One of the major dilemmas that every Baldur's Gate 3 player faces in the opening mission is to free a woman trapped in a mind flayer pod. While your Gith companion tries to discourage you from saving her, you may not mind having an additional companion to help you with the encounters ahead.
Saving the trapped woman, Shadowheart, doesn't require any fights, but it does need you to explore the surrounding area precisely to eventually find a way to get her out of the pod. That being said, if you need help with that, this guide is here with the full walkthrough of this brief but important quest.
Updated by Mehrdad Khayyat on August 7, 2023: As the location of the Rune has changed in the final version, we added the new path.
How To Free Shadowheart
Right next to the pod, there is a console that you can interact with. If you can inspect it successfully, the pod has a socket, but you need to insert something into it to make the console work. So, leave the console for now, and move straight to the tentacle corridor ahead. This will lead you into a new room with a bunch of pods inside it. At the far end of the room, you will find a corpse. Search the corpse to collect the Eldritch Rune.
Now, return to the same room where Shadowheart is, and interact with the console once again. This time, a new option will appear for you to insert the key. This is the end of this brief quest. Keep in mind that prior to this you had to get the key out of an Elaborate Chest in the first room, but now that chest includes other items, and it is still worth unlocking.
As soon as you choose the option, the console will start to work, and Shadowheart will come out of the pod. If you talk to her, you can either invite her to join your squad or leave her to find her own way.
Keep in mind that even if you don't rescue Shadowheart at this point, you will eventually meet her after you crash on the island. However, saving her from the pod will have an impact on your relationship with Shadowheart, though it might not seem that significant in the beginning.
After this part, you will have to fight against a bunch of tough enemies. You don't have to finish this fight, but having one more warrior in your squad is quite important to distract the enemies while one of your characters tries to push the ship's teleport lever.