Found Oskar being attacked, went to help him out, and one last harpy killed him. I didn't have any wakestones so I picked up his body and took it all the way back to the checkpoint town which took forever and we had to kill a bunch of enemies along the way, then got a wakestone from my saved items at the inn, and it brought him back to life. He wouldn't follow me back to the cenotaph area, but he disappeared and then reappeared down by the cenotaph building, and then I was able to help him and finish that mission. So the result was kind of glitchy but it's great that the game gives you so much freedom. Really wondering what is in that locked door on the way to the cenotaph though, my pawns kept blabbering about how the door could be opened from the other side, but I couldn't figure out how to climb over there or otherwise get there.
On pc I've put everything pretty low to get a better framerate, and DLSS to performance, and it runs pretty well now in the open world, but still pretty bad in the cities. I have a pretty old cpu and hopefully if I upgraded it I'd get a better framerate...
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"Tether even a roasted chicken." - Yamamoto Tsunetomo