The Blood of Dawnwalker: How to Explore the Crypt in A Monk and a Saint

The “Explore the crypt” objective in A Monk and a Saint is short, but it stalls a lot of players because the game hands you a search area instead of a marker. The crypt sits under one of five graves in the courtyard on the north side of Svartrau Cathedral, in the eastern part of Svartrau City near Greenberg Castle, and Coen refuses to open any of them until he knows which symbol belongs to Mihai.

Quick answer: Learn St. Mihai’s symbol, open the second grave from the right while facing the cathedral, drop in, then hold Focus Mode (L2/LT) at the dead end and inspect the yellow-highlighted broken brickwork on the left-hand wall. That completes the objective and immediately starts the fight against Mihai, Patron Saint of the Cathedral.

Quest reference: A Monk and a Saint

Detail	Value
Type	Side quest
Location	Svartrau Cathedral courtyard, Svartrau City
How it starts	Automatically, after the Night Terrors questline
Time cost	1–2 time segments, depending on which actions you take
Missable	No fail state
Recommended level	25+ for the boss
Rewards	Broken Sword of St. Mihai, 1,000 XP, 1 skill point
Follow-up	Forge It Anew

Learn St. Mihai’s symbol first, or the grave stays shut

Coen has to recognize the saint’s mark before he can clear a grave. Any one of the following gives him that knowledge, so pick whichever costs you the least time on the clock.

Inspect the ceiling murals inside the cathedral complex, which costs no time.
Climb the left-hand scaffolding with Shadowstep (R2/RT) and study the fresco on the last scaffold; the symbol is painted on Mihai’s armor.
Read The Annals of Svartrau Cathedral in the library.
Read the thief’s note during Night Terrors.

All the ground-floor doors are locked, so the way into the cathedral at night is the open tower on the roof. Climb the wall with Shadowstep, then clawride down inside. During the day you can work the interior route instead, questioning the Deacon and the Craftsman and following the caretaker thread through the almshouse.

Opening the grave in the cathedral courtyard

Head to the courtyard north of the cathedral, past the well. Guards patrol here, so clear them out if you have not already dealt with them during Night Terrors.

Hold Focus Mode to light up the five graves. Face the cathedral and pick the second one from the right — starting at the far right and moving one to the left gets you there without checking each stone.

Interact with it to brush the leaves off and inspect the symbol. Coen then shifts the slab on his own, revealing the shaft down into St. Mihai’s crypt. This action burns a time segment.

Coen dropping through the opened stone grave into the crypt shaft below — Dropping through the opened grave slab into the crypt. Image: Rebel Wolves

The route through the crypt to the sealed wall

Prepare for a boss before you drop in. Once the fight starts there is no shopping trip in between, and the encounter is tuned for roughly level 25.

Jump down into the opening and crawl through the low tunnel at the bottom. The passage is dark and narrow, and there is a brief scare as you turn the first corner.

Follow the corridor to the left, past the iron grates, until the path stops at a dead end. Coffins along the way can be looted for extra items.

Barred iron gate in the crypt corridor beneath the cathedral courtyard — The barred gate you pass on the way to the dead end. Image: Rebel Wolves

Hold Focus Mode at the dead end. The bricked-up section on the left wall — the one the moaning is coming from — glows yellow.

Sealed brick archway at the end of the crypt tunnel — The sealed archway at the end of the tunnel. Image: Rebel Wolves

Interact with the broken brickwork. Coen digs it open at the cost of one time segment, calls through the gap, and a cutscene takes over as the wall collapses.

The crypt wall crumbling to reveal the figure of Mihai behind it — The wall gives way and Mihai emerges, screaming for Tobias. Image: Rebel Wolves

Beating Mihai, Patron Saint of the Cathedral

Mihai mistakes Coen for Tobias, the man who sealed him in, and attacks the moment the cutscene ends. He fights with a sword, has a deep health pool, and mixes in fast lunging strikes you cannot block.

His two dangerous tricks are tied together. He floods the room with thick fog that ruins visibility, then teleports and comes at you from the side or behind. When the fog rolls in, stop committing to long swings and keep turning so he cannot line up a free flanking hit.

Sword fight against Mihai, Patron Saint of the Cathedral, inside the crypt — The Defeat Saint Mihai objective and the boss health bar. Image: Rebel Wolves

Two timed dialogue prompts follow the fight. Neither one changes the outcome, so pick whichever line you like. Mihai tells you the Kohboldin took the other half of his blade, points you toward the uriashi blacksmith to reforge it, and advises seeking out the Augurs.

What to loot before you leave the boss room

Sweep the chamber with Focus Mode before climbing back out. Two quest items sit in there, and they light up yellow like every other interactive object in the crypt.

Broken Sword of St. Mihai — the guaranteed quest reward, and the starting piece for Forge It Anew.
Broken Chains and Worn Sheath — the pair that fills in what really happened to Mihai.

If you cleared the crypt during the day, you can also use Compel Soul on Mihai’s spirit for more of the story. That hex is human-form only, so it is off the table if you came in at night as a vampire.

Note: the broken blade is close to useless in the state you find it. It only becomes the Imbued Sword of St. Mihai once you gather Sword Shards and finish Forge It Anew, which is also what unlocks the Arbiter’s Blade trophy.

How to confirm the objective completed

The “Explore the crypt” tracker clears the instant the wall breaks and the cutscene plays, and the journal swaps it for “Defeat Saint Mihai” with the boss health bar labelled Mihai, Patron Saint of the Cathedral on screen. Once he goes down and the dialogue choices resolve, the quest closes out with 1,000 XP, a skill point, and the Broken Sword in your inventory, and Forge It Anew appears in your journal.

Why the crypt objective will not trigger

Three things account for almost every stuck run here.

None of the graves respond because Coen has not learned Mihai’s symbol yet. Go back for the fresco, the ceiling murals, the Annals, or the thief’s note first.
You are counting the graves from the wrong side. Stand facing the cathedral and take the second stone from the right.
You walked to the dead end without Focus Mode active. The broken brickwork gives no prompt until it is highlighted.

Every interaction along this path — opening the grave, digging out the wall, investigating the well — eats into the same clock that is counting down toward your family’s rescue. If you are tight on days, the mural route into the cathedral is the cheapest way to unlock the grave, and it leaves the crypt itself as a two-segment detour rather than a three-segment one.