Dark Messiah of Might and Magic - Walkthrough - Chapters 1-4

Dark Messiah of Might and Magic - Walkthrough - Chapters 1-4
This post discusses skills in the Dark Messiah: Might & Magic single player campaign -- PC version, regular edition, HARD Difficulty.
For an index of all our hints and walkthroughs for this game, click here.

Prologue - +1 Skill Point
You do not keep any items you find here.

Chapter 1 - The Gate of StoneHelm - +6 Skill Points
After siege:

• Up the ladder against a building, across a plank. Open a window and enter a Secret Area.
• In the only house that has a sign over the door. Inside it looks posh and airy, with white curtains. Go upstairs and find a wall lamp that can be activated to access a Secret Area.
• In one of the buildings near the storehouse vigilantly guarded by a patrolling guard, there is a Combat Staff +2 (requires Melee 1) on an upper balcony. Like all magic items, it occasionally emits a white pulse of light. Nearby there is a straw-covered shed. Sprint to it and jump to climb up, then from there jump to the balcony. This will probably take a few tries.

Chapter 2 - The Gleam of a Cold Knife - +3 Skill Points, additional +1 Skill Point for finding Menelag's Cache

• In the room to your right where you first enter the basement, there is a Ring of the Weaponmaster - Behind a wine cask, behind some barrels. As soon as you enter, one extra guard is added to the patrol outside the corridor.
• Secret Area - In sandy cellar with two Blackguards, look for lone broken brick against a wall. Chest in secret area is trapped. You can open it safely with Telekinesis from a distance.
• Rafters above candelabra room - From the library, access the wooden stairs up. At the first landing, there is a small door that leads out to the rafters.
• Secret Area - Library corner sealed off by bookshelves - At the Area 2 exit, turn the wall light to reveal a doorway. Walk to the corner and drop down to the bookshelves, then down to the corner. There is a lever to move a bookshelf out of the way.
• Love Letter - On the floor of the library. It describes a candelabra swapping procedure to reveal a cache in Menelag's study. Revealing the cache gives you 1 Skill Point. You don't have to have read the Letter first.
• Tower on roof - Key is at the top of the first flight of stairs that led to the Library.

Chapter 3 - Dead Man's Trail - +7 Skill Points

On the rooftop chase, the first room with peasants and where the ghoul knocks down furniture in your way has a cabinet near the exit, on your left; it has a potion.
Later you will drop down into an attic with a high ceiling. Look around for ham on hooks (Food Rations).
On the ground far below the wooden scaffolding just before the area transition to the warehouse, there is an Axe (+3 damage, cannot block with just the weapon alone, cannot perform an impalement, Charge, or Leap Attack).
Except the axe, you can pick up the items mentioned above and still not lose track of the ghoul. To maximize your time, as soon as you are unfrozen at the end of Chapter 2, go after the ghoul immediately -- don't wait for Leanna to prompt you to do so.
After you have gone through the level transition to the warehouse area of this Chapter, you can double back and get the axe and the ham, but not the potion in the cabinet.

When you first arrive at the warehouse and look out the window, there is a Black Guard in the rear of the building, at a corner with a large crate; he laters passes through a wooden gate. Near that gate is a door barred from the inside. This door is later open when the Black Guards inside respond to your intrusion. Just a Berry Juice inside, however.

The easiest way to handle this area early on is to climb up the wall onto the walkway by going up the crate mentioned above, then up the wall on exposed bricks, then over the wooden railing. You can track the archer's location by watching his shadow moving along the wooden railing. Kill the lone archer and control the ladder to kick down anyone who comes at you. If they don't notice you, snipe them from above. Do NOT put a Fire Trap at the top of the ladder as a Black Guard at the base of the ladder will trigger it.

Black Guards on ladders CAN fire bows at you if you are to one side of the ladder.

• House near sewer entrance - Can be lockpicked if you have the Burglary skill, but there is nothing significant inside except a Ring of the Phoenix. It is a one-use item and you can find another later anyway.
• Warehouse - From the courtyard, if you climb up the chain that can let you jump onto the second floor, if you go up a bit you can see something flashing behind the barred-shut windows. On the second floor, if you look up, there are planks on which there is a corpse and a sword. You can grab these, but you cannot get the potions -- Use Telekinesis. You can also try throwing something at them to knock them down.
• Basement - In the smithy, there is a boarded up section of wall. The passage inside is an excellent sniping position as enemies who do discover you shooting at them quickly lose sight of you again.

Chapter 4 - Across the Sea of Blood - +7 Skill Points

On Hard Difficulty, when you have to defend the ship, you cannot stay near the ship or just defend the gangplank -- The archers will kill Leanna. Also, if you are too far from where a Black Guard emerges, they will continue on to the ship and kill Leanna.
You can rush down into the ship to man a ballista, but enemies dodge quite well, and if they get by or if you can't shoot an archer, they will kill Leanna quite quickly.

• Where you first meet Leanna, look above her. There is a dragon-logo crate on a shelf that is often missed.
• Past the room with the caged goblins there is a long ladder leading to the upper deck. Nearby is a crate. Climb it an up the wooden platform. You will need the Flamegold Bar in Chapter 5 to forge the Earthfire Sword.
• On the deck with the ballistae, the central storage area is locked. The key is downstairs in a small room with a hog's head on a dining table. Look around the walls for a key on a grey hook.
• Just before the ship sails, Leanna will ask you to go with her into the anchor room. She will wait inside. Go instead to the bow to find the trapdoor now opened.