Day of the Assault: Evening
Blood Of His Blood
After the dialogue with Tailles and the archpriest concludes, take a detour before you follow Foltest out to the bridge that leads to the solar. Head toward the entrance to the seclusion labeled on your map. Search this small room for a bit of random loot, then head downstairs into the seclusion itself. In a chest by the bottom of the stairs, you can find some well-balanced silver daggers, a copy of Nekkers in the Mist, and the diagram for the superb leather trousers. Scan the rest of the room carefully for random loot and orens.
When you’re ready to move on with the storyline, head back up to the main temple level and find Foltest waiting for you at the exit that leads to the bridge. Be ready to hit the onscreen button prompts when directed in order to save Foltest from the dragon. It’s also essential that you move away from the dragon as rapidly as possible while staying in a straight line. If you start moving diagonally, the dragon is going to catch up to you and kill you.
The Dungeons Of The La Vallettes
Now in the present, Geralt’s tale is told. The ensuing dialogue scenes can play out in two ways. If you tell Roche “None of your business” after he asks what Geralt would do if he escapes, you get a dialogue branch where you can either say something conciliatory to Roche or become even more hostile. If you select the response “Go fuck yourself,” this leads to another dialogue option where you can choose to attack Roche. If Geralt tries to attack Roche, he will die in a cutscene (before the game has technically even begun). This death counts as a Game Over as much as any death in combat, and you’ll be forced to reload your last save. If you tell Roche “I can help you get the kingslayer” instead of attacking him, then the rest of the scene plays out normally. Roche decides to leave a key with Geralt so he can “escape” after a quick meal.
Returning Memories
After Geralt has eaten, Roche shows him a file about his death. This triggers some of Geralt’s missing memories and initiates the game’s other long-running main plot quest. Nothing further that advances the Returning Memories quest happens in the Prologue chapter, but there are choices you can make later in the game that can advance it. If you find this plot more interesting than the plot The Assassins of Kings follows, you will have opportunities to favor it in your game.
The Dungeons Of The La Valettes
This is the final quest you must resolve before the Prologue is concluded. The adventure is pretty straightforward, but what it’s like in your game will vary depending on whether or not you killed Aryan La Valette earlier in the chapter and what you did with the Melitele’s Heart quest (if you initiated it at all).
First, Geralt needs to free himself. There are two ways you can do this. If you’re confident in your ability to win fights, you can just have Geralt take his hands out of the manacles. The guards come after him in his cell. You have to fight them both off bare-handed, with Geralt doing minimal damage. It is possible to win this way if you’re good at dodging. Upon defeat, one of the guards drops the prison key you need to escape.
If you’re not sure you want to fight two guys with no equipment, then try provoking the guards into entering the cell one at a time. This lets you knock one out in a cutscene and then finish off the other in the game’s fist-fighting mini-game. The upshot of handling things this way is basically the same; you can take the prison key off one of the defeated guards and then exit your cell.
How you choose to take out this set of guards is unimportant, but after you leave Geralt’s cell you have an important decision to make. First, scan the area immediately around you. A nearby weapons rack should highlight orange. Loot it to obtain a small blackjack and some less noteworthy things. From here on out, you need to decide whether you want to play the next sequence stealthily or if you just want to beat all the guards to death.
This decision affects which of two possible cutscenes you trigger in the course of escaping from the dungeons. If you are stealthy, you trigger a cutscene that’s not far from the cell where Geralt was kept. If you fight guards openly, you need to descend into the very depths of the dungeon and fight a tense battle before triggering a different, but still necessary, cutscene. After the cutscene, on either route, Geralt encounters NPCs who are necessary for making his escape.
Which NPCs you encounter depends on whether or not you spared Aryan La Valette. If Aryan is alive, you can join up with him after he breaks free of his captors by playing stealthily or rescue him from a sadistic torturer by fighting openly. In both cases, after Aryan is rescued, you must escort him to the castle’s oil stores to finish the dungeon sequence and free Geralt.
If Geralt killed Aryan earlier, then you meet up with Baroness Mary Louisa La Valette and Nilfgaardian diplomat Shilard Fitz-Oesterlen in the cutscenes. If you play stealthily, the baroness convinces Shilard to help you sneak out of the dungeons. If you fight your way through the dungeons, you rescue the baroness from the torturer and Shilard chooses to help you escape.
It is possible to trigger the cutscenes involving the torturer by playing stealthily, though there is no particular reason to do this (the cutscenes will be no different than the ones you get by beating all of the guards to death, and your game gets flagged for fighting openly). Likewise, it is only necessary to remain stealthy through the entire dungeon if you wish to get a special line of dialogue from Roche in the cutscene that concludes the quest, and this is only possible if you encounter Mary Louisa and Shilard. After you’ve rescued Aryan La Valette in the stealth-triggered cutscene, you can begin beating the guards to death and nothing else about the sequence changes. It is not possible to get Roche’s stealth-only dialogue if you rescue Aryan, due to the way the quest concludes.
In terms of difficulty, it is much harder to remain stealthy throughout the entire dungeon escape sequence than it is to just kill all of the guards. If even a single guard notices you during the stealth sequence, that flags your game for fighting openly since you won’t be able to get past him without beating him to death. The best way to do it is to save every time you make it past a guard, then reload your last save immediately if a guard notices you.
If you are a player obsessed with amassing huge piles of loot in games, then you are going to find the open fighting route much preferable to the stealth route. When you fight openly, you can take your time looting the many areas of the dungeon, where orens, crafting materials, and other goodies spawn. The torturer also drops the diagram for a trap called the clawer.
Instructions for completing the dungeon escape both ways follow. The instructions for a stealthy escape include instructions for if you’ve rescued Aryan, as he finishes the sequence a bit differently than his mother does. Instructions for finding and fighting the torturer are included in the instructions for finishing the sequence through open combat. To repeat; you can trigger the torture room scene by defeating enemies stealthily, but there is nothing to be gained by doing things this way.
If You Choose Stealth
The only way to defeat the guards without killing them is to sneak behind them and stun them by tapping your strong attack button. Once stunned, a guard remains unconscious for the rest of this sequence. You can loot a guard’s area once he is defeated, but be careful. If Geralt ever crosses any guard’s line of sight, he’s discovered and your game automatically sets the cutscene triggers relating to open combat. Always save after you successfully stun a guard, and reload immediately if you’re spotted.
If you’re focusing on stealth, it’s best not to loot an area until you’ve also stunned the guards that patrol its adjacent areas. If you’re uncertain whether it’s safe to loot an area yet, err on the side of caution and leave the loot behind. There’s nothing in the dungeon that you’ll absolutely need later in the game.
Getting through the stealth section is completely dependent on using Geralt’s ability to put out torches through use of his Igni sign. Just press the interaction button when you’re within range of a torch to put it out. Extinguishing torches reduces the guards’ line of sight and makes it possible for Geralt to sneak into safe places where he can ambush the guards. This is the basic method used for getting through the stealth sequence successfully. You simply need to learn the position you need to be in for stunning each guard. Consult the map whenever the written directions seem unclear.
Once Geralt says “Damn torches,” your game is flagged for stealth mode. Immediately put out the torch near your cell’s door. Creep forward up the stairs. Open the door and quickly duck into the cell immediately at your left. The guard will come to investigate, but won’t see you if you lean against the wall to the left of the door. You should be able to lure the guard toward you by moving slightly out of the cell, then leaning back up against the wall. When the guard comes back on his patrol, he should pause just in front of the entrance to the cell you’re in. Step behind him and stun him when the strong attack button prompt appears. After you’ve successfully stunned him, save your game.
The next segment is tricky. Proceed toward the stairs, putting out torches. You cannot stand openly in the stairwell, as eventually a guard is going to see you. Instead, you want to move up the stairs and duck behind a wall that’s just before a room that branches off to your left. A guard patrols here, talking to himself, moving from the entrance to an area farther down in the room. You can stun him when he turns around after examining the entranceway. He won’t stand still for long, so you may need to stun him while he’s moving.
Part of what makes this tricky is that there is a second guard patrolling a chamber just beyond the next who can see you if you stun the first guard while he’s within line of sight. It can be difficult to know the second guard’s position before stunning the first guard. Try leaning up against the left side of the doorway and positioning the camera so you can see the hall that leads out of the next room. You should eventually be able to track the second guard’s movements by his torch when it passes back and forth.
If you can stun the first guard without being spotted, put out the torches and then duck into an empty cell on the left, just like the last one you hid in. From this hiding space, you can hear some amusing dialogue from the prisoners in the cell across from you. Keep peeking at the distant hallway to track the second guard’s patrol cycle. When he’s moving away from you, dash into the room and extinguish a torch at the end of the room, on the left. This causes the prisoner nearby to call for the guards, which is exactly what you want. Dash back into your hiding place in the left-hand cell and wait.
At the prisoner’s cries, the second guard returns to the room. Listen to their dialogue. The guard relights the torch you extinguished, then exits. Now you can extinguish that torch one more time, but the prisoner won’t call on the guard this time. Save your game and begin edging into the next room. Use the small group of barrels to the left for cover. During his patrol cycle, the guard pauses in the upper-left corner of the room. This is your chance to run up behind him and stun him. You can safely loot the next room, as all the guards in the area are out cold. When you approach the doorway, you trigger a cutscene.
If Aryan La Valette is alive, this is the only cutscene you can trigger through stealth, and for the rest of the dungeon you can fight openly if you prefer. Read on to proceed along this sequence of events. If Aryan La Valette is dead, then you get to see a cutscene involving Mary Louisa La Valette and Shilard Fitz-Oesterlen.
If Aryan Is Alive
Note that completing this sequence with Aryan La Valette alive gives Geralt the Strong Back attribute, which is obscenely useful later on in the game because it increases Geralt’s maximum encumbrance. It is arguable that saving Aryan is always the better choice simply because doing so gives you Strong Back. In addition to that, though, if you save Aryan you get to meet him again in Chapter 3.
To end the sequence, you need to escort him toward the dungeon’s stores of oil. They won’t be far away from this location—just head up the stairway to the immediate left of the entrance. Aryan is recovering from torture and unable to walk without your aid, so he needs you to clear the way. Leave him resting in front of the door he bursts out of, and continue to explore until you find the oil stores. You can pass through the door Aryan burst out of to reach the lower dungeon area where the torture chamber lies, but there’s no need to go there.
If you go down there anyway, you find yourself in a battle with the executioner and the scribe. The scribe can be taken out with a few blows, but the executioner is fairly tough if you fight him with the small blackjack. If you want to do this battle, it’s best to make sure you pick up the club that you can get on the upper level before descending into the torture chamber. Keep Quen up and battle the executioner as you would other shield-bearing opponents, with blocks and counters. After a battle with the executioner, you can read Aryan’s “confession” in the lower chamber and pick up some (probably) great loot. You can also use this to get the diagram of the clawer trap.
If you really enjoy the stealth gameplay, you can use the basic techniques outlined above to stealthily take out the guards you encounter along the way out. Simply stand beneath the first guard’s line of sight, then stun him and put out the three torches nearby. Take the path to the right and try to lure the guard toward the unlit torch by making a bit of noise. When the guard stands before the torch to relight it, walk up behind him and stun him.
Peek through the barrels to view the guard on the opposite side. Put out all of the torches nearby. Wait until the next guard’s back is turned, then put out the torch on the far side of the arch. Creep into the small tunnel that’s just past the arch, putting out all of the torches around you. When the third guard comes to the end of his patrol, you can come up behind him and stun him. Head to the end of the hall the third guard patrolled and put out all of the torches. To get the fourth guard, creep toward the torch that burns in the hallway that branches off to your left. You can stun the final guard when he goes to relight it.
That said, you should find the club once you move forward, so you’re not really expected to handle the rest of the sequence stealthily. It’s also quite difficult, since the guards in the oil storeroom are packed closely together. Feel free to simply fight your way to the oil stores if you wish. Note that if you do, you fight a lot more than four guards before all’s said and done. You should have little trouble quickly beating down foes with the club equipped, provided you also use your signs.
Once the way to the oil stores is cleared, backtrack and pick up Aryan. Make sure you’ve looted everything from the dungeon you want to obtain. Pick Aryan up using the interact button and slowly escort him toward the oil stores. Once you take him into the room a cutscene triggers. When the cutscene finishes, Geralt can proceed out of the dungeon through a secret tunnel. Pause by the exit to pick up the sword in the weapons rack and equip it.
If Aryan Is Dead
Enter the door that Shilard and the baroness passed through in the cutscene. If you want to stealthily defeat all of the guards, do not stray from this path. You want to work your way toward the dungeon’s exit, which is very nearby on this floor. First, duck into the passage to the left to obtain and equip the club. The first guard is at the top of the stairwell to your right. As long as you are below his line of sight, he won’t see you. Wait until he turns his back to the stairwell, then stun him. Save your game.
Put out the torch to your left, then the one to your right. Sneak down the right hallway and lean against the center wall. Position the camera so you can see around the corner. When the guard here completes his walk cycle and waves his torch slowly to examine the area, wait just out of sight. When he turns to begin walking down the opposite hallway, follow and stun him. You can try to lure this guard toward unlit torches to set up a less dangerous chance to stun him, but his behavior here is inconsistent. Sometimes he’ll show you his back while he relights a torch, while other times he will ignore the unlit torches.
Peek through the barrels to view the guard on the opposite side. Put out all of the torches nearby. Wait until the next guard’s back is turned, then put out the torch on the far side of the arch. Creep into the tunnel that lies beyond the arch, putting out all of the torches around you. Use the barrels for cover. When the third guard comes to the end of his patrol near the second set of barrels, you can come up behind him and stun him. Save your game.
Head to the end of the hall the third guard patrolled and put out all of the torches. To get the fourth guard, creep toward the torch that burns in the hallway that branches off to your left. Extinguish it and then crouch by the barrels nearby. You can stun the final guard when he goes to relight it, which he’ll do fairly consistently. If you get lucky, you can get the stun prompt without even moving Geralt out of cover. Once the fourth guard is stunned, you can move toward the quest marker at your leisure.
To exit on this route, you must follow Shilard when he leaves the room and heads toward the main exit. Put out the torches and crouch by the barrels until the guard leaves, then pass through the opened gate. It swings shut behind you. In this route, you find the sword sitting on a weapons rack near the door.
If You Choose Combat
After you leave the dungeon, slowly begin sweeping it for guards and treasure. If you opt for the open combat route, you need to rely on your signs. Quen is particularly useful here, as sometimes you can fight three or four guards at once in close quarters. It takes more hits to defeat the guards when you’re armed with only the small blackjack, but you can take them out by using dodge rolls to escape when surrounded. Otherwise, pick off individual guards as you normally would. If you discover any armor while looting the dungeon, equip it.
After defeating a couple of guards, you reach the top of the stairs nearby. There should be a locked door in front of you. Work your way to the right, where you ascend a second set of stairs. There's a pair of guards at the top you can defeat to obtain a rusty key. You can use the rusty key to unlock the locked door you found previously.
Beyond the locked door is a trap door that lets you drop into a lower level of the dungeon. Search the area carefully once you've entered the dungeon's lower level. Proceed down the passage, leaping over a short wall as you go. A room nearby contains the guisarme, the strongest weapon you can obtain in the dungeons. Equip it to prepare for the battle ahead of you. Proceed down the dungeon corridor until you come to a crack in the wall. Peek through it to watch a grisly cutscene of an NPC being tortured. You can stop watching once the cutscene begins to loop itself.
Head a little ways down the corridor and look for a section of crumbling wall on Geralt’s left. You can climb up this bit of wall and get into the torture chamber. Beat down the scribe watching events to get the executioner’s attention. The executioner immediately grabs a shield and a heavy sword to duel you. You can defeat the executioner the way you defeat other foes with shields, by blocking his blows to stagger him and then counterattacking. You also need to stun or defeat the scribe here. Once you defeat the executioner, you can loot the room and pick up the diagram of the clawer trap that the executioner drops. When you’re finished, speak to the NPC. How you proceed from here depends on which NPC you rescued.
If Aryan Is Alive
Aryan needs to be escorted to the dungeon’s oil stores to provide a way out for himself and Geralt. Due to how he’s been tortured, though, he can’t walk without your aid. What is generally easiest is to leave Aryan in the torture chamber, then go back to the first floor. Take the staircase that you find in the first door to the right of the torture chamber’s exit. Finish off the remaining guards. Loot the area thoroughly, then return to pick up Aryan and escort him carefully to the oil stored in the upper room’s barrels. Once you take him into the correct room a cutscene triggers. When the cutscene finishes, Geralt can proceed out of the dungeon through a secret tunnel. Pause by the exit to pick up the sword in the weapons rack and equip it.
If Aryan Is Dead
After you speak with Mary Louisa, Shilard Fitz-Oesterlen and a detachment of Nilfgaardian troops enter the torture chamber. He gives you instructions for leaving the prison that you should be careful to follow. Use the exit from the torture chamber that leads back to the upper level, then head up the stairwell to the right. Shilard takes guards and exits through the main exit.
Once he’s gone, have Geralt fight his way toward the main exit. After Shilard passes through, it’s unlocked and you can pass through freely once all the guards are defeated. Be careful to use your signs here, as you’re going to be fighting roughly seven guards at once. After you defeat them, open the iron grate. Be sure to pick up the sword waiting for you on the weapons rack in the next room.