The Outer Worlds The Demolished Woman Walkthrough

You’ve decided to side with the Board over Dr. Phineas, and having retrieved Udom’s badge you’ve been rewarded with the coordinates to Adjutant Sophia Akande’s personal landing pad in Byzantium. It’s time to see exactly who The Puppet Masters are in The Outer Worlds, and why the Board wants The Demolished Woman dead

Head to Byzantium and make the Board’s acquaintance.

Do note: you will still have the Phineas story quests you are working on, and you are free to complete them, but agreeing to work with Akande will start The Puppet Masters, followed by this quest, The Demolished Woman, after you speak with Akande’s aid.

Dock at Akande’s personal landing pad and head through the doors ahead. After a brief pause in which you are cleared in, go forward to the elevator and take it to the top floor. Talk with the receptionist, Percival, and show him Udom’s badge. He will patch you in via videofeed to the Adjutant, who will introduce herself. To prove you are not working with Phineas she will task you with assassinating one of her cartographers, Rachel Lockwood, which triggers the next story quest: The Demolished Woman.

Take the lift downstairs, leave the building, and enter Byzantium proper. The Bureau of Exploration is straight ahead, so travel down the stairs and across the estates. Round the corner to the right and you’ll find it to your left. Enter the building and you’ll see a Mr. Sherman Bradshaw to your right.

Talk with him, and if you can pass an intelligence check you will recognize him as the other freelancer Akande sent to kill Lockwood. He will inform you that Lockwood hasn’t shown up in hours, and will propose a competition: who finds her and kills her better gets the contract.

Before leaving, ask for access to Lockwood’s office to retrieve the documents Akande requested. Go through the door and up the elevator. Lockwood’s office is down the hall and on the right. Use the key Bradshaw gave you, grab the documents, then use the terminal to locate Lockwood. Reading her messages will reveal she is on to the plot to the assassination plot, and is taking refuge in the maintenance shafts.

Head to the maintenance tunnels to find your mark.

Leave the building and you’ll see the tunnel leading to the shafts directly ahead. Head in, turn right, and take the elevator down. Once inside just follow the quest marker to find The Demolished Woman herself hiding in a corner. Talk with her, and Bradshaw will show up to discuss how you’d like to dispose of the frightened cartographer.

You can split the earnings (he takes the kill, and you take the map, or vice-versa), listen to what she has to say, claim the kill for yourself, or spare her (and kill Bradshaw in the process). If you hear her out, Lockwood will offer to pay the full bounty to both of you, but Bradshaw has cold feet. A 55 Persuade will change his mind, however, if you are fine with sparing the lady and lying to Akande.

Regardless of how you handle Lockwood, The Demolish Woman will task you with returning to Akande. Leave the maintenance shafts and head back to the HHC building on foot, or via fast travel. Return to Percival at the front desk and report the news. She’ll ask about the choice you made, revealing she was watching you the whole time (meaning if you let Lockwood go Akande will not trust you, and – unless you have high enough dialog skills – your work with the Board will come to an end).

If you earned Akande’s trust she will ask you to place a trace within Dr. Phineas’ communication terminal at his lab. This will unlock the story quest Long Distance, which there is a guide for on our hub page, but it resolves a little differently at this junction.

To give you the long and quick: you’ll plant the trace and head back to Byzantium to talk with Akande. Long Distance will conclude when you collect your reward from Percival. Once that is completed, Passage to Anywhere will fail if you still have it, but you’ll get Signal Point in Space instead. What does this mean? It means you’re going to Stellar Bay if you were on Passage to Anywhere, no Nav Key required! Phineas will call you, oblivious to your betrayal, and give you the quest Radio Free Monarch. If you were already on Radio Free Monarch you will skip straight to meeting Akande’s contact on the planet.

If you wish to continue working for Akande, focus on Radio Free Monarch after you talk to her Stellar Bay contact: it and Signal Point in Space share many of the same objectives, and skipping straight to the mountain will delay recruiting Nyoka as a companion.

Our Radio Free Monarch guide will walk you through the rest of what you need to do, just be mindful to always put the Board first in your conversations (and, if you want extra bonus points: kill Sanjar and Graham). Once you’ve stopped the MSI and the Iconoclast broadcasts you’ll return to Akande and skip straight to Kept Secret But Not Forgotten.

If you helped Adelaide in Edgewater you’ll get the Foundation quest from Akande first, however, before moving on to Secrets Kept But Not Forgotten. You can still do quests for Phineas, but you’ll lose access to them once you complete Kept Secrets. You’ll be in the endgame at that point, so it’s your call.

For more The Outer Worlds guides and walkthroughs check out our guides page.