescent Liver. Return this to her for a new Blueprint (Dahlia’s Liver Potion). It’s an upgrade that can turn you invisible without as many horrifying side effects. Heck, it’s not like you aren’t already infested with disease by being around Harran. Why not try it out!
Goons are found all over Harran, but they’re reliable in larger areas, like the overpasses. Come back to Dahlia yet again later. She lets you start “Kidney Punch.” Instead of hunting Goons, you’re now after Bombers. Bring ranged weaponry so that you don’t have to get close to them for your kills, and then gather their Kidneys after you get a kill. Search the body and bring the item back to Dahlia.
Finally, you return to Dahlia to finish her chain of grizzly requests. This time, she initiates, “Bring Me the Brain of Usain Bolter.” You’ve come this far, so you might as well finish it all.
Wait until nightfall and then hunt a Bolter. There’s even an area close by where Bolters frequently come at night. Any long-range weapon gets you an easy kill here, but chase and attack a Bolter at close range if you enjoy a challenge instead.
Loot the Brain from your quarry and bring it to Dahlia. The recipe you get is way more effective than any of the others. There aren’t nasty side effects, you make more of them each time, and Bolters are one of the most basic targets to find because they’re shown on your map. It’s the best of all worlds, and you’ve got the recipe to make it happen.
If you return to Dahlia again you get a funny scene to watch, but there aren’t any more quests to worry about.