How to Complete Digging Up Dirt in Arc Raiders: Santa Maria Houses Dead Drop Location

The quick answer for digging up dirt arc raiders: Digging Up Dirt is a Celeste quest in Buried City that unlocks after Tribute To Toledo. Take the rooftop route below, rooftops north of the Santa Maria Houses in southern Old Town, across to the yellow bell tower, through the open roof hatch, zipline down a floor, clear the turret and Fireball, then search the dead drop in the buried fountain in the courtyard. The footbridge approach is an alternative rooftop entry: climb the roof of the sand-buried building in the alleyway, cross the metal footbridge (jumping the gap), climb the far wall and drop through the roof opening. The quest completes the moment you interact with the dead drop, you do not need to extract alive.

You also do not need to bring anything in or take anything out, so a free loadout costs you nothing if the run goes sideways.

What Digging Up Dirt asks you to do

Celeste wants leverage on the Official Toledo Tubes Management, the thugs demanding a Power Rod for use of "their" Slingshot tubes. Her scouts spotted a Tubes Management member making a dead drop at the Santa Maria Houses, and she wants to dig up some dirt on them for a change.

The quest has exactly two objectives:

1. Locate the Santa Maria Houses in Old Town.
2. Locate the dead drop inside the courtyard.

It only appears after you finish Tribute To Toledo, which itself follows Life Of A Pharmacist. If you are still working through Celeste's earlier errands, our Arc Raiders 'Clean Hands' Quest Walkthrough covers the same trader-quest rhythm of find, grab, deliver.

Unlock the quest and bring the right loadout

The chain runs Life Of A Pharmacist → Tribute To Toledo → Digging Up Dirt → Turnabout, all handed out by Celeste in Speranza.

Because the objective ticks the instant you search the dead drop, you can run this with nothing valuable equipped. Bring a cheap kit, sprint the route, and accept that a death after the interaction still counts. You then return to Speranza, dead or alive, and speak to Celeste to turn it in for the rewards.

Find the Santa Maria Houses in Buried City

The Santa Maria Houses are a residential cluster in southern Old Town on the Buried City map, near the Southern and Eastern Stations. Look for the yellow bell tower on the rooftops, that is the landmark for the cluster.

This is not Pendola Pass. If a route sends you there, it belongs to a different objective. The area sits roughly mid-map, so expect to cross paths with other Raiders on the approach. If you are mapping out the rest of your Buried City loot sweeps, our ARC Raiders hub collects the quest and farming guides in one place.

Step-by-step route to the courtyard dead drop

This is the route described in PC Gamer's current walkthrough.

1. Reach the rooftops of the buildings north of those marked as Santa Maria Houses.
2. Face south toward Santa Maria Houses, with the yellow bell tower on top.
3. Turn right onto the metal walkway, then break left and climb the pink building.
4. Climb through the window ahead of you and take the zipline down a floor.
5. Enter the courtyard through the hole in the wall on your left.
6. Interact with the dead drop in the fountain at the centre of the courtyard, jutting out of the sand.

Once you are in the courtyard, the dead drop is obvious, it is effectively the only landmark in the small space. To leave, interact with the nearby window and it leads you straight back outside.

Alternate rooftop entry via the footbridge

The footbridge approach is an alternative rooftop entry: climb the roof of the sand-buried building in the alleyway, cross the metal footbridge (jumping the gap), climb the far wall and drop through the roof opening.

1. From the Santa Maria Houses, take a right into the alleyway with a building whose sand reaches the roof.
2. Climb onto that roof and head straight until you hit the metal footbridge. There is a gap you need to jump.
3. On the far side, climb the wall facing the footbridge and keep walking until you reach the opening in the roof.
4. Jump inside, zipline down, and clear the turret and Fireball before dropping to the centre of the building.
5. Search the white dead drop in the sand at the fountain to finish the quest.

All the ground-level windows are bolted shut and sand covers the doorways, so the roof is your only way in either route.

What's waiting inside the Santa Maria Houses

A Sentinel turret can spawn in the courtyard. Pops and Fireballs roam both floors, so clear them before you commit to the fountain. The courtyard is tucked inside the building rather than open-air, which is exactly why the objective wording trips people up.

Players rarely push inside, but the rooftops and the bridge crossing are exposed. Watch for Raiders and ARC on the way in and out. The rooftop approach and the bridge crossing are exposed, so watch for other Raiders and ARC threats and don't lose your deployable before you use it.

Mistakes that waste a run

• Following the old window entry. The exterior window entry into the building no longer works. You have to come in from the roof.
• Following the attic-and-white-dead-drop route from older guides. Those directions belong to a different quest. Following them burns a run.
• Waiting to extract before checking the quest. The objective ticks the moment you search the dead drop. Do not risk a fight you do not need.
• Losing your deployable before you use it. The rooftop approach and the bridge crossing are exposed, so watch for other Raiders and ARC threats and don't lose your deployable before you use it.

Rewards for turning in Digging Up Dirt

Return to Speranza and speak to Celeste to collect:

GamesFuze lists 2x Advanced Electrical Components and 4x Speaker Components; PC Gamer lists two Advanced Electrical Components and two Speaker Components, so check your own turn-in screen.

Quests are a core progression path in ARC Raiders and feed Raider Coins and gear on top of the direct rewards. If you are lining up more Celeste work after this, our 'Someone Else's Shoes' Quest Walkthrough and the How to Complete Tracks of the Beast in Arc Raiders (No Combat Required) guide both follow the same low-risk, high-efficiency pattern.

Why the roof hatch route beats every older map

The objective text says "inside the courtyard," which reads like an open plaza, but the courtyard is inside a building rather than out in the open air. That mismatch is the usual reason players struggle: the courtyard is inside a building rather than out in the open, and the ground-level windows are bolted shut while sand covers the doorways, so players circle the exterior hunting a doorway that no longer works. Treat the yellow bell tower as your anchor, commit to the pink building on the left, and the rest is a straight line: window, zipline, wall opening, fountain.

Sources

• ARC Raiders Wiki: Digging Up Dirt
• ARC Raiders Wiki: Quests
• ARC Radar: Digging Up Dirt walkthrough
• ARC Radar: Tribute To Toledo walkthrough
• MetaForge ARC Raiders database
• PC Gamer: Digging Up Dirt quest walkthrough
• GamesFuze: Digging Up Dirt quest guide
• TheGameSlayer: Digging Up Dirt quest guide
• TheClick: Santa Maria Houses rooftop route
• Deltia's Gaming: Digging Up Dirt quest guide
• Embark Studios: Celeste capture upgrade news post