THE FIELD GUIDE
Svartrau Underground: Keys, Armour and the Way Out
Enter the ruins beneath Carpenter Row with Florin’s Ancient Key. Bring the cathedral treasury’s Stone Key for The Hand of Fate, continue to Ancient Hero’s Armour, then use the Simple Key beside its chamber to open the way back.
Collect the Stone Key before going underground
If you want The Hand of Fate, make this cathedral detour before descending into the ruins. The Stone Key opens its optional sword chest; you can continue toward the armour without opening that chest. Check the pickup name now to avoid reaching it with only a Treasury Key.
- Enter Svartrau Cathedral and find the ground-floor storage room in its north corner. At night, you can reach the roof and descend through the open tower to get inside.
- Inspect the ledger on the storage-room table and collect the Treasury Key. Reading the book alone is not the pickup: check that the key has entered your inventory.
- Cross the courtyard to the separate treasury building on its north side and unlock it. Inspect the bookcase in the entrance room, then move it to reveal the way down.
- Descend into the hidden cellar and take the Stone Key from the stone ledge beside the candles. This is the key to carry into the kobold caves.
Treasury Key
Stone KeyFind Florin beneath Carpenter Row
A daytime confession with Florin in Svartrau Cathedral can give you an invitation to a building near the Western Gate. Look for Saint Tobias’s hand on the building. You can also discover the house without receiving his invitation.
The balcony directly north of the West Gate is an entrance. Inside, go through to the second room, take the stairs down and look in the next room for the hole leading into the ruins. If you are following the locked-door approach after an ambush, search Florin’s followers outside for the house key.
Below the house, follow the passages to Florin’s meeting place; if you meet his guide, follow him. Listen to Florin if you want to hear his plan and take his armour trial. Finish the conversation to complete In the Name of the Father.
FlorinUse the Ancient Key to enter the ruins
If Florin is alive, take the Ancient Key from the barrel on the left side of his chamber. If you killed him, search his body instead. Killing him is not required to obtain the key or the armour.
Unlock the doorway on the left. Taking the barrel key and using this door begins A Hero’s End; looting the key from Florin’s body can start it earlier. The house key only gets you into the building above, so it cannot replace the Ancient Key here.
Ancient KeyDescend to The Hand of Fate’s chest
Pick up the map lying in the first ruins room. Squeeze through the opening ahead and inspect the wall above the sarcophagus to advance the armour objective. From here, the lower route leads through the sword chamber before the armour.
Nighttime also offers vampire crossings over broken sections. Identify the far landing before using one; the same crossing is not a daytime jumping route. The directions below continue through the lower caves.
- Take the left corridor, then turn left again. Crouch through the low opening in the next room.
- Drop through the hole beyond it and follow the lower cave to the kobolds. Defeat them to reach the stone chest in their chamber.
- Use the Stone Key on the chest and check the loot for The Hand of Fate. The crack beside this chest is your onward route, whether or not you open it.
The Hand of FateTake the Old Key and reach Ancient Hero’s Armour
Squeeze through the crack beside the sword chest and drop through the next opening. Search the skeleton surrounded by moths for the Old Key. Climb the nearby ladder and unlock the door at its top; a Fallen Witch waits immediately beyond it, so recover before opening the door.
After the fight, take the west passage. The east passage loops back toward the earlier drop. Fight through the western route to the junction, then take the stairs down toward the glowing chamber.
Defeat the guardian in that chamber and search the coffin at the back for Ancient Hero’s Armour. This is a Heavy chest piece with magic-damage and charge-recovery benefits. Check your Second Skin rank and the armour penalties before replacing a lighter chest piece just for those bonuses.
Old Key
Ancient Hero’s ArmourLeave through the Simple Key shortcut
From the armour chamber, squeeze through the narrow gap on the right and search the body beyond it for the Simple Key. Climb the stairs and unlock the door back to the early room where you inspected the wall. This route avoids retracing the lower caves.
Go back upstairs to Florin if you accepted his trial and the journal asks you to report your success. If you explored independently, follow the exit objective instead. The armour pickup and the trial’s return conversation are different stages.
Simple KeyFollow The Champion of Old to a separate shrine
While examining the fresco in the ruins, search the area for the Decrepit Key. The Champion of Old uses that clue and key for a shrine elsewhere in Vale Sangora. Erkas’s Sword is at that separate shrine in Maragir Wealds, not in the armour coffin or the next room beneath Svartrau.
If your objective is “Find the place from the fresco”, use the shrine marker below for the destination. If you found the locked shrine first and the journal says “Find the key to the ancient shrine”, return to the fresco area beneath Carpenter Row for the Decrepit Key. The Old Key and Simple Key serve the dungeon doors you have already passed.
Take the Decrepit Key to the shrine, unlock it, confront the undead guardian and search the chamber for Erkas’s Sword. Complete this optional equipment trip before committing to the final assault if you want the sword for that fight.
Decrepit Key
Erkas’s SwordPlaces in this guide
Search area
Treasury building for the Stone Key
Use the Treasury Key from the cathedral to open this door.
Open on the mapLandmark / route reference
Carpenter Row house: guard-key approach
During In the Name of the Father, obtain the outside guard's key to enter the locked house, then descend to Father Florin's meeting place beneath Carpenter Row.
Open on the mapSearch area
Erkas’s Sword: separate shrine in Maragir Wealds
Follow The Champion of Old to the temple containing Erkas's Sword.
Open on the map