Prioritise testing with two days before release

You join a team two days before a release. Nobody has tested this build. The change log lists eight areas touched:

1. Login and session handling — refactored token generation
2. Product search and filtering — new relevance ranking
3. Cart total calculation — added promotional discounts
4. Checkout and order placement — no code change, but it calls the new cart code
5. Admin user management — new "deactivate user" button
6. Notification bell — cosmetic restyle
7. CSV order export — dependency version bump
8. Marketing home page — new hero image

You have your own time and one other tester. Automated regression exists for the API but has not run in three weeks.

Your task: state your plan for the two days, in priority order, with the reasoning for each decision. Then answer: "On the morning of release, area 3 has two open medium defects. Do you sign off?"