Walkthrough: Chapter 3

The third chapter takes your group through extremely cold and hostile areas. You'll be fighting everything from barbarians to dragons in this chapter, so don't expect an easy time!

The first part of this chapter sends you back and forth to the Fell Wood. I will be splitting up this portion of the chapter by quest, not area.

The Wandering Village
The small village in this chapter is a small and very nomadic one. Don't worry about them leaving while you are working for them! This chapter follows the example of any other town-based chapters - the townspeople will only help you, if you solve every single one of their problems!

As soon as you enter the area, you will be attacked by one of Lysara's henchmen. She comes to battle armed with a pair of barbarian warriors and a slow giant. Kill them all and then do the same to the northwestern dire wolves. There seems to be no end to them, but that is normal. They will swarm you, but inch forward to get them all with minimum risk. The village is in the northeastern corner of the map. A drow merchant named Nym will greet you. Buy the decanter, if it is available, as well as anything else that you may need! The decanter is only available, if you have the bonus disk. Nym doesn't stick around for long, so use his services now!

You can get a few optional quests in this town too. Have a sorcerer talk to Pairi to get a quest done right away. Talk to Jari about his problems to get a quest. If you still have a winter wolf pelt, give it to him. Otherwise you'll get one pretty soon. Venla, the healer, requires a frostrose, something that you can get only later. Once you have these quests lined up, talk to Suoma.

Missing Children
Suoma demands that you help her village out before she will tell you how to get through the Fell Wood. Since you have no choice in the matter, you will have to undertake three tasks. The first is to find out where the children have been disappearing to. Talk to Venla to officially start the quest. Exit the area via the southeastern exit.

You'll find yourself in a large area with lots of wolves, trolls and barbarians. You don't have to fight the barbarians, unless you are honest with them. Then enter the large tent and talk to Limha. Ask her about the missing children and she says that she thinks a dryad took them. If you need two copies of her spells, buy some now. Otherwise wait until later - you get a set for free. Do not talk to her with a paladin, unless you want to end this quest really early on!

Now it is time to enter the Fell Wood via the eastern exit. The forest is a maze of similarly looking areas that can lead you in circles. The place is full of traps that can't be disarmed, and full of monsters that can't be killed. Also, you can't go further into the forest than the current quest you are on will allow. If you ever get lost, just go to the southwest until you get out.

To find the dryad you will have to follow this route through the forest - northwest, north, east, and east. The dryad will tell you the truth about Limha and will send you on your way. Exit the wood by going to the southwest. Talk to Limha and she'll deny what you were told. Unfortunately for her, a child escapes at that exact moment, and Limha gets very hostile, very fast. She leaves you to deal with her 'son', and teleports out the door. Kill her 'son' and heal up before you exit the tent.

Just outside Limha will assault you. This is how the battle goes - she teleports to the west, and every time that you get close to her, she summons a lot of monsters. These monsters include snow trolls, umber hulks, frost salamanders and wolves. Just deal with the monsters that she sends at you and have an archer chase her away. Once the monsters are dead you can heal your wounds before charging off to fight her again. Once she hits the northwestern corner of the map you will have to fight her last group of monsters. She will however start teleporting about, making her very hard to hit. Cast a holding spell on her and she will stop this behaviour. Kill her to get some free scrolls and to save the children.

Return to the village and talk to Venla and Suoma. You should also have gotten the pelt that Jari needs. Wrap up this quest and get ready for the next one.

The Warrior Wight
Suoma points you next to Tahvo. He wants you to deal with a wight that keeps coming back to life. Then head to the southwest and talk to Sordirsin, the wight in question here, about his problems. Apparently some thief took his drinking horn and he won't leave the world until he has it back. Once you have the quest, you can fight him, since he comes back the next morning with no recollection of what previously happened.

Alternately, a bard can compose a ballad about him and he'll leave without you having to do the quest. Let's assume that you will be doing this quest.

The next step is to head to the Fell Wood again. Go to the northeast, north and east twice to return to the dryad. Now it gets tricky. Go to the southeast, northeast, southeast, northwest, and southeast to find the corpse of the thief who stole the horn. He has the horn on his body. Pick it up and leave the forest via the southwestern path. Return the horn to the wight and he will give you his earthly belongings. Tell Tahvo of your success to finish the quest. Nym leaves town around this point too.

Betrayal
For her third task, Suoma asks you to talk to Kurtta. Ask her about the ghost and she will tell you that the ghost is that of her step-daughter's husband. Talk to both Carita and Leevi about it, and they will tell you to stop prying into their affairs. Something fishy seems to be going on.

Return to the Fell Wood. Talk to the hunter ghost there about Kyosti. He will (surprise, surprise!) give you a task before he will help you! He wants you to kill the will o' wisps that are keeping the restless dead from departing the world. The directions here are many, but here we go - northeast, north, east, east, southeast, northeast, southeast, northwest, southeast, east, east, northeast, northwest, northwest, northeast, and finally, southeast.

There you will encounter the three wisps. This is a HARD battle. Whenever the wisps take any mount of damage, they disappear on the next round. They come back a few rounds later. It is possible to juggle them, but it will require you to hit them as soon as they appear. What I mean by juggling, is to simply hit them when they appear, meaning that only one will be on the screen at a time. This is very hard to do, since the things have high armour classes and spell resistances. My best advice is to start by keeping them all out of the battle, and then once one gets badly wounded, concentrate on taking that one out of the fight, even if all three are on the screen. If you take them down one at a time, the battle is possible. A note here - if a wisp disappears as you are fighting it, move your whole party to replace their current actions - otherwise they will sit there and let themselves get attacked!

Once the wisps are dead, exit via the way you come in to find a whole bunch of ghosts. Talk to the hunter and he will give you their remains. He will tell you about the silent ghost, too. Leave the forest via the southwestern exit.

Go to the northwestern corner, to where the shallow grave is. Kill the dire wolves that moved in and talk to the ghost. Convince him that he can speak and he will tell you his story. Hear his side and then he disappears. You inherit his spear too! Go back to town and tell Kurtta and Suoma about your success.

Leaving the Fell Wood Behind
Try to tell Suoma about the remains that you got in the Fell Wood to trigger a special event. Both Isair and Madae appear and tell you a bit of their plans. They ask you to stop thwarting their plans - something that you will never do! They will leave, but not before turning the villagers into mindless zombies. Kill them and Venla will return them to life. Give Suoma the remains to finally get the means of leaving the area. Make sure that you buy some rope from Tahvo before leaving town.

Go into the Fell Wood and go to the southeast. You will have to fight a dark treant, which should not be a problem at this point. Go to the northeast and fight a swarm of treants. They are the true reason that the Fell Wood sucks so much! Kill them and you will be able to exit the wood. Use Fireballs to blast them really quickly. Exit the wood via the northeastern exit after the battle.

The Cold Marshes
This area is small and very straightforward. Go to the east through a bunch of spiders, trolls and barbarians before the area gets really interesting. Once the barbarians are dead they leave behind a large puzzle that they call the Stone Gate. Ignore it for now and pick up the frostrose from the plants to the south, across the stream. Before going onwards you should return to Venla and give her the frostrose.

The Stone Gate is easy to get through. Sometimes when you push a rock, a horn will sound, summoning three barbarians to man the gate. Kill them before moving any more rocks. There will be four such fights. To open the gate move the second rock on the first row, the third rock on the second row, the second rock on the first row, the second rock on the second row, the second rock on the third row, the second rock on the first row, the second rock on the second row, the second rock on the third row, and so on. The whole point is to push all the rocks to the left, thereby opening a passage that you can use to go through it.

On the other side you will be attacked by a pack of wyverns. Kill them all and exit the area to the north, but only after you have rested. The next area features the first of a pair of white dragons!

As soon as you enter the next area a white dragon attacks you. Not only do you have to fight him, but a pair of drakes as well! This is not an easy battle, and can be quite frustrating to say the least. My most successful tactic was to use my casters to keep the drakes bust while my fighters killed the dragon. Holding spells are your best bet when fighting them, but more mundane ways of using fire and lightning work too! Just try to keep your two groups of combatants separated so that the dragon's breath attack won't hit everyone! Once they are dead, rest and enter the cave.

A second dragon lives inside. Here you will have to fight the drakes before the dragon, so make sure that you kill them before going further into the cave. With no distractions, the drakes and dragon fall much more easily to your might. Use your rope to descend into the large pit, when you have rested and ready to go on with your adventure.

These caves are nasty. Not a good nasty, but a vile nasty. This also offers the first true evil opportunity in the game! The enemies here are common hook horrors - large beast that navigate by hearing, not sight. These beasts come in large numbers and hit very hard! Also, you cannot rest in this area.

Right as you enter the caves you will encounter a large number of hook horrors. They come from both sides of the hall. Split your tanks and have them surround the mages. Use spells to supplement your melee characters and proceed to smash all your foes into the ground. Crowd control spells are very handy here. The hook horrors use this surround technique on three different occasions - twice more in the main hallway and a last time in the 'egg room' (marked on the map). You don't have to kill all the horrors yet, but will have to later.

Take a right at the first intersection. Enter the little cave opening and kill the ice trolls on the other side. To the east there are a lot of ochre oozes and a shambler. Sic your tanks on the shambler and use fire and ice spells to destroy the oozes. Pick up the key that is held by the corpse at the end of the hall. Go back through the small cave and to the main hallway.

Go to the northwest to find the Duergar outpost. Walk through the gate and talk to Dargab. Do not tell him your opinion of slavery, or you will get the entire fortress to attack you. He will let you in. Talk to Barud to get permission to get the tools from the storage room. Talk to him again to get a task to kill all the hook horrors in the outside caverns. Talk to the spectre in the torture chamber to start a fight. Turn him to send him away, or Bluff him to sic him on the duergar (the first way is better). Talk to Dragu with a high Intelligence character to help him finish his rapid-fire crossbow. He will give you one, if you help him.

It is now time to clear out the caverns. Kill all the hook horrors in the hallway, as well as the little side rooms. The egg room proposes a difficulty. If you are in it when the monsters spawn in, you will be hopelessly surrounded. My tactic here was to keep my party outside of the room near the cave-in. I sent an invisible character in to trigger the event and then walked her back outside. This cut down the account of monsters that had to be killed at once, and got rid of the risk of being surrounded. Once all the hook horrors are dead, you will be told that the caves are clear.

Return to Dargab for your reward. He will offer another task to you - to kill all the monks in the Black Raven Monastery. Take the quest, even if you don't plan on completing it. Do not even attempt to attack this outpost yet, unless you are in desperate need for experience. Head to the cave-in and clear it. Now you can enter the last area in this chapter.

Duergar Caverns Exit
In several places the walls will collapse and umber hulks will stream out to attack you. Proceed to smash them, but watch out for their gaze attacks - they tend to confuse people, if they fail their will saves. These battles aren't that hard. Head to the northeast once you have rested and prepared for a big battle.

The exit gate is guarded by a mage named Harshom. Make fun of his bears (it is worth a laugh) and he will attack your group. Along with him, there are four archers, two mages and four war-bears. This can be a very difficult battle! My strategy was to hit Harshom with three different area effect spells (Fireball, Ice Storm, Fire Storm) at the same time at the start of the battle. This killed him, the mages, one bear and three archers. I then sent my fighters after the bears and used one caster to kill the remaining archer, and the other to paralyze the bears. The battle lasted about twenty seconds.

After they are dead, loot the corpses to find some interesting items and a key. Open the gate and exit the area to finish the chapter.

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