Walkthrough: Chapter 5
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In this chapter you finally make it to Kuldahar. Kuldahar is in great danger and had to be evacuated. Help the remaining citizens with their problems and be prepared to be showered with riches! The pace of the earlier chapters is continued here, so be expected to be glued to your seat!
Kuldahar Area
Head to the east to enter the town of Kuldahar itself. The town is under attack by an army of yuan-ti. These lizards are not too tough to kill, and will probably give you no experience. Talk to Iselore in the southern part of town - he has much information for you, but is not too helpful until you kill all the yuan-ti. The object here is to go into the weird portal next to the great tree, but you may as well do the optional quests before going there. Head to the northwest and explore the houses. You can enter one of them to find Gerbash. Talk to him to get the key to a tower. Leave the house and enter the shop in the southwestern corner of town. Talk to Conlan and don't look at his wares yet. Ask him about his son. Leave the shop and head to the northwest corner to find the tower. Talk to Sheemish inside and tell him about his father's worry. He has scrolls for sale, but nothing spectacular. If you have the Bonus Pack installed, read the book on the desk and get the guy to repeat what it says until something happens. Talk to the elemental that appears to buy the new things, or set him free to have them available in Sheemish's shop. Return to Conlan with the news about his son to have all the prices in his store slashed.
Return to the pass (west of town) and go to the northern tower. Open the door and talk to Jermsy and Nathaniel. Give Jermsy the key and agree to help him kill the Banite and the undead. Ask Nathaniel for information on Isair and Madae. He will tell you of a spirit that haunts the area. Go to the north to Hrothgar's Glen. Kill the undead that prowl the surface and then rest before going into the northeastern cave.
The Banite will attack you with a swarm of neo-orog guards. This fight should be a simple one for you, so I will not go into details. If you don't get a message saying that the undead threat is over, you will have to look around for more undead to kill in the two previous areas. Once they are dead, there are a couple things that can be done. If you have a priest of Ilmater in the party, you can consecrate the statue in the graveyard. You can speak to Egenia's spirit in the house just to the west of the guard tower. If you do, more information on the bad guys will be revealed. Tell her about what her kids have been doing and she will part the world. Tell Nathaniel of her passing and he will reward you. Jermsy will reward you for destroying the undead. With these tasks done, you should head to the portal in Kuldahar town.
Stopping the Snakes
Enter the portal once you have rested. There are few things to do in the jungle of Chult before entering the portal. Straight to the south you will find some Mezro tribesmen. Tell them that you are there to kill the yuan-ti to win some friends. You can drag enemies to them to make it easier on you, if you want. The second thing to do is talk to a bunch of initiates outside the southwestern entrance to the temple. Listen to what they have to say and remember the answers and kill them. Grab their robes and put them on before going in to the temple.
The temple is a huge maze of sprawling chambers and halls. Even when entering peacefully, you will have to be on the look out for various traps along the halls. On two occasions you will enter rooms with large indentations in the floor - step in them to start up a gas trap! To disarm them simply have a rogue disarm the lever. Unless you want to cause havoc, the only thing that you have to do here is find a broken stele. The rest of the temple is yours to explore at your leisure though. There is a vault to be opened here, and I will detail it too.
While exploring the halls using the stealth method, guards will bother you with questions. Most of the questions were answered by the initiates both inside and outside the temple. Here is a list of the questions and answers.
- What is the black flower of the world? Night, fed by the dead of the day.
- Who keeps the ancient venom of Sseth potent? His faithful followers.
- What approaches at dusk? The growing darkness.
- Where does Sseth embrace unbelievers? In the cradle of scales.
- What drowns Selune's gleaming on a cloudless night? The obscuring moon of our faith.
Use the accompanying map to find the circular room containing the stele. You'll have to pull the lever to open the way. The heartless dead are queer opponents - let them go and they will wander the halls, killing any yuan-ti they find. They are actually looking for their hearts. Once you are done, go to the room above the round room. There are several stones jutting out of the floor and wall. The object is to push them all into the floor, but pushing some will raise others. Push the far right one on the floor to reset the puzzle.
The solution to the puzzle is discerned by talking to some of the people in the halls. Press the second last one on the floor from the left (I will do them all left-to-right), first one on the wall, fourth one on the floor, second on the wall, third on the wall, and then the first upright one on the floor (I can't remember which one¿). This will open the door to the vault, where you can get some new spell scrolls. With this done, leave the temple.
When outside the temple you will have to find the four missing steles. They are attached to the altars in the small jungle area and are thus hard to spot. One of the steles is on the left side of the map, away from the altars, so look there too. Before placing them all in the holes around the temple entrance, make sure that you rest and save the game! The guardian that appears in a large dragon! Just make sure to keep your health high and pelt the monster with lots of attack spells to take him down. Try to separate your party into two groups - the tanks should stay near the entrance to take care of the dragon when it appears. The casters and archers should stay back to pelt it from a safe distance.
Once the dragon is killed, your spells are restored and you are healed. Save your game before heading through the portal. A whole mess starts in Kuldahar town when Madae shows up. Get ready for a big set of battles. Once the conversation stops, the leader of the yuan-ti attacks you with a small force. Wipe them out as soon as you can! Iselore will help you in this and the next sequence of battles. Kill the first group of foes and then wander around until the next groups show up. There is nothing that comes that you can't handle, so just tough it out. Once the sequence is done, Iselore will thank you and will direct you further on your mission. Get ready for more bloodshed.
Dragon's Eye Peak
To even enter the place you will have to battle through a horde of frost salamanders and a high sorceress. The salamanders exude an aura of cold that damages anyone close to them. The bridge that you have to cross is laden with traps as well, so do not cross it while fighting! You can safely pull the first set of salamanders from the bridge. Once that is done, look at the sign to the left of the bridge and pull the lever to the right of it (it is hard to see). This will disable all the traps on the bridge. Cross the bridge and slay the sorceress by the entrance.
Once you have entered the first area, be prepared to deal with hordes of yuan-ti purebloods and lizard men. None of the enemies here should even have a chance to kill you, even when they attack you in large groups. Kill everything that you see, and you shouldn't have any problems.
Be prepared to explore each level multiple times. I will try to cover everything that can be done at a time to minimize backtracking, but I am not sure if I will pull it off right. Make sure that you collect as many Fire Agate Gems as you can, as you will need them to open a door on the first floor. They are dropped by the various guards, prisoners and bosses in the area. You should also take the time to pick up the two pieces of rope that you will need on the final floor.
From the entrance, head south and kill the histachiis and the wyverns. Loot the nest and the chests to find some rope. Pick up at least four of the wyvern stingers. Return to the entrance and head east to find a bridge. Grab the rope from the railing and slay all the guards on the other side. Pass by the pendulum trap and proceed to the torture chamber. Clean that area out too and then click on the southern door. Talk to Nheero and tell him that you are a friend. Go to the rack in the center of the room and pull the lever to open the door. Kill the guards and then talk to Nheero to get a quest. He wants you to look for his companion and help him with a transformation. Return to the trap and have an invisible or hidden character walk through it. A rogue should be able to evade the trap rather easily. Have the character sneak into the large chamber and pull the lever on the western wall. Make sure to become hidden again, and then return to the party. Grab the rest of the party and return to the room. Kill the large group of guards there. Area effect damage spells work wonders here - a couple of Fireballs can clear out most of the enemies instantly! After the battle, place Fire Agates into each of the five braziers to open the stairs to the next floor.
The feyrs in this area are really easy enemies, so you don't have much to fear from them. The yuan-ti on this floor are primarily spellcasters and they tend to call for help when in dire straights. Help usually comes in the form of a teleporting ally, so watch out for them (they can keep summoning until you kill the newest one fast enough). Wipe the floor of all enemies to secure safe passage later on. Don't forget to cast See Invisibility, Invisibility Purge, or True Seeing when your foes blink out of sight!
You can explore the entire floor now, or later it doesn't matter which. I suggest cleaning it out now, but that is just me. The current trip to this floor is going to be a very short one otherwise. Go east from the stairs and head past the spider room to find long corridor running to the south. Leave the party to the north of the spider room and have a single character run down the hall. Once you start running down the hall, a large boulder will start following you - duck to the right to avoid the boulder. Open the chest to find some rope and take a look at the corpse. Return to the first floor and tell Nheero of your discovery. You are now on the look out for a sword.
Return to the second floor and go to the east again. Go south through the spider chamber and kill the priestesses in the next room. Disarm the trap on the stairs and proceed to the third floor.
Just to the south of the stairs you will see a small room contained within a trio of razor-blade doors. You can run through them by timing the intervals, or you can simply accept the damage and proceed through anyways. Mandal's sword is on the floor, but is protected by several traps. I suggest trying to disarm them before attempting to pick up the sword! Now that you have the sword, you should identify it (yourself, or have Nathaniel or another merchant do it for you). Return up the stairs once you have the sword and approach Mandal's corpse.
Mandal's spirit will take his sword and will proceed to show you what happened to him. He was slain by the yuan-ti's pet snakes on the lower floor. He will also show you were the modified root is. Return to the first floor's entrance and go south. If you haven't found the wyvern stingers yet, now's your chance. Go all the way to the south and then to the east. Go down the hole in the floor. Kill the ancient wyvern and grab the root off of the floor. Return to Nheero with the root to hear the next part of the plan.
Return to the second floor and go to the lab. You will have to go all the way around the west, then south and finally to the east to find it. There are a few ways to get the weaker histachii brew. The easiest way is to simply bully the alchemist into making the potion for you. Just walk up to him and intimidate him to get what you want. You will still have to place everything yourself, but you will have a willing ally this way. If you can't bully him, just wait for him to leave the room and place the modified root onto the eastern table (don't forget to remove the real root!) and place four wyvern stingers into the western table (the one with the antidotes). Then just wait for him to pull the level in the chapel room. Just wait a bit, remove your wyvern poisons and weak histachii brew, and don't forget to swap the roots again. If you want, you can kill the alchemist and brew the potions yourself, provided that you have a highly skilled alchemist (16+) and the notes from one of the shelves in the lab. Then just have the alchemist pull the southern lever in the chapel room to make the potions!
Bring the potion back to Nheero for your reward. He will disappear for a bit and will be available in the top left corner of the second floor from that point on. Just wait a while before talking to him, as he can't talk to you when he is in histachii form! Since you still have the root, you can brew some more potions, but it is easier to just wait for later.
Return to the third floor - you are basically done with the first two! If you want, you can attack Nathaniel. He turns out to be a rakshasa, a very nasty bipedal tiger. Just kill him and his friends to get some experience. Get ready to beat through tons of creatures on the last floor of the Dragon's Eye. The enemies on the third floor are not new to you, so I will not waste any effort detailing what is found here, aside from the Iron Golem that is in the south.
Travel to the north from the entrance to find a large table and a small fountain of water. Pour some wyvern poison into the fountain and grab the corpses from the table. Shove them in your Bag of Holding and then go to the southwest to the meeting room. You will need a cat, child, male and female corpse in the next chapter. Kill all the baddies inside and then proceed through the narrow passage with just a single character. Once you get near the end of the passage, a pair of gates shut and a whole bunch of oozes are dropped into the hall. Run your decoy back and have your mages take care of all the oozes. You can open the doors by disarming the trap below the northern one, or you can wait 24 hours for them to open on their own.
Continue on to the southwest and poison the fountain there too. The next target is the fountain in the northwestern corner of the map. Once the first three fountains have been defiled, you can approach the room (marked lever on the floor map) guarded by the Eye of Sseth. To get by the trap you will first have to fall victim to it. As you approach the gate, your characters will feel a need to be elsewhere and will wander off. Once you know of the trap, it is easy to disarm. Return to Nheero on the second floor and tell him of the trap. He will give you the remnants of his potion (or just go get a new one). Return to the gate, have a character drink the brew and then have the histachii walk through the gate, Pull the lever (candles on the shelf) on the back wall and then have the party regroup. Rest to get rid of the transformation and then return to the meeting room.
Things start happening really fast now. As you approach the lowered drawbridge you may encounter a small child. Agree to help him kill the efreeti, or you are going to be in a very difficult situation! The efreeti cast Fireshield at the start of the battle - getting close to them will result in a small amount of fire damage. My strategy for dealing with the large number of enemies was to sit in the meeting room with my two mages blocking the hallway. A few Cone of Cold spells were enough to take out the entire lot of them! Make sure to heal up before talking to the kid again. To start the boss battle, you will have to force him to reveal his true form. His true form is that of the yuan-ti high priest - there were plenty of clues along the way that pointed towards this truth (you can ask Nheero to research into the identity, if you need some information).
Once you have revealed the kid's identity he turns into a very formidable enemy. He summons a lot of snakes. My strategy was to use Ottiluke's Resilient Sphere to encase Thorasskus, and then I creamed all the snakes. It was an easy task without the priest's spells hammering my party. Once the snakes were dead, I had enough time to heal the cuts I took and then I beat the priest into submission. Once he gets really low, he retreats into a small hole in the wall. Follow him to find the treasury. Pick up the rope in that room and poison the fourth (and last) fountain. Heal and then return to the meeting room to find the high priest again. Finish him off.
With the high priest dead and the four fountains tainted by poison, you can now head to the next area through the door to the south of the stairs. I can't remember where, but on either Thorasskus' body, in his room or in his chamber you'll find the Medallion of the Lost Followers. This is a very important item, if you have a paladin in your party. I will detail the side-quest at the end of the chapter. Another thing to note before leaving this area behind, the prisoners on the first floor are not all friendly. Wander by enough, and the wizard and troll will attack you. The wizard can be a very tough opponent, as he cannot be revealed when he goes invisible! If you encounter him, he will have to be slain very quickly, or you will have a difficult time with him¿
The War in Time
On subsequent visits to this area, the terrain changes to reflect what hasn't happened yet. This goes the same for conversations too!
The Present
Follow the passage to the east until you get to the southern bridge. Put the four coils of rope onto it to repair it. Head west and talk to the Inquisitor. He is an important figure in the events that occurred! Watch as he kills himself and head along the passage to find Archon. This boatman will transport you to various portions of the chamber - for a fee. It will cost you 300 gold pieces per character per trip. Ask about Lord Pyros to find out that he was murdered. Ask to visit the palace to find Ambassador Jasper. Talk to him a bit and then go to the embassy to find some treasure. Then save and take the boat to the Fields of Slaughter Exit.
Before you can leave the area you will have to fight your way through a beholder and its minions. Standing in front of the beast nullifies all magic (his gaze is what does it), so spread your spell casters to the sides so that they don't all get caught in the beast's gaze. I found it easier to pound the giant eyeball with spells, while leaving my tanks to deal with the minions. Occasionally, the beholder will use a telekinesis ray to punch some party members back a bit. Heavily laden characters are immune to this spell. Just deal with the pets and destroy the eyeball to gain entry to the Fields of Slaughter Exit.
The Day Before
The Loop Continues
The Trial
The Casting
Favor for Nickademus
This task is not very hard. Just wander the halls and slay everything that moves. It is a little boring trying to find any wanderers, but you have to eliminate all the demons - leaving one will result in you having to find it¿
Once they are all dead you can use the eastern stairs to go the Fields of Slaughter,
Fields of Slaughter
Place your party and have your best bluffer head towards the orcish gates. If you have a good Bluff score, you will be able to pass through the gates without having to battle the orcs. Talk to Kratuuk and he will give you a quest - he wants you to kill an elven lich. He also gives you a key. If you don't have someone good at bluffing, you will have to fight your way through the gates. Just have your party stay back and have your emissary run back to them. When the orcs start streaming through the gate, just toss big spells and try to take down a few before they hit your tanks. If it timed properly, you will have very few enemies to deal with. Kratuuk has some very nasty spells, so try to take him out as soon as he appears. Pick up the key off of Kratuuk's corpse.
Either way that you do it, you will get the key. The key can be used to free some elves for bonus experience and to open the way out the other side of the orc camp. On the other side of the camp there is a bunch of undead to kill. Further on it a battle between some elves and orcs. The elves here are evil, so feel free to kill them. If you are helping the orcs, kill the elves and then talk to Gorg to secure his help in the battle against the lich. If you killed the orcs in the camp, you will have to kill the whole lot here too. Rest after the battle has been decided - you have a tough battle coming up!
Head south to find the lich, M'darfein, and his dread elven followers. With the help of the orcs, this battle is much easier! If you have no help from them, you are in for a tough time! Watch the cleric die at the hands of the lich and then don't let him stall for time - just tell him that you are there to kill him. Start the battle off by sending your tanks after the dread elves and casting Dispel Magic on M'darfein. That should cancel out his Improved Invisibility (if not cast it until it does). Use area effect spells to destroy the elven archers and then have your casters concentrate on hitting the lich with heavy damage spells. Disintegrate worked for me! After the battle make sure that you search the cleric's body to find a vial of holy water. If you were working for the orcs, head back now and make your report. Doing so will make the orcs attack you, so be prepared for a tough battle in close quarters. Of course, you don't have to report your success, if you don't care about the little extra experience.
Head west and eliminate the last of the elves in the camp. Proceed to the northeast to find some more undead and a large pool. Pour the holy water into the pool and then head out the eastern exit.
The next little area hosts a really hectic pair of battles. The first is against a motley crew of various monsters headed by Saablic Tan. Mobilize your tanks before your casters and let their tanks come to you. Have your casters hit them with area effect spells as they advance, and then when they get to close, switch their target to Saablic Tan. Smack him with long range spells, and then deal with the head tank, Wammok. Survive the fight and then head to the northeast to find another battle, but this one is a little smaller in scale. Head to the east to finish the chapter.
The Lost Followers
Well basically all that you have to do is go to Hrothgar's Glen and put on the Medallion of the Lost Followers. Click on Kholsa's grave to start what could likely be the most difficult battle in the game. Six enemies spawn in, and each of them is as tough as nails, immune to several different kinds of attacks. Some of these attacks can deal over a hundred damage, even on the easiest mode! My suggestion is to set it to Very Easy mode, but you should try it on your regular mode of play first.
The trick to finding the weaknesses of each enemy is the key to winning the battle. You can learn these weaknesses by studying the engravings on the medallion - you should use the same method to kill the followers that killed them the first time. In most cases, the followers have resistance to the various damage types, which strong fighters can overcome with pure strength of arms. You will have to split your party up for this battle, as having multiple enemies on one PC can be very dangerous! As a side note here - the followers are immune to everything that doesn't work on the undead.
Inhein: She is weak to fire. I always started the battle by lobbing Fireball and Delayed Blast Fireballs at her until she died. She is the easiest to kill of the followers. If she remains alive for a long time, she will pepper your party with spells from off the screen.
Broken Khree: This opponent is quite difficult, as most physical attacks are almost useless against him. Once Inhein was dead, my mages shifted their attentions to this follower and finished him off with Magic Missiles and acid spells. He was the second last to fall.
Jaiger: This follower is an insanely powerful archer! The problem with ignoring him is that he will cut down your entire party from afar. A fighter equipped with a slashing weapon is your best chance to kill this guy, and he will likely be the first to fall.
Antalaclys: This is another spellcaster amongst the followers. He is a very easy target and falls quickly to both slashing and crushing weapons. I suggest sending your cleric at him, and letting your fighter help once Jaiger is dead. He doesn't take much to fell, and can actually die really quickly in the battle.
Kaervas: This is perhaps the toughest enemy to beat. He seems to be immune to everything at all, even though he was killed by a crushing weapon. Slashing weapons sometimes deal the most damage to him, but crushing usually works best. If you have a frontline blunt fighter, or a monk, send him or her after Kaervas. Chances are you will only be keeping him busy for the whole fight until the whole party can converge on him. Use attack spells (once the mages are free!) to help whoever is fighting this foe.
Veddion: This last of the followers is immune to mostly everything. Once Antalaclys is dead, send your slashers to deal with him. It only takes a good six hits or so to lay this foe to rest.
At any given time, your party can take out any three or four of the enemies. The inclusion of six such powerful foes will make the battle VERY difficult. If you can't beat it on your first try, you will have to try and try again. Keep trying out different strategies! Try to split your party to deal with the various enemy tanks and have your mages take out the enemy mages first (Broken Khree can be ignored actually, since he can hardly hit a well-defended character). With the mages protected in the middle, they can lash out at whoever is need of some extra damage!
If you still can't beat the battle, remember that you can come back to try it at anytime until the end of the game. Just return when you think you are ready to take on these foes!
