Hollowgrave Tunnels: pickaxe and Silver Key

The northwest door needs the Silver Key inside the Orc Chieftain’s private chest. The key dropped by the Chieftain opens that chest. It is not itself the Silver Key for Hollowgrave’s door.

Keep the Pickaxe with the party and mark a stronger rock for a later tool upgrade. Exploration tools distinguishes those obstacles from gold veins, graves and locked chests.

Follow the two-key route

1. Find the pickaxe in the tunnels and keep it in the shared inventory.
2. Click ordinary cave-ins and blocked passages to clear them with the tool.
3. Continue deeper through the connected caves. After the spider boss, take the southern passage to the Orc Camp.
4. Defeat the Orc Chieftain and collect his key.
5. Open his private chest in the camp and take the Silver Key from inside.
6. Return to the door in the northwestern part of Hollowgrave Tunnels and use the Silver Key there.

If you killed the camp but still cannot open the door, revisit the Chieftain’s chest. Clearing the enemies and collecting their drops does not collect the chest’s contents automatically.

When you fell in at level 1

Retreat into a narrow passage before committing to several enemies. Rest in a quiet area between fights when the party has food. Check the rear row’s weapons: a quarterstaff with Reach lets a low-mana caster contribute instead of waiting through the round.

Combat positioning explains why moving before the first action matters. The difficulty can also be changed during the game if the opening fall leaves the party unable to handle the encounters.

Pressure plates across pits

Throw an object so it lands on the plate on the other side. Dragging an item to the lower part of the scene can drop it nearby instead. Release it higher in the exploration view to throw it forward, then look at where it actually landed.

A gate opened by a pressure plate is a different obstacle from the locked northwest door. Repeatedly solving a plate does not replace the Silver Key.

Check the map and tool

Mark the northwest door and any uncleared cave-ins while exploring. Patch 1.0.4 fixed an empty-corridor display glitch in Hollowgrave, so check your installed version if a launch-era map image disagrees with what you can traverse.

For the separate statue room, use Gravewood Crypt. For the later long-distance throw, use Trial of Dexterity; the similar interaction does not make the two rooms the same puzzle.

After reaching the village, the Mushroom Bond choice explains where to return the lost shroomlings and what the transformation means.