For the maze route, keep your disguise through the opening speech, solve the box with the left hole and handle Bakir after the feast. Revealing yourself early starts a group fight instead. This guide distinguishes those routes rather than treating the courtyard battle as mandatory.
Enter with Farkas
- Complete Bakir’s Court objectives until his challenge becomes available, then meet Farkas outside Lunar Manor. Do not replace the journal with a fixed activity-count rule.
- Arrange entry in the afternoon and follow the wait-until-dusk objective. Total-time records disagree: Gamer Guides lists five segments, PowerPyx six. Read each actual time prompt.
- Before the maze, you can gather the corner bush’s leaves and taint the liquor near Cockroach. Talk to Porcupine if you want the reported opportunity to avoid his duel later. These are optional preparations, not proof every contestant survives.
Maintain the disguise
- Avoid the opening speech’s combat response if you want the maze. ATH’s Mad Khan article deliberately uses that response to fight Beldam and guards first; it is a different branch.
- Use the sword while progressing through the maze, collecting equipment. The compared walkthrough allows feeding on rats but warns that conspicuous vampiric powers expose you; this is not blanket permission to use every ability.
Solve the box and reach the feast
- At the blocking mechanism, read the note and choose the left hole. Continue to the willow-tree coin objective, completing the contestant encounters on the way. The reference cursor is on the wrong alternative.
- Preserve a save before the feast. For the reported treasury route, refuse to unmask, accept the drink and friendly toast, then ask for the reward. The later death-wish reply conflicts: PowerPyx favors dying in combat; ATH describes a peaceful old-age answer. An exact sequence guaranteed across your prior choices remains unconfirmed here.
Defeat Bakir and check his remains
- If the confrontation starts outside, deal with the consort and guards before Bakir. In the treasury branch, initiate the confrontation once isolated. These are alternative situations, not two mandatory stages of every run.
- For his straight blood attacks, dodge sideways and watch for repeated casts. Keep moving through the incoming flock rather than stopping after its first pass. Sources disagree about his melee weapon, so do not base your timing on an asserted slow-sword pattern.
- Finish the kill-or-drain decision. Draining is the reported Shadowstorm unlock; inspect the remains for equipment afterward. If Farkas takes you into the treasury following a courtyard fight, return to where Bakir fell before departing. Check the journal for The Ring; continue with its recipient choices.
Bakir: distinguish the kick from ranged attacks
ATH reports lowered arms before an unblockable front kick: dodge back rather than trying to parry it. For the diving bats, it recommends a sideways dodge as they approach because an early dodge can still be tracked. Exact timing remains untested here; do not turn these cues into fixed frame counts.
This newer account also favors the fighting-death answer at the feast, matching PowerPyx. The older ATH old-age answer remains a source conflict, not proof that both guarantee the same treasury route.