Prologue walkthrough: the day before Blood Mass

01Before spending the first segment

Follow PC Gamer's tested itinerary. Check shrine-training costs before spending time; optional tag and grave-filling also use segments.

02Before leaving home

1. After the opening dream, split the firewood, add it to the stove and collect your sword. Equip it in the inventory before heading outside.

03Morning: take your siblings fishing

1. Talk to Yanna outside Coen's house and accompany the children to the river. Decline the optional game of tag to keep this to one segment.
2. Use Focus Mode to find the rods beneath a nearby bush. Place all four along the bank, then bait them. Avoid sword-marked replies if you want the soldier encounter to remain a conversation.

04Before leaving Laslea

Speak to Gavril in the fields near Laslea Gate to accept Deep Down before continuing to Anca.

05Follow Dead Drop on the way to Anca

1. At the Outcast's Burial Ground, inspect the old grave with fresh flowers. Follow the footprints and carved symbols uphill.
2. Search beneath the marked fallen tree, behind the rocks. Loot the stash to finish this investigation without spending a segment.

06Find Anca and collect the medicine

1. Knock at Anca's house. In Focus Mode, inspect her partly watered garden and empty barrel, then take the path around the house to find her by the river.
2. Follow her inside and obtain the herbs. If money is short, the conversation offers a lower payment or a promise to pay later.
3. Staying for Page-Turner is optional and costs one additional segment. If you stay, complete the reading section below before returning home.

07Optional: finish Page-Turner

If you stay, finish the reading scene. When the storm interrupts, collect the eleven hanging herb bundles from the shed with Focus Mode and return to Anca.

08Noon: return home and prepare the medicine

This is the fictional recipe in The Blood of Dawnwalker. Finish administering it before Blood Mass.

1. Return to Coen's house and give Pieter the herbs. Use hot water and three spoonfuls, then finish the conversation so Esme drinks the medicine.
2. Do not follow Pieter to training yet. Leave it for the final evening segment and continue to the forest tasks below.

09Afternoon: enter the abandoned house

1. Cross the bridge north of Anca's house and follow the forest road. At the boarded house, climb the adjoining shed into the barn's hayloft, cross the boards and enter through the roof.
2. Take the Last Confession and Figurine of St. Jude from the corpse. Keep the figurine for Father Florin when you return to the village.

10Follow the fallen-tree investigation

1. Inspect the corpse beneath the fallen tree near the Northern Foothills shrine. Use Focus Mode to trace the trail to the next body and onward to the gorge.
2. Climb down, loot the Uriash soldier and read his orders. Report this discovery to Zdislav back in Laslea.

11Rescue Lazar before evening

PC Gamer's afternoon route finds Lazar alive; its evening attempt finds him dead. Make this your next paid objective.

1. Track Gavril's Deep Down quest. Inspect the abandoned peat cart near Blackwater Hollow, then follow the tracks past a dropped basket to the wolves beside the deep hole.
2. Enter the hole, follow the underground river and squeeze through the gap. Continue with Lazar through the ruins. Inspect the murals by the sarcophagus and collect the bracers.
3. Take the east hallway to the Forgotten Guardian. Dodge its unblockable double strike; a successful perfect block gives an opening to counter. Loot its sword after winning, exit the ruins and report to Gavril.

12Afternoon: solve Blasphemy

1. Speak to Gremla and inspect the broken loom, footprints and cane mark beside her shed. Rotate the torn banner scrap to inspect the blood on its back.
2. The suspect is Premysl. The conversations with Alois, Otokar and Dana are optional leads; once the cane-user objective appears, you can confront Premysl directly.
3. To get the banner back, argue that provoking Brencis endangers your family, then call the theft an empty gesture and demand its return. Report back to Gremla.

13Evening: resolve Disturbed

1. Inspect Kvet's grave beside Crina. Follow the red-soil tracks through town until they end, then continue down the alley to Kostel's shed.
2. Examine both sides of the broken shovel and the shed's trapdoor. After the confrontation, ask Vladimir to return the crucifix, then bring it back to Crina.
3. Refilling the grave is optional and costs another segment. Decline it if you are following this schedule.

14Complete the hand-ins and train with Pieter

1. Return the figurine to Father Florin in the church before the final training appointment.
2. Follow Pieter from home to the hilltop ruins. Finish the practice fight; watch for a follow-up swing after his unblockable attack.
3. If time remains, leave him with the intention of meeting later. Agreeing to wait together skips directly to Mass.

15Blood Mass

16Bad Blood: leave the mine

17Smoke and Ashes: unlock the valley

1. Follow Anca to Laslea. Search the family home, including the moved bed in the last room, then return to her.
2. Use Compel Soul on the dead soldier. When it needs a catalyst, collect Brencis's Banner beside the nearby pile of bodies and use it while questioning him again.
3. Follow Anca to the gate and clear the rubble. This costs seven segments and ends the prologue with the valley open to exploration.