Standing in Maleficent's anchor moment puzzle room with a lightsaber in disney dreamlight valley
Screenshot by Destructoid

How to find Maleficent’s first anchor moment in Disney Dreamlight Valley

Save Maleficent and the Vale before it's too late.

The Vale is in serious peril, and to save it, you need to rescue Maleficent in Disney Dreamlight Valley. You must find her first anchor moment to stop her from being erased, but doing so is a fairly tricky endeavor.

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This task requires you to solve a fairly complex puzzle room with multiple unexplained components. It’s an easy task to get stuck on if you don’t know what needs to be done, so here’s how to find Maleficent’s first anchor moment in Disney Dreamlight Valley.

Solve the puzzles to find Maleficent’s first anchor moment in Disney Dreamlight Valley

Screenshot by Destructoid

You can acquire Maleficent’s first anchor moment by solving some puzzles around The Unwritten Realms. These puzzles are some of the toughest ones I’ve seen in DDV, and completing them takes quite a lot of work.

There are three essential steps for completing this process:

  • Righting all of the askew dragon heads.
  • Finding the missing puzzle tile.
  • Completing the block puzzle.

Right the askew dragon’s heads

The best task to start with is finding all three askew dragon heads around the room and turning them right side up. Finishing this task unlocks a new area that has an essential item for solving the main puzzle, so it’s easiest to knock this one out first.

The locations of the three dragon heads are:

  • On the wall to the left of the location where you entered the puzzle room.
  • On the wall between the golden spinning wheel in the main puzzle room and the scroll on a piece of paper by the locked door.
  • On the wall in a hidden area that has two pathways on either side of it. One pathway is blocked by Inkies, and the other has small green fire spots. You can clear away the Inkies using your magic or equip your Royal Watering Can to put out the fires.

Find the missing puzzle tile

Your next task is to find the missing puzzle tile. Righting all three dragon’s heads opens up a previously locked door on the right side of the head near the scroll. Head through this doorway and all the way down the pathway on the other side.

At the end of the path, you’ll find a pool of water. Equip your Royal Fishing Rod and throw the line into the gold ripple spot. Fish out the missing puzzle tile, then head back to the main room to finally tackle the puzzle.

The missing puzzle tile in disney dreamlight valley
Screenshot by Destructoid

Complete the puzzle to get Maleficent’s first anchor moment

The first step for completing the puzzle is placing the missing tile you just got down in the middle. Once that’s done, equip your Royal Shovel and get ready to start flipping tiles so you can solve this one.

To learn the correct order, you are supposed to go around the vast puzzle room viewing all of the boards to piece together the solution. It’s quite time-consuming, though, and not necessary to input the answer. If you just want to get it done, here’s the full puzzle solution:

First rowSecond rowThird row
SkullGriffinSkull
GriffinSkullGriffin
SkullGriffinGriffin

Make sure you’re viewing the puzzle from the correct direction, or it won’t be right. The small neon green gargoyle should be hovering over the upper left corner of the tile puzzle. We’ve also got it pictured just below so you can compare your puzzle to the correct solution.

The correct order for the tilee puzzle in ddv
Screenshot by Destructoid

Finishing this puzzle unlocks the door directly north of it. Walk through the door and down the stairs to find Maleficent’s Anchor Moment near the bottom. It appears as a floating page you need to grab to progress through the rest of The Unwritten Realms: Maleficent’s Gift quest and to unlock Maleficent.


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Author
Image of Kacee Fay
Kacee Fay
Staff Writer
Staff Writer at Prima Games & Destructoid covering a wide array of topics including Disney Dreamlight Valley, Fortnite, Marvel Rivals, Minecraft, Phasmophobia, general gaming, and more. She has been avidly writing and gaming her whole life and now spends her time combining the two. Kacee graduated from San Diego State University in 2021 with a Bachelor’s Degree in English and a Certificate in Creative Editing and Publishing. She joined Dot Esports as a Freelance Writer in 2022, transitioned to a Staff Writer in 2023, moved to Destructoid in March 2025, and joined Prima Games in September 2025. In her spare time, she enjoys buying more books than she can read, gaming alone or with friends, drinking too much tea, attending concerts, fangirling over movies and television, listening to music, and spending time with her family, friends, and pets, who are the most important parts of her world.