Guide for Baldur's Gate 3 - Honor Mode / Dark Urge Only (2024)

Character Creation

As soon as you start your save file you will be prompted to select your difficulty. For this playthrough you'll want to pick "Honor Mode". This guide will focus on a Paladin as they benefit from a high Charisma score, which also bolsters Intimidation, Persuasion, and Deception skills. If you're following the guide from the previous sections, the same character builds and strategies will be used. On Honor mode enemies will be stronger, bosses will have unique abilities, you are limited to one save slot, and most importantly if your entire party dies it is game over. I highly recommend syncing your Xbox account to the Larian Network as I think that makes it easier to force Cloud saves. If everyone does die, immediately quit out and you should be at your last autosave, losing however much progress. Not as bad as starting from scratch. Here are the selections you should make when building your character:

• Origin: The Dark Urge
• Race: Tiefling
• Subrace: Zariel Tiefling
• Class: Paladin
• Subclass: Vengeance
• Background: Haunted One
• Abilities:
  • Strength - 16 (+1 bonus added)
  • Dexterity - 10
  • Constitution - 14
  • Intelligence - 8
  • Wisdom - 10
  • Charisma - 16 (+2 bonus added)
• Skills:
  • Athletics
  • Persuasion

Prologue

As a general rule of thumb, loot everything that isn't bolted down. Things are more expensive on this difficulty, so every piece of gold counts in the early game. After awaking from the chaos around us, make sure to do a looting pass in this room. If you go towards the back of the room, behind where you spawned you'll see a ramp taking you up a level. Here will be some stuff on a table as well as a chest at the end of the pathway. After looting the Cartilaginous Chest, pick it up. There are three of these that we need to pick up. Make your way back down to where you spawned and loot the Mind Flayer corpse in front of you. Immediately to the left side there is another ramp you can walk up for another Cartilaginous Chest. Pick up this one as well. That's it for this room, so make your way through the door. Off to the immediate right will be a corpse for you to loot. Use the elevator platform in the center of the room to go up a level. Interact with the talking corpse and we may be able to recruit a little friend simply named "Us". It's worth using a quick safety save here. Don't destroy the brain, but try to help it. If you do the [Investigation] check and pass it, it will give you Advantage on the subsequent [Medicine] check option. For any dialogue options that involve a skill check, you can easily tell what gives you the best bonus. Choose whatever can give you the highest roll and if you succeed, make sure not to mutilate "Us" as it's going to come in handy. If you don't take "Us", that's not a game ender. There's nothing else of note in this room, so move along until you get a cutscene and meet Lae'zel. Dialogue choices don't matter and you'll be thrown into your first combat encounter. Nothing scary here, especially with "Us" at our side. Loot all of the bodies, recover at the blue healing station if you need to, and progress forward.

In the next room you'll see another companion, Shadowheart, still stuck in the Mind Flayer pod. In order to save her progress into the room to your east. At this point you'll see an Intellect Devourer running around, but I would recommend not attacking it if you have "Us" present. You could risk turning "Us" against the party. In the next room there is a dead thrall body holding a key, and another one at the end of the room with a rune, grab both. At the end of the room is the last Cartilaginous Chest, so make sure to pick that up. With the rune in hand, you can interact with the console next to Shadowheart to set her free. Speak to her on the ground and recruit her to the party. Now do a loot pass around this room. The other key that we got opens the container on the desk. Next to the pod that Shadowheart was in there is a glowing purple tank labeled Nautiloid Tank, pick it up. This is actually an explosive tank and we'll be looting as many explosives containers as possible in this playthrough to simplify certain fights. Before we move on to the last room and a major encounter, take control of Shadowheart and open her Spellbook. We'll want to make sure the following spells are prepared:

• Cure Wounds
• Bless
• Command
• Sanctuary

Command will especially be helpful in the upcoming battle. Once you're sorted, move along through the door you haven't opened yet to find one last healing blue console. Avoid the fire on the ground, walk into the next hallway, and enter the final room to start the last fight. Eventually enemy reinforcements will appear from behind us, but we'll block them off in this hallway. Select one of the chests you picked up and place it in the middle of the doorway behind you. We want to stack all three to completely block the passage. Here's a video showing the positioning:

Once you're ready, move through the door to trigger the final battle of the Prologue. The main strategy here is we're going to have Shadowheart use Command: Drop on Commander Zhalk to get him to drop his weapon with someone swooping in to pick it up. You have two shots at doing this and the chance of success is 55%. With how strong of an early game weapon this is, if you're unlucky and fail both times it might just be best to just reset. Also any spell slots you expend during this fight will be replenished afterwards. During the first turn clear out the enemies right in front of you and have Shadowheart/Laezel push forward. I kept Tav back to handle the body looting and more importantly picking up the three Nautiloid Tanks nearby. If you start to become encumbered you can give them to someone else. Personally I gave them to Shadowheart since she's the first Companion we properly recruit. The bodies don't really have anything of note, so I would focus picking up the tanks first.

Day 1

Since resource management is a pretty big thing in this game, at the start of each day I'll highlight what the planned combat encounters are and when Short or Long Rests will be used. That way you can use your abilities without worrying about backing yourself into a corner. I highly recommend to follow this pacing as much as possible so you don't accidentally start a fight that could pose a risk to your playthrough before it is necessary.

• Wake up on beach
  
  • Intellect Devourers (x3)
  • Ruin Bandits (x6)
• Short Rest
  • Ruin Undead (x5)
• Short Rest
  • Goblins attacking the Druid Grove (x8)
  • Bugbear Assassin
  • Goblins in the tunnel (x4)

After waking up on the beach, start to move forward. Our top priority will be to assemble a team of four. Soon enough you'll see Shadowheart unconscious. Interact with her to wake her up and have her join you. Move along the coastline and collect all the loot. Eventually you'll make it to a locked door and the "Overgrown Ruins" waypoint on a nearby rock. Up the hill you'll see the crashed Nautiloid ship with some Intellect Devourers nearby. On Honor mode doing this encounter with just two people (even if you're level 2) would be a run ender. They have a ranged attack that could potentially one shot. Fortunately you can traverse the nearby cliffside up to a ridge (end of it has a chest) and you can continue to jump up to the top. Here is a clip on how to get up the cliff without triggering combat:

At this point I recommend saving or forcing a cloud save as saving Gale is crucial to our playthrough. When given dialogue options, choose the Strength option. If you don't save Gale here, you won't be able to recruit him. As you progress, try to set aside some magical (green quality) gear to eventually feed Gale to help with his affliction. You'll need three of these items in total to keep him stable. Head up the hill to the north and you'll run into two Tieflings that have Lae'zel trapped. Our best chance of getting them to leave peacefully would be the [Paladin][Deception] option, but all we really care about is getting Lae'zel out alive.

Once the Tieflings are out sight, free Lae'zel by shooting the floor of the trap. Fast travel back to the "Roadside Cliffs" waypoint. Walk along the road to the west. A bit after the dead goblins there will be a split in the path. Make a slight detour up the steps to the right and remove the fire terrain with Gale's Ray of Frost cantrip. Move up the path ahead of you until you see a shovel in a dirt mound. You can take the shovel and dig up some treasure. Someone in your party will comment on hearing shouting up ahead, but we don't want to investigate that just yet. Make your way back to that fork in the path and traverse into the wreckage. Go through and attack the injured Mind Flayer that is under some rubble. You can never say no to a free kill and experience. Proceed forward to make it outside and you'll come across Astarion. Handle the interaction nicely and recruit him when you have the chance. It doesn't really matter if you recruit him or not, mostly just here for the easy experience. You should also be level 2 at this point, so go ahead and level up.

Now that Tav is level 2, open your character sheet and go to the "Reactions" tab. Here you want to enable Divine Smite on all attack options, but make sure it asks you before use. You can add that function by hitting on each option you want it for. You'll know it's active if there's a chat bubble icon on the ability listing. What this does is the game asks you if you want to expand a Spell Slot to add a Divine Smite attack on top of your successful attack, which can be very handy to finish off an enemy or do some insane burst damage. If you basic attack is a critical hit, then the added smite attack will also be a critical hit! This gives you better control over where and when your Spell Slots are used up compared to the default settings. Now would also be a good time to cast use Gale and cast Mage Armor on himself.

Continue east back into the wreckage and you'll see that you can now ambush those Intellect Devourers that we avoided at the start of the beach. With a full party at level 2, enter Hide Party mode and launch a surprise attack. This causes your party to crouch, rendering them harder to detect, with the added bonus of you being able to see the detection range of any nearby creature. These enemies do move around, so as you get close enter Turn-Based mode to prevent a last second movement catching you off guard. One of them may be on a purple substance (which is flammable) next to one of those Nautiloid Tanks. Try to dispatch it without using fire so you can claim that tank. After dealing with the enemies, loot the nearby chest and bodies. Go back to the "Roadside Cliffs" waypoint and make your way east towards the ruins. Go through the chapel entrance to start a conversation. If you use the [Paladin][Intimidation] option you can then add the Thaumaturgy modifier to get two dice being rolled. This is the main reason we picked being Tiefling ourselves. We'll be doing this a lot, so don't forget you have this bonus to add along with Shadowheart's Guidance. You should be able to make it through this conversation with no issues.

Be wary of the cracked floor here! Make sure not to run into it as that would spoil the ambush that we could set up. Look above and attack the "Foundation Block" hanging to knock it down, creating a hole you traverse down. Before proceeding, do a quick loot pass of the ruins around you. When you're ready to delve into the ruins, I recommend turning on Turn-Based mode. Use to enter cursor mode, hover your camera directly over the hole, and direct Tav to go inside. Your whole party should appear within the ruins where we can ambush some raiders. Here is a clip on how to set this up:

After going down the hole, there is a desk in the corner of the room that you can move to block the door. Do that and move your characters to the edge of the room up against the same wall the door is on. Two on each side works best as we want to tuck them in the corner so they don't get detected. End your turn and bandits should open the door and stack in the entryway. Since we blocked it with a desk though, they stop right there. Now you can have Gale or Shadowheart throw a Fire Bolt at the nearby Oil Barrel that they all just happen to be standing next to. They should be surprised and you can let loose the attacks. Stay in the room and use either Lae'zel or Tav to block the doorway. After dispatching the enemies, make sure to loot their bodies. On the off chance something went wrong and you didn't get the surprise attack, I'll budget a Short Rest to be used here to heal your party up here. There are two rooms you can investigate and we want to go north first. If they weren't alerted during the previous encounter, there is a lone enemy you can ambush here. Do a loot pass around the room as there's a good portion of camping supplies that'll be handy. Once you're done with this room, make your way to the south. On the southern edge of the room there will be a switch you can discover that will unlock a locked door you walked past. Once you're good to move to the next area, go through the passage leading you west.

After doing a looting pass in the initial room split Tav off from the rest of the group. You'll be venturing into the southern room by yourself. Do not interact with the central sarcophagus until you're done with the room, it is trapped. Do a loop around looting everything but the central sarcophagus. One of these side sarcophaguses holds a Soul Coin that you definitely want to get for future use. Once you're done, go ahead and stand next to the central sarcophagus. Turn on Turn-Based mode and open it without bothering to disarm the traps. Use Dash to run out of the room and watch out for the grease on the floor as you approach the doorway. End your turn and enjoy the fireworks. That central sarcophagus should have given you a key to open the northern room. There will be a handful of skeleton corpses you can loot, but take mind of where they are as they'll soon come to life and attack you. With your group of three, park them in south eastern corner of this room, next to a chest. Make sure they're crouched. With our solo Tav (or Lae'zel if you want), make your way up into the little courtyard and go up the left set of stairs. A button should be revealed. If not, bring the others up to see if they can trigger the reveal before getting back into position. Before clicking it, make sure everyone is crouched and in the appropriate location, then turn Turn-Based mode back on. Interact with the button to trigger the ambush. Here is clip on how to prevent you from getting ambushed here:

If done correctly all of your party should be hidden, allowing you to being able to ambush the enemies instead of them surprise ambushing you. There is one melee undead that has a higher health pool while the others are weaker spellcaster undead. After you loot everything, make your way to a side room on the western side. There's some minor loot here along with a book with some skill checks. If you succeed you get some extra experience. There is another Soul Coin in the sarcophagus that you don't want to miss. Now make your way to the northern room that opened when you hit the switch. Interacting with the sarcophagus here will trigger a cutscene with Withers who we definitely was to recruit to our camp, so answer his question. After that's done, make sure to loot not only the chest but the sarcophagus that Withers came out of as well. This will net you a third Soul Coin and The Amulet of Lost Voices. Equip this necklace on Tav.

Go ahead and use your second Short Rest to top everyone's HP off and fast travel to the "Roadside Cliff" waypoint. Take the road west and then make your way north until you're outside a settlement. There will be a hill you can perch yourself on top that is a very good vantage point for the fight. Once you get to the edge of this hill, the cutscene should trigger. My main strategy for this fight is having Tav/Lae'zel focus on the goblins right next to us, then attacking the main group from behind while Shadowheart/Gale fire off ranged attacks from the hill. You want to focus on the Bugbear first and then whatever is the easiest to kill from there. Once the dust settles make your way down the hill and make sure you have the fast travel point "Emerald Grove Environs" available. If not it's to the east.

If you hit level 3, hold off on actually leveling up yet, as we're going to take advantage of that with a vendor momentarily. Vendors restock their wares at two points, after a Long Rest and after a character levels up. Specifically after processing and locking in the level up. This is a great way to stock up on potions and other consumables without having to go through multiple rests. You can also take advantage of this with leveling up Hirelings later on if you want.

Loot all the bodies and you'll find that a goblin named Za'krug dropped the Gloves of Power that would work well on Tav. Make your way through the gate and one of the Tieflings will be having a heated discussion with one of the NPCs that came running to the gate. Doesn't matter how this resolves, but make sure to talk to Zevlor before he leaves. We want to learn more about the druids and ask him about needing a healer. To get both quest prompts, follow this dialogue selection:

• What is this place?
• I have no quarrel with the druids.
• The ritual - is there a way to convince the druids to stop it?
• Perhaps if you could help me find a healer.
• I'll find her and speak to Kagha while I'm there.

Turn around and make your way up the hill and over the gate that the goblins were sieging. There will be a nearby hill further up the path that you can go up. A lone Bugbear will be trying to assassinate a Tiefling that we want to save named Nadira. As you go up the ramp turn on Turn-Based mode and get the jump on the would-be assassin. Honestly it's fine if she dies, we just care about the Soul Coin that she has. If she's alive, talk to Nadira to get a fourth Soul Coin. Using the [Paladin] option will get you it without having to pass a dice roll. Go down the path the Bugbear came from to make it back to the main path.

Once you get to a fork in the road, you'll meet a vendor called Arron. Consolidate all of your loot get ready to sell a bunch of stuff. You'll want to hang on to any consumables like poisons, weapon coatings, arrows, potions, spell scrolls, explosives, ect. Outside of those, sell everything else that you don't think you'd need. You want to buy the Ring of Flinging and possibly a Potion of Invisibility if one is available. Follow the left path until you see Auntie Ethel off to the right in her hut. When you first visit she should have three Elixirs of Hill Giant Strength. Buy all of those and any other potions that you want. Then lock in the level 3 perks for your characters. At this point the only one that matters is Tav. There's only one combat encounter between now and when we reset Shadowheart/Gale classes with Withers. We'll also be replacing Lae'zel with another companion. For Tav's level 3 spell you'll want to take Shield of Faith.

After leveling you should be able to buy another set of Elixirs of Hill Giant Strength. For a comparison at this point I was sitting on 6 elixers, 1 potion of invisibility, and 800 gold. Go up the stairs and you should see Zorru standing next to a shed or walking around this immediate area. With Lae'zel in the party we can get more information from him about the Githyanki Creche that she wants to find. To the left of the path there should be a wooden door leading to the makeshift prison that is holding Sazza, but we don't want to go in there yet. For now, we're going deeper into the grove. Wyll will be up ahead, recruit him for some easy experience. Further up the path towards Arron will be a group of Tieflings that we can talk to and want to make sure we save. We want to convince Rolan to stay and fight with the Tieflings. There will be a [Paladin] option that automatically convinces him to stay, so no dice rolling needed.

Turn around and you'll notice a stable of animals, one of which is named "Strange Ox". We'll soon get a Potion of Animal speaking to talk to it in order to set up an interaction in Act 2 and Act 3. If you stand next to the haystack in the pen, someone in your party may pass a check to see there's some loot hidden in it. There's nothing else in the area, so continue down the path until you trigger a cutscene between some Tieflings and Druids. Once the crowd disperses, speak with either Komira or Locke and agree to help their daughter. The druids below will stop you, but resolve the conversation amicably as we don't want to pick a fight here. Make your way through the Stone Door to the right. Inside here a Tiefling that we'd like to save, Arabella. To make sure that happens, pick these dialogue options:

• Thief? Poison? What's this girl's actual crime?
• [Paladin][Persuasion] I am versed in the ways of justice. Make your case, and I will pass judgement.
• What do you have to say for yourself, child?
• Justice means nothing without mercy means nothing. Let her go.

After that resolves, speak with Kagha and have the conversation end with you agreeing to speak with Zevlor. You may notice that there is an objective here to kill Kagha, we don't want to do that (yet). Behind her is a room called the "Servant's Quarters". Split off Tav from the group and venture in. You should be able to see "Kagha's Chest" stashed behind a bookcase. To the right is a ledge you can climb up. Sneak over and lockpick the chest to receive some information about Kagha that will later send us into a swamp. Regroup with the party and at this point Gale may want to chat. Speak with him to learn more about his condition. Make your way to the other room here to speak with Nettie and tell her about the parasite afflicting everyone in your party. She will take you into a backroom where you can promise her that you'll take the poison if needed. Once she walks out, you can swipe the Mind Flayer Parasite Specimen from her desk. I would recommend not stealing anything else here.

Once you're back outside, we'll go around this central area in a clockwise fashion. Follow the path to the left and you'll see a stone archway right next to the druids that were blocking the Tieflings. Go under that and follow the path to the right. Have a chat with Alfira who is trying to work out a song. Up against a pillar at the end of the path there is a chest you can lockpick for a green item that is perfect fodder to feed Gale.

Unfortunately with the Dark Urge Origin there is a scripted event that we kill Alfira when she eventually visits our camp, which bars us from getting one of the best cloth robes for spellcasters in Act 2. There is a way to avoid that though! We knock her out before using Long Rest in the same day. This will cause a different Bard to appear and be a sacrificial lamb. Swap to Lae'zel and go into your attack wheel to toggle on Non-Lethal Attacks. DO NOT FORGET TO DO THIS. You have to down her with a physical attack. Ranged or Magic will end up killing NPCs even if you have Non-Lethal turned on. When you're ready, have everyone enter Hide Party mode, turn on Turn-Based mode, and lay into her with Lae'zel. Chances are you will need multiple attacks. It took physical attacks from my entire party to knock her out safely. You'll know you did it correctly if combat ends and she's on the ground with 1hp left. To help, here is a video showing how to do this:

Go back to the central area where the druids are performing the ritual and continue to the left to meet Volo. When you get a dialogue choice with Volo you'll see that you can Trade with him by pressing . Do that and you can purchase from him a very powerful ring that we will give to Shadowheart called The Whispering Promise as well as five Potion of Animal Speaking. Get both the ring and all of the animal speaking potions as after today he will venture off and we won't see him again for a bit.

Tell Volo whatever you want and give The Whispering Promise to Shadowheart as it's a perfect ring for our Cleric. Use a Potion of Animal Speaking on Tav speak to the nearby bear blocking an elevator to ask it to move without any fuss. Otherwise you could throw a fish that you picked up or attempt and Animal Handling roll. Circle back round to the druids that stopped the Tiefling crowd and walk up the path to Arabella's parents. Speak with either of them to get a reward. Continue up the path to that "Strange Ox" from before and speak to it. Use the [Intimidation] option to learn some information and set things up for Act 2.

Now go down the path back to where you met Zorru. To the side is a wooden door leading to a prison area where a goblin named Sazza is being held. We want to help her survive at least until the golinb camp to make things easier. To make sure that happens, you can follow these choices:

• Step between the crossbow and the goblin.
• [Intimidation] Lower the crossbow, or I'll deliver you right to your brother.
• My reasons are my own.

After that, go ahead and pick the lock on her cage. Make sure to pick the lock and open it with Tav. This will break your Oath, which is what we want as our goal is to ultimately be an Oathbreaker subclass. You'll be confronted by an Oathbreaker Paladin which we'll talk to at our camp tomorrow. Get Sazza added to the group and jump over to the ledge that is behind her cage. Don't go into the tunnel just yet though. There's another ledge that you can jump to and down that path is a pouch with some handy loot. Make your way back and go into the tunnel. This will be the last combat before our Long Rest.

In this cavern there are three defense statues that will attack you if you aren't careful. Split off a member of the party that Sazza isn't attached too. Enter Hide Party mode and move close to the Rune of the Bear (glowing emblem) that is further ahead. Chances are the red sightline of the goblins will cover that when you enter, so wait for them to move and make the coast clear. Interact with the rune to disable a nearby statue and then launch a surprise attack on the goblins. Keep Sazza far away from the combat to make sure she lives. Bring everyone else up and you can quickly dispatch this group of enemies.

Loot the bodies and you may notice an unconscious dwarf that you can save here. Move Sazza a bit away from him so he doesn't notice her and then throw a potion or using a healing spell on him. He'll go back to the grove and will eventually join us for a fight. Climb up the rock steps and interact with the "Rune of the Eagle" to turn off the last turret. Before messing with the chest in the alcove, make sure to pickup the Oil Barrel outside of it and the Oil Barrels inside the alcove. After disarming the trap on the chest you can open it with the key we got earlier. From the chest is a staff called Nature's Blessing that you should give to Gale. Once you're done looting, escort Sazza out of the cave up ahead and send her on her way.

If you pass a passive skill check and notice the ambush:

• I know you're there. Show yourselves.
• They'll be no skewering happening here. Now let me pass.
• [Intimidation] Out of my way, or I'll cut you down first.

If you don't pass it:

• [Intimidation] I'm not running, and their aim's not good enough to save you.

While here make sure to not leave out of the southern exit until expressly told. Moving into that area will move Auntie Ethel into the next stage of her quest and causes her to move out of the Emerald Grove. We want to stock up on more elixirs before that happens!

Walk on in so you're next to the fast travel point. As tempting as it is to go on a looting spree, we can save that for Day 2. Go ahead and Long Rest ( menu) here in the Blighted Village.

Day 2

Starting today we'll do a morning routine between applying buffs and elixirs. I'll elaborate more on that once we recruit our last proper party member at the start of the day.

• Morning buffs
  
  • Blighted Village goblins (x9)
  • Sleeping bugbear
  • Ogre and Bugbear couple
• Short Rest
  • Flaming Fist Recruit Ephren
  • Paladins of Tyr (x3)
• Short Rest
  • Harpies on the beach (x4)

At this point we'll leave Lae'zel at camp, but before that you can swap armor pieces between Tav and Lae'zel as that will give you +1 more AC. Fast travel to the "Emerald Grove Environs" waypoint and swing by Auntie Ethel to buy a batch of elixirs. Go out the front gate of the Emerald Grove and follow the road west. Take a pause when you come across the doorway that you parted ways with Sazza at. Across the road is a cliffside you can jump up. Do that and then climb up a ladder to discover some loot. Up here Raphael may appear before you. It doesn't matter what dialogue choices you make whenever he approaches you. There is a chest on some scaffolding, an Oil Barrel tucked behind another barrel that you'll surely want to pick up, and in the southwestern corner is a rocky outcropping that should trigger an Investigation glow. If you're successful you should retrieve a pouch with a Spider Egg Sac. Using this will summon some spiders, which will come in very handy during a fight later in this Act. Once you get back down to the road you'll notice a path going north. Along this path you'll meet duo standing over the corpse of their brother. By making these dialogue choices, we can recruit them to join us in a future fight:

• What happened to your friend?
• Hold his stare.
• You need to find the beast and avenge your brother.

Interact with Edowin's corpse and pick the first option. If you're playing a normal Tav, the first point below will be there, but if you're playing Dark Urge you'll see the second variant:

• Let your curiosity guide you. Free the tadpole.
  
• Embrace the desire to commune with the tadpole. Will it to break free.

This will net you another Mind Flayer Parasite Specimen. Loot his body properly for some goodies. Go northwest from here and across the river. To the north from this point, near the cave entrance, you should see a rock ladder of sorts called a "Cragged Rock", climb up this. Here you'll see Scratch, interact with him to send back to your camp:

• Reach out to pet him.
• [Intimidation] Stand down!
• Take a closer look at him.
• You're all right, Scratch.
• Come on, Scratch. Follow me.
• Hold out your hand so he can follow your scent to camp.

Jump across the river to the north and around here you may notice Gale hunched over. This is a sign you need to feed him a magical item to alleviate his symptoms. Speak to him and he may want to speak about Raphael first. If so, just speak to him again and mention you may have an artifact to give him. Follow the path east to eventually see Karlach across the river. Before going over to her, pick up the Toll Collector's Key nearby on the ground. Speak to Karlach and choose all of the friendly/positive options to have her join your party.

While we're here we'll unlock a fast travel point for use later. Follow the path north, under a bridge, and you'll soon see a waypoint portal against the cliffside named "The Risen Road" waypoint. Now it's time to properly set up everyone's Classes. Go to the camp and here's what to do with everyone:

• Tav: Speak with the Oathbreaker Knight in the camp if you haven't already who is right next to Withers. Tell him that you want to be an Oathbreaker to solidify that as your new subclass. All previous spell selections carry over.
• Karlach: Talk to Withers and make her a Monk. Make sure to unequip her Axe weapon give her the Ring of Flinging.
• Gale: Talk to Withers and make him a Sorcerer.
• Shadowheart: Talk to Withers and keep her a Cleric. We need to do this to change her Subclass.

If you haven't spoken to Withers yet, you'll need to go through some dialogue to discover that he can change classes for 100g per time. In total this will cost us 300g, but will be well worth it! Here is a breakdown for what to pick for everyone's level up.

With everything all set up it is time to do the new daily routine of buffs that we'll do at the start of each day. Fast travel to the "Blighted Village" waypoint so everyone is close together and do the following:

• Karlach - Drink an Elixir of Hill Giant Strength.
• Shadowheart - Cast Aid on the whole party (AoE cast).
• Gale - Cast Mage Armor on himself.

Now to do a whole bunch of looting by taking everything that isn't bolted down here. As you explore, make sure to pick up any explosive barrels (Firewine, Smokepowder, etc.) Near the eastern entrance should be at least one Firewine Barrel (more may be in eyesight). Follow the path north to find a Heavy Key and the path will loop around behind this house. Go through the hole and the wall and take everything in both rooms on this floor. Make your way out the front door and at the front of the building you should find a set of doors you can unlock. In the basem*nt loot your way forward. Once you go through the doorway ahead, there will be a trapped chest next to a ladder. Don't interact with that just yet. Instead, go up the ladder and take the Smokepowder Barrel resting in the alcove. Loot the chest up here for an Infernal Iron that we'll need later. I recommend still progressing Karlach's storyline at least up until you give her the second upgrade as that gives her a passive buff that is nice to have.

You're now clear to disarm and picklock the chest down below. As you make your rounds, your party may discover a wall that can be broken down. Don't bother going in there as it leads to the Underdark, which we surely don't want to venture to yet. Once you're done with looting this building make your way outside and head for the building directly south of this one. On the first floor there are two rooms to do a pass through. You'll find a book mentioning a basem*nt, which the hatch for is behind the counter with all the herbs/potions. Make your way into the basem*nt and do another full looting pass of this area. Up in the corner of a wall, right next to a small set of stairs will be a stack of three boxes with a lever tucked behind. Interact with this and the nearby bookshelf will move, unveiling a hidden passage. This will lead to a room with a bunch of coffins, only one of which is safe to open. All the others will trigger an Undead ambush. The safe one is the first one on the right, tucked up against the rock wall. Make your way up some stairs to interact with an Ornate Mirror. This will trigger a conversation that will either open another room filled with lots of loot or set off a trap. To safely navigate the conversation, pick these options:

• Tell it your name.
• [Intimidation] Open or I'll smash you to pieces - bad luck be damned.

Succeeding that dialogue will open up a treasure trove with two major things near the entrance. First of which is the Necromancy of Thay that is locked behind a gate with several traps. For our goals, this isn't too relevant, but if you read and put it in your backpack it'll give some experience. Going clockwise around the room, the alcove next to this holds a Gilded Chest that contains the Bracers of Defense. Give that to Karlach. Do an entire looting pass of the room and then get ready for a vendor trip. Fast travel to the "Emerald Grove Environs" waypoint and make your way to Auntie Ethel. Once you make it to her, visit your camp and load yourself up with everything that you're ready to sell. Make sure NOT to sell your Spider Egg Sac, we will be utilizing this in Day 3. She should have another batch of Elixirs of Hill Giant Strength for you to add to your arsenal.

Across from Auntie Ethel you will find Dammon at his forge. With the Infernal Iron we have, he can use it to help Karlach with her condition. We need to do this two times in total. If you have anything left to sell, you can offload it on Dammon or swing over to Arron to peddle your goods. At this point Gale should hunch over again, so feed him a second piece of magical gear.

After this point one of two things will happen with Gale. At some point in the next few days he'll hunker over and you need to feed a final third piece of green equipment or if you speak to him enough and learn about his history with Mystra, your quest log will skip ahead a bit. Either will progress his quest. Just keep an eye on him and all will be fine.

Make your way back to "Blighted Village" waypoint as there's still looting to be had. Follow the path north from the portal to see a chest surrounded by some loot. Pick locking the chest will reward you with the Haste Helm which works great on Karlach. Shadowheart should have started the game with a Scroll of Detect Thoughts, use that on Tav to diffuse the upcoming conversation. Up the stairs to the left is a windmill with a group of goblins. We can talk our way out of this with these choices:

• What the hells are you doing?
• Let me rephrase that - why are you doing this?
• Fun's over - release the gnome at once.
• [Detect Thoughts] Read the goblin's mind.
• You don't have the stomach for a fight.

With that, you can freely investigate the windmill. There is a hatch into the basem*nt that has some loot along with a The Speedy Lightfeet boots that I gave to Tav. On the ground floor there are two levers, one will spare the gnome tied to the windmill and the other flings him to his death. Make sure you use the 'Brake' lever to spare our friend. Go talk to him to let him down. After resolving that, head back to the town center and in the southwestern building there are three Ogres having a meal. Our goal is to recruit them to our cause. Make sure you're controlling Tav before starting this conversation. Be prepared to use some Inspiration if you need to.

• [Paladin][Intimidation] Try to eat me and I'll brand your corpse with the mark of my oath.
• I notice you don't bear a brand of your own.
• Forget Goblins. You should be fighting for me.
• [Paladin][Intimidation] Fight for me and my oath or I'll cut the last meal from your belly.
  • This last one is a 20 DC roll, so worse case you fail you can pay them the 500g fee. Don't worry, we'll be getting that gold back later.

This will net you Lump's War Horn which on use will summon the three Ogres to fight for you. This will come in very handy once we set our sights on the goblin camp. With that sorted, loot this building to get some additional camping supplies. One last thing for this town - time to clear out the Goblins. First off, let's ambush the ones chilling on the rooftops. For this we'll split into three groups. Tav, Karlach, and Gale/Shadowheart together. Perch Gale/Shadowheart on the northern rooftop and Karlach on the southern one. Tav will ambush the lone goblin overlooking an open doorway in the northern building. Ambush them and it should be quick work to kill the others. Next up is the lone goblin patrolling by the western exit, near where we recruited the ogres. Lastly, there is a trio of goblins outside the southern building and the nearby exit. Remember! Do not leave the town via the southern exit!

Once you dispatch them turn your attention north to that large wooden gate. Off to the right is a sleeping Bugbear that we can ambush and kill if you didn't get him before. Go through the gate and you'll see a shed nearby where a Bugbear and Ogre are spending some "quality" time together. Unfortunately for them we're going to interrupt them and pick a fight. I recommend trying to knock the ogre prone with Karlach's Flurry of Blows: Topple ability. Once the fight is over go ahead and do your first Short Rest of the day. There isn't much loot to be had, but there is a nearby hill you can climb with a knife jabbed into some meat that you can interact with. Successfully removing it will reward you with an easy green quality item.

Follow the path until you get to a broken bridge that you can jump across. Make sure to hang to the left here as down the right path are Hyenas and Gnolls that we don't want to deal with quite yet. Continue west until you see a settlement that recently came under attack, fire and corpses everywhere. Run up to the main building door that several NPCs are trying to force open. Interact with the door and there should be a [Paladin] option that gives you advantage. Bust through and charge in. Find the staircase in the back and follow the path until you get to a dead-end with a blocked doorway. Break down the rubble to free the Counsellor trapped inside. While here, swap to Turn-Based mode and turn around to see another doorway blocked. Break down that blockage from a distance as once the barrier is gone, a plume of fire will shoot out. There will be two rooms here that you unlocked and you want to make sure to stay in Turn-Based mode otherwise you risk getting taken over by the fire from the adjacent room. Ultimately we just want to save the NPC here. First break the rubble blocking the exit and then have Karlach interact with him to try and remove the rubble. If that fails, you can just attack the debris covering him directly. He'll follow the group to safety out the nearby exit.

In the next building he'll unfortunately find the corpse of his betrothed. He'll mention something about a dowry. You can use the Speak with Dead ability that you get from Tav's amulet to learn where the dowry is from his dead fiancé. Make your way outside and find Counsellor Florrick by some other NPCs. Agree to help her and she'll reward you. You'll have three choices for your reward, but make sure you get the staff called The Spellsparkler. This is a fantastic weapon in Act 1 for Gale. Go ahead and loot all of the bodies, but be mindful of looting the Flaming Fist ones as their friends nearby won't take to kindly to that. If you want, you can dispatch the lone Fist Recruit Ephren as everyone else should leave following your discussion with the Counsellor.

There is a Firewine Barrel in the courtyard you can take that you don't want to miss. Looking at the entrance to the building that we charged into, there is a path to the left that goes under an archway. There will be some fire on the ground, but you can clear that out with your Ray of Frost ability. In the closest barn to you is a haystack that you can interact with. Succeeding the roll will pop out a chest that has the dowry that NPC mentioned. If your first character fails, you can attempt with the others to get it to appear. There is a chance that everyone fails, if so not a big deal. Now make your way to the barn in the far back to find a Startled Ox. It'll take two skill checks, but you can calm it down for some easy experience. Lastly you can turn your attention to the middle building that has a few boxes haphazardly blocking the entrance.

To be safe, just send Tav into the building. There will be a lot of explosive barrels and a man very keen on blowing any intruders to kingdom come.

To safely navigate this situation, here are the dialogue choices:

• [Dexterity] Wait - listen!
• [Intimidation] Careful. You won't kill me, but you will make me mad.

If you safely navigate that, he will give you the go ahead to go to the secret base here. You'll definitely want to loot the 9 explosive barrels sitting next to you. I know we haven't used any of these yet, but we'll be cashing them in later in Act 1 to simplify the Githyanki Creche area. Outside of the barrels, there's nothing really worth looting up here, so make your way to the hatch. Here on the other hand is a treasure trove of camping supplies for long rests, so loot everything. Once you're done, there is a wardrobe in the back that will reveal a passageway to the actual secret base. There will be a new fast travel portal and a set of boxes up ahead. This would be the extent of the looting here as I recommend staying on the good side of the folks down here. Shortly ahead you'll trigger a conversation with an NPC named Zarys. Use the [Intimidation] option to talk your way through. She'll disarm the traps, allowing you to walk on in. Once you get to a bunch of cargo there is a set of stairs leading to a ladder. There will be some cargo in the way, so work your way around it. Up top will be Zarys and she will have a job for you. Accept and make your way back to the courtyard of the settlement.

On paper getting the Dual Wielder feat on Gale may seem an odd choice, but this can be very poignant on a caster with the right weapons. Case in point, by equipping both The Spellsparkler and Nature's Blessing, this makes your Magic Missile for example trigger effects from both staves at the same time.

Now to dispatch the Paladins that Karlach mentioned earlier. In between here and the paladins are same gnolls that we don't want to deal with yet, but this is why we unlocked the fast travel point earlier. Fast travel to "The Risen Road" waypoint. In the nearby building will be the paladins. Before the fight starts, don't bring Karlach into the building as that will start a dialogue. Instead have someone attack them from the inside. This isn't too hard of a fight if you get Anders out of the way fast. Once the fighting has started, you're free to bring Karlach in. Focus your attacks on him and you very well could dispatch him before he can even attack. The other enemies should fall pretty quickly, but be careful as Cyrel uses Hold Person. Following this fight use your second Short Rest. Loot the bodies and everything in the house before making your way down to the basem*nt via the hatch in the main room. Once again there is a treasure trove of loot and there are four rooms to go one by one through. In rooms two and three, your characters will see trap vents on the ground. You can pay those no mind at all. To open up the fourth and final room, you need to sit two characters in Stone Chairs up against a wall. This will open the hidden room, but be careful as there is a pressure plate as soon as you enter that room. Disarm that make it safe to traverse. In this room you'll come across the Gloves of Heroism which pair well with Tav as our Paladin.

Now we just have one fight left for the day that we held off on doing - the harpies on the beach. Attempting this at level 2 and even 3 could be dicey due to their Luring Song, but after being topped up at level 4, this shouldn't pose too much of a risk. Fast travel to the "Emerald Grove Enrvirons" waypoint and make your way down to where Alfira is. Before the path leading up to her you should see a different one going down and to the left. As you near the beach, split our party into two groups. One with Karlach/Shadowheart and another with Tav/Gale. Have Tav/Gale go up the nearby ridge and approach the kid with Karlach/Shadowheart, but make sure not to run past him as that would trigger the ambush prematurely. You will want to have Shadowheart cast Sanctuary on the child and he'll be 100% safe from the harpy attacks. When speaking with him choose the following:

• You shouldn't be standing out in the water. It's dangerous.
• I don't hear anything. Come back to shore.

Day 3

Here are the combat encounters for the day and where we'll use our rests. Today we'll be focusing on all of the gnolls and venturing into the owlbear den.

• Morning Buffs
  • Gnoll scouting party (x4)
  • Bloated hyenas (x4)
• Short Rest
  • Gnoll war party (x7)
  • Flind
  • Rugan and Olly
• Short Rest
  • Owlbear

After you leave camp make sure to do your morning ritual of using Mage Armor on Gale, using an Elixir of Hill Giant Strength on Karlach, and casting Aid on the whole party with Shadowheart. Time to sneak up on some gnolls! The best approach route will be taking the path leaving the "Waukeen's Rest" waypoint going east. You want to take the top east path that leaves out the side of the settlement. You'll know you're on the right path if you see some Gnolls feasting on corpses in the distance. Sneak up on them and launch a surprise attack. You should be able to make quick work of them with an ambush. You'll now see a path going downhill to the south with a Hyena patrolling. Approach this to trigger a cutscene. There are bloated hyena bodies littering the road and you want to take the [Melee Attack] option to have one less target to deal with. You now have one turn to kill all the all bloated corpses until they birth new gnolls. The perk of approaching it from this angle is if you hadn't dealt with the previous group the one walking hyena could have run off and alerted them, making things much more complicated.

Loot the immediate area from those two encounters and start heading up the path north after using a Short Rest. Once you see another group of gnolls, split your party into two groups - Tav/Karlach and Gale/Shadowheart. Have Gale/Shadowheart sneak up the hill to the right to launch a surprise attack on the gnoll perched up here. This is where I used the Spider Egg Sac that we got previously. To use it, drop it on the ground and then attack it. This will spawn five spiders that will fight as allies. This drastically helps to spread out the attacks. Then have the other group start attacking the other gnolls on the ground, but don't attack the leader gnoll - Flind. Instead make sure a character is next to Flind when it becomes their turn. Here is a clip showcasing the setup:

After the surprise effect wears off, a conversation will trigger where we can mind control the Flind to turn on her allies. The proper dialogue choices to make that happen are:

• Search her mind for the source of the voice.
• [Illithid][Wisdom] You are of the same pack - command her to devour the other gnolls.

Chances are Flind will still be alive after the fight resolves and she may turn on you now. If you pass two rolls, you can convince her to eat herself.

• [Wisdom] Dominate her mind, commanding her to feast on herself.
• [Wisdom] Harness your willpower, and order her to devour herself.

Worst case you'll have to fight her 1v4, which isn't too bad. Make sure to loot Flind as she has a Mind Flayer Parasite Specimen. The two survivors from the cave will thank you and they're the people that Zarys was looking for. Since Zarys only cares about retrieving the chest they were transporting... our two friends here will have a little "accident". Spring an ambush on them and loot their entire cave. DO NOT OPEN THE CHEST THEY WERE PROTECTING CALLED "THE CARAVAN STRONGBOX'. Just pick up the chest and ask no questions. For the best rewards we don't want to open it (also trust me - you don't want anything to do with what's in there. Especially if you're on Honor mode. (There's a Spectator trapped inside.) Everything else in the cave is fair game though. Off to the right of the cave are some traps with explosive barrels and a boulder attached to two trip wires. Traverse and disarm this section carefully to lay claim to even more explosive barrels. To be on the safe side, just have one person venture through.

Once you're done in the cave teleport to the "Blighted Village" waypoint and travel out the east exit. Go down to river and you'll see the Owlbear Cave entrance where the NPCs from before will be awaiting you. Use your second Short Rest before going inside.The Legendary Action for this fight allows the Owlbear to call in its mate, making you fight two adult Owlbears. Try to lock one down and kill them around the same time if it's not too dangerous for you, as one will enrage when the other dies.

Go inside the cave and when you get close to the owlbear a conversation will play. I would recommend choosing the [Performance] option as you can get advantage on it with your buffs. Succeeding will allow you to position yourself in an optimal ambush orientation. Once you're good, let loose the attacks. Try to use Shadowheart's or Tav's Command: Halt ability to keep the owlbear in it's tracks. After the fight is over, if either of the allied NPCs are alive, kill them for some extra loot/experience. Next to the nest will be a skeleton holding some armor. There will also be an Owlbear Egg that you want to grab and hang on to for later. Be mindful to not accidentally use it when resting as a camping supply as it can be used as food. Make your way to the back of the cave for to grab some more loot. You'll notice a glowing chest, but don't try to open it yet as you'll take some damage. Jump across the gap and go behind the statue. You should discover a prayer note, pick it up. Go back over next to the chest and read the note to dispel the magical lock. Shadowheart won't like you opening this, but you can convince her with a dialogue roll of your choice. If you fail, you can still loot it with just some disapproval. In it you'll find the Moondrop Pendent, which you can give to Karlach.

Before calling it a day lets return the chest to Zarys, so fast travel to the "Zhentarim Hideout" waypoint and make your way over to her. Tell her that everyone is dead and then give her the chest you recovered. As a reward she will give you a crossbow and a vendor downstairs will sell additional items. This crossbow you can either sell or have Karlach hang on to for a little bit as we'll be getting her true "ranged" weapon in the goblin camp. Go down the ladder and speak to Brem who is walking between all the nearby cargo. Consolidate all of the recent loot you've gotten and get ready to do some offloading. Here he has the Titanstring Bow that does additional damage based on the users Strength, perfect for Tav. Brem also may have some Potions of Invisibility as well, so make sure to grab those if they're available. Once you're done here, go ahead and pay our visit to good old Auntie Ethel. Sell anything else that you want and buy another batch of Elixirs of Hill Giant Strength.

Now you can use your Long Rest. Upon arriving a camp a scene will play out between Mizora and Wyll. Following that, talk to whoever you want at camp and go to sleep. Upon sleeping you'll meet Sceleritas Fel, who is apparently our butler that has been faithfully searching for us. Upon waking up you will receive The Deathstalker Mantle cloak which will work great on Karlach. Once per turn if the wearer kills a creature, they'll gain invisibility for two turns. This is perfect for our Monk to weave between enemies when needed.

Day 4

Here are the plans for today. We'll be focusing the swamp to the south and resolving some things at the Emerald Grove.

• Morning Buffs
  • Goblin guards (x2)
  • Red Caps (x4)
  • Wood Woads (x2) and Mephits (x4)
• Short Rest
  • Auntie Ethel
  • Masked victims (x4)
• Short Rest
  • Shadow Druids (x3)

Before leaving camp we're going to turn Gale into a Wizard for the day as there is one very handy spell that is exclusive to them that we will use against Auntie Ethel. Speak to Withers with him and make the following selections.

Arcane Lock and Darkness are the two crucial spells here. Arcane Lock being the reason why we swapped to Wizard for today. Both of these are tier two spells, so you need to make sure to save two of your three tier 2 spell slots for those. We'll use Arcane Lock when confronting Auntie Ethel and we'll be using Darkness to steal the Druid Idol after all the fighting today.

Since we did this you'll need to re-equip your other staff onto Gale. Make your way over to the "Emerald Grove Environs" waypoint for one last batch of Elixers of Hill Giant Strength as today we'll be progressing Auntie Ethel's questline. After buying those, you should have around 19 stocked up which should cover you for the rest of the playthrough. There will be a higher tier of strength elixirs that you'll start to see around Act 2 or 3. Now do your morning routine of Mage Armor, Aid, and Elixir of Hill Giant Strength. Today we'll also use a Soul Coin on Karlach and an additional elixir on Tav. We'll always be using an elixiron Karlach, but using a bonus one one on Tav will be situational and vary day to day. The Soul Coin adds a buff to Karlach that lasts until your next Long Rest. Unfortunately since only a limited amount exist in the game we can't use one every day, so we need to pick and choose when to use them. On top of that you can also cast Longstrider on all your characters with Gale.

Now fast travel to the "Blighted Village" waypoint and it's finally time to go out the southern exit. There may be two lone goblin guards that survived the purge, so quickly take them out. Continue south and eventually you'll come across Auntie Ethel chatting with two gentlemen. It doesn't matter how this conversation ends, so side with whoever. Before progressing further into the swamp, split Tav off from the group and send them back up the hill towards the Blighted Village. We want to have Gale lead us into the swamp and I've noticed an issue where even if you're controlling Gale, the game will still swap back to Tav for a skillcheck. Lead Gale close to a bridge into the swamp and a scene will play. Gale should have an additional [Wizard][Arcana] option that is an easier check than the other one, which is why we're going about it this way. It would be worth burning an Inspiration or two here as it helps with the upcoming fight.

Take control of Tav and bring the group back together. As you journey through the swamp, try to stick through the path as much as possible as there are nasty traps hidden around the place. If you succeeded on seeing through the illusion you'll see some Red Cap enemies up ahead, if not they'll just look like sheep. If you saw through the illusion, kill them now. If not, you can tackle them later. Attempting to attack them as sheep will get your party surprised and you could be in dire straights between the damage output of the melee Red Caps and the Hold Person ability of the Red Cap Sages. In total there are four red cap enemies. The ideal enemy to launch an ambush on would be the melee enemy roaming in front of the hill that is probably the first one that you see. There will be a sage on top of the hill and both a melee/sage behind the hill.

After taking care of those enemies, move your way forward to discover the "Riverside Teahouse" fast travel point. You don't want to continue ahead into the hut, but instead turn back around. Go back to the bridge where that investigation check happened and follow the path south. You'll soon be on a dock that splits to the left and right. To the left is an abandoned camp with some supplies and to the right is a rock formation that you can jump to. From that island jump to another rock and up ahead will be a set of enemies to content with. A word a warning - things can snowball fast here if you aren't careful. There are two tips to make this fight easier. Focus the Ancient Mud Mephits first as they'll spawn other enemies. Both versions will explode on death. If you kill the Ancient Mud Mephit, any other enemies that it spawned will die as well. The Wood Woads will create a terrain of vines and as long as they stand on them they will heal each turn. To prevent that, hit either them or the terrain with a fire ability.

After the battle is over there are two major things we want to get here, both near the large tree stump. In the chest are some fantastic gloves called The Sparkle Hands which are super destructive on a Monk, so give them to Karlach. You can then pass over the Bracers of Defense to Gale. In the stump itself there is a crevice that is hiding damning evidence of Kagha that we will confront her on. Outside of this, there is a buried chest on the plateau in the northwest of this island that you can climb up. Now let's settle things with Auntie Ethel. Teleport back to the "Riverside Teahouse" waypoint and use your first Short Rest. Make your way up the path and enter the house to confront Auntie Ethel. Depending on your choices you can get out of the conversation without starting combat:

• I'm sorry, I should have stepped in.
• That lady doesn't seem to be enjoying her dinner.
• That's none of your concern.
• Leave.

We are going to simplify things drastically. If you already dealt with the redcaps outside, then you're golden. If not, be prepared to them coming to Auntie Ethel's aid. Typically you would fight Ethel in two places, the second of which having multiple clones all firing off ranged poison attacks. Fortunately with Arcane Lock, we can skip that second fight. The wall behind her fireplace is actually fake and behind it is the entrance to her lair. Have Gale go back there and use Arcane Lock on the stairway to the next area. Then have Tav/Karlach/Shadowheart go attack Ethel. When she tries to escape, she'll be unable to. Here's a video showing the strategy:

Once she's dead, loot her and her cabin. When you're ready, let's take a stroll through her now very safe lair. You'll soon get into a room with several NPCs that have various inflictions that Ethel inflicted.

On the table here will be a set of four Whispering Masks, GRAB THESE AND MAKE SURE NOT TO LOSE THEM. We'll need these to enter a place called the Underdark. While there are other ways to get there, these grant access to the least problematic route. Technically you only need one, but stash these on a character you won't accidentally sell them from.

In the next room with another group of NPCs, some of which are patrolling around. With Ethel being dead, they'll not become hostile on sight. That said, kill them for a little extra loot and experience. Ahead there will be a waterfall that you can jump through to follow the path. Up here will be a bunch of roots to traverse that are littered with traps and poison gas. With Ethel being dead though, all the poison gas is gone, rendering the entire trap segment useless!

Once you get in the next room you can free the hostage Ethel took by interacting with the yellow orb near the cage. Loot the final room and make your way outside with the portal in the back of the room. This will take you to behind the cabin that we initially confronted her at. If you freed Mayrina, she'll be here next to a coffin. You can either give her the the wand to resurrect her "husband" or not, entirely up to you. Now it's time to pay the druids a little visit now where we'll cause a bit of a ruckus. Before we kick things off though, go ahead and use a Short Rest here. Make your way back to the "Emerald Grove Environs" waypoint and down to the inner sanctum area where you first met Kagha. Our goal here is to confront her, convince her to fight on our side, and make sure she dies in the fight. The recommended dialogue choices are:

• I know the truth. You mean to take the grove for the Shadow Druids.
• Take this letter, Rath. It will explain everything.
• [Persuasion] The shadows won't save you - they'll corrupt you. Stop this, while you can.
• [Persuasion] You know I'm right. Don't let the shadows corrupt you.

If successful then we'll only be fighting three enemy druids that aren't too dangerous, especially with our allies. Our primary goal is to kill Kagha and to loot her during combat. For whatever reason, this won't piss off any of the other druids. If you're able to pull that off you'll obtain the Broodmother's Revenge which works well on Tav. After looting the enemy druid bodies, make your way outside to steal the Druid Idol. We'll want to go about this in a specific way. Turn on Turn-Based mode, cast Darkness near the Idol location, have Karlach steal the ideal, and just stroll on out. Here's a clip showcasing how this works:

Some of the druids may go running up, but there will be no negative consequences. If you had stolen the idol before exposing/killing Kagha all of the druids would turn hostile towards the Tieflings, which would not be ideal for us. Going about it this way though, we can have our cake and eat it too. Bring this idol back to Mol and she'll reward us with the Ring of Protection which is really strong ring that we can give to Tav. One last thing for us to do here is to report back in to Zevlor about Kagha's fate. Following the conversation you'll be rewarded Hellrider's Pride, which are good gloves to give Shadowheart.

That's a wrap for today, so go ahead and use your Long Rest. I recommend spending another 100g to turn Gale back into a Sorcerer. While the Wizard has more utility, the firepower from Sorcerer, as well as being able to double cast Haste will be very helpful for later boss fights. To help here's the breakdown for the options to pick:

Day 5

Here are the plans for today. We'll be focusing entirely on the Goblin Camp.

• Morning Buffs
  • Goblin Camp exterior
    • Goblins (x20)
    • Bugbears (x3)
    • Ogre (x1)
• Short Rest
  • Goblins outside jail (x3)
  • Goblin jail
    • Goblins (x6)
    • Wargs (x2)
  • True Soul Gut
  • Minthara and guards (x3)
• Short Rest
  • Dror Raglin and guards (x7)

When you're good to start the day, go ahead and travel to the "Blighted Village" waypoint. Once you're there do your morning routine of Mage Armor on Gale, Aid, and Elixir of Hill Giant Strength on Karlach. Today we'll also use a Soul Coin on Karlach and an additional Elixir on Tav. Make your way west and you'll soon run into Sazza who will escort you past the initial gate. At this point she'll head inside, but before we join her there we have some things to do. As you enter the main camp there will be a goblin vendor immediately to the right named Grat the Trader. Consolidate anything you'd want to sell and buy both the Returning Pike and the Boots of Aid and Comfort. Give the boots to Shadowheart and the weapon to Karlach. This weapon has a unique function that it returns to the owner when thrown, which will work very well with Karlach as her ranged weapon. So you won't actually equip this on Karlach, but she'll keep it in her inventory and use the "Throw" action. Another reason this works so well is unlike equipping a weapon, unequipping a weapon in combat doesn't consume an action point. Also as a tip - don't immediately end Karlach's turn after throwing it as you could bug out the return effect and your weapon will be left wherever it was thrown.

Towards the center you'll see Volo being held prisoner by the goblins. As we're about to create a warzone out here, let's send him inside. You can do that with the following dialogue after interacting with him:

• Boo! Get off the stage!

Off to the left of the the entrance (across from the vendor) you'll see a group of goblins with a familiar owlbear cub if you spared it when fighting its parents. Save it if you want, entirely up to you. If you want to, here's how to do it if you use a Potion of Animal Speaking on Tav.

• Speak to Krolla:
  • I can handle myself just fine.
  • Chicken-chasing? What?
  • This is cruel. I won't be a part of it.

• Speak to Owlbear Cub:
  • I have a camp. You're welcome there.

• Speak to Krolla:
  • [Illithid][Wisdom] I don't care what you think. I'm not asking.

Make your way deeper into the camp until you see a bonfire cooking a bunch of meat. Venture to the left where the "chicken-chaser" course is and you should see some vines on a wall that you can climb up. Go up the stairs and you'll stumble upon two sleeping enemies next to a Firewine Barrel. Since they're sleeping you should be able to one-shot them both with Tav. Move further along and you'll see a trio of enemies - one Goblin and two Bugbears. You should pick off the goblin first and then attack one of the bugbears. You may not one-shot a bugbear and will get put into combat, but that is okay. Due to their location, you'll only have to deal with this group and not the entire camp.

After clearing this upper area of enemies, it's time to pick a fight with the entire outer camp. This may seem daunting, especially if you're on Honor mode, but we have a trick up our sleeve - Lump's War Horn. This will summon those three Ogres from before to fight alongside us. You can attack one of the goblins down below and then use the item to summon the ogres. This will cause the goblins to funnel to the upper area where either the ogres will smack them upside the head or you can reign down attacks from above. Make sure to move characters away from ledges before you end their turn, otherwise they'll get pummeled themselves. Here is a video showing this setup:

There will be a group of goblins on a stage to the eastern side of the compound. If you started attacking from the same location I did in the video, they should be within eyesight. I recommend attacking one of them as for some reason they won't join the rest of the camp if not provoked. Once all the fighting is over, Lump will confront you saying that wasn't enough to satiate him. If you successfully persuaded him without offering money during the first conversation, then you can choose this line to get the trio available for another fight:

• If you help me in another battle, I'll pay (500).

If you had to offer 500g when you first met the ogres, then you'll have to offer 1,000g this time around. Now there is a lot of looting to do here! There are two notable corpses to loot - Grat the Trader and Crusher. Since Grat is a vendor, there is some randomness in what wares they drop upon death, which is why we made sure to buy the two specific items that we absolutely wanted. For me Grat dropped the Hide Armor +2, which I gave to Shadowheart. If that didn't drop for you, that's not a big deal, just a minor upgrade. Once you find Crusher's corpse you'll get Crusher's Ring which pairs well with Karlach to give her some extra mobility. As you loot this area of the camp, make sure to pick up all the Firewine Barrels. There's also a decent amount of food in the central area if you want to stock up some more.

Once you're all sorted, make your way through the large wooden doors to go further into the camp. Now would be a good time to use your first Short Rest. Speak to Sazza to get past the guards and once you're in the lobby area, make your way to the right where you'll see two goblins torturing a human. We can try to save him with the [Performance] option, but if it fails just leave the conversation and leave him to the goblins. Right next door to this location you'll find a group of goblins watching a rather peculiar man named Abdirak. If you undergo a sequence with him where he lashes you three times you'll get a permanent buff called Loviatar's Love that gives a +2 bonus to Attack Rolls and Wisdom Saving Throws for 3 turns when you have 30% HP or less. To start things off, talk to Abdirak:

• You mean the one they are torturing?
• I often feel I like raw pain too much. It scares me.
• Clever man. How did you know?
• And how would you do that?
• All right, why not?

He'll then ask you to face the wall where you'll take three damaging hits. In total I took 15 damage, but I'm not sure how much variance there can be. Since you should be at full health, you should be fine no matter what:

• [Intimidation] Come on. A child can hit harder than that.
• [Intimidation] You look tired. Should I take over?
• [Intimidation] Hit me as hard as you can - or I'll return the favor.
• Thank you. I enjoyed myself.

With your buff in hand, feel free to use a Potion of Healing or two to top yourself up. Definitely not worth expending a spell slot over this. Right next to this room is another where Volo is being held. Speak to Gribbo here to set our friend free:

• So I see. Do you have any plans for this pigeon?
• I was admiring him. I would like one of my own.
• [Intimidation] I'm done talking. Open the cage or you'll be sorry.

To the north of this room you should see a wooden path. Follow it to find a group of three goblins that are guarding the prison room. Head inside the prison with your full party. Here is where Halsin is being kept prisoner and we'll want to split Karlach away from the rest of the group. After going down the initial stairs into the room you should see two sets of stairs. Put Karlach at the top of the right stairs that are leading down. Have the rest of the group go down to the cells to trigger a cutscene.

• What the hells are you doing?
• Leave him alone!
• Attack the goblins.

There are two goblin kids named "One" and "Three" that will try to escape. If they're successful, they'll alert the entire camp. They'll use both Dash and Disengage to try to run past you, which is why we left Karlach up the stairs to quickly take care of them without issue. Aside from the goblins, there are a couple of Wargs in the other cell that one of the goblins will try to let out. If you can cut them off, then you can make short work of the wargs while they're trapped in the cell. After the fight is over Halsin will speak with you. The only choice that matters is making sure he stays here in the jail area. Do a quick loot pass and make sure to grab the three Firewine Barrels in the area. One is in the middle of the lower area and the two others are in two separate side rooms. Make your way down to the central area we walked past before to meet True Soul Gut at the top of the altar. She is one of the three goblin leaders that we need to dispose of, but we won't actually fight her as we can get rid of her by making specific choices. The first conversation will go as follows:

• Why should I let you brand me?
• Hold out your hand.
• Push deeper into her mind.
• Any help would be appreciated. I need a healer.

She'll now escort you to a side room towards the left of this area. She'll want to do this along with you, so split Tav off from the group and go into the room alone.

• Yes. I'm ready.
• Allow her to rummage through your memories.
• Then get it out of me.
• I'm ready.
• I'm not drinking that.
• I'll make you pay for this goblin.
• Set me free. Now.
• Nothing's changed. I'm in control.
• You won't live to see it, trust me.
• Keep quiet.
• Preserve your strength.

Following that last choice a mysterious individual will appear behind Gut and instantly kill her along with her ogre bodyguard before setting you free. Loot Gut's body for a key and Mind Flayer Parasite Specimen. Swap to the rest of your party and go into the room that you were alone with Gut in. In the back there should be a door that leads you to this secluded area, reuniting your party. Loot the area and follow the tunnel leading you east. Eventually you'll reach an open room with four tiles on the ground tied to a puzzle. The goal here is to have all four of the black dots to be on the southern stone disc. The puzzle solution is:

• Spin the south disk three times.
• Spin the west disk once.
• Spin the south disk once.
• Spin the east disk twice.
• Spin the north disk once.
• Spin the west disk three times.

Haste combined with Metamagic: Twinned Spell is a very strong combo from Gale. This would allow you to give additional actions, movement, and AC to two characters of your choice. Always give this to Karlach and then either Tav or Gale depending on the fight. I recommend always using this during any boss fight or major fight.

Make your way back to that room where True Soul Gut had you drink that potion. To the southern part of the room there is some wooden scaffolding up above that you can jump up to with Karlach or Tav. Jump up there and down into the adjacent room. In here there is a whopping thirteen explosive barrels that are a mix of Firewine and Smokepower, send all of these to your camp. The chest here has some gold, but there isn't anything else of note. Jump back up to the scaffolding and leave the room. To the south you'll see Roah Moonglow who is a vendor that you can offload any items you want to sell. She may have some potions that you want to grab, like Potion of Invisibility, so stock up on any supplies that you want. There is also a Smokepowder Barrel in the corner near the vendor that you can pick up. Once you're done with the vendor, time to deal with another goblin leader - Minthara.

Make your way down to the central altar and follow the stairs up. Go to the east side and here you'll see a giant wooden door and a path leading to a library area to the right, go into the library. Here Minthara will be across the bridge where Sazza is waiting. We don't really care about Sazza at this point, so you can get ready to attack Minthara with her still present. Take note of the Scrying Eye that patrols around which we need to be very careful of. It could alert neighboring enemies, making things very complicated. A good way to deal with this is get your party across the bridge, wait for the eye to patrol near it, enter Turn-Based mode, and then have Gale fire off a Thunder imbued Chromatic Orb. Thunder damage usually works really well on the Scrying Eyes, so remember that for future use.

You can turn on non-lethal damage if you want to save Minthara as she's a recruitable companion, but you can also just kill her. Choice is entirely yours. The few goblins in this room pose no threat, so all said and done you should be able to clear out this area fairly quickly. Loot Minthara for another Mind Flayer Parasite Specimen. Make sure to open the nearby gilded chest for The Watersparkers boots. Grab these and give them to Gale. Once you're done with this room it's time to take on the last goblin leader. Go ahead and take your second Short Rest here. Make your way back to that large wooden door that we passed and continue going west until you see and open entryway into that room. Here you'll see the last goblin leader Dror Raglin with a group of followers. Also as a warning, after attacking Dror the rest of the goblins in the camp will become hostile. So once you start this fight, make sure not to go back into the main lobby of this fortress (where you first met True Soul Gut) as you could turn Roah the vendor hostile, potentially complicating her return in Act 2.

Go up the stairs to the left of the room and split Gale off. Place him in front of the throne on the upper level. In this fight we'll want to summon our ogre friends again. We'll use them as meat shields for the enemies in this room while also attacking them from behind. May seem cruel, but it's a tough world out there and they'll eventually either turn on us or squeeze us for even more gold. After you do a certain amount of damage they'll go hostile to some of your characters, so my advice is to chip away at them and the goblins from a distance while they hopefully attack each other. The rest of the group can be positioned in the upper level. With Gale you want to use a Magic Missile to attack a drum off to the side and Dror at the same time. If a goblin interacts with the drum it somehow takes the ogres out of combat. Once the fight starts use whatever your first character to summon the ogres. If it helps, here is a video clip showing the setup.

Dror isn't a push over on Honor mode, so don't take him lightly like True Soul Gut or Minthara. I also advise staying away from the floor openings in the lower level as Dror can knock you down into the spider pit, which is definitely not a fun time. Just focus on ranged attacks between the ogres and goblins, picking off who you see fit. Once everyone is dead, get to looting! Dror Raglin should have a Mind Flayer Parasite Specimen along with a key and Lump should have the money you previously paid him along with the Warped Headband of Intellect that you can give to Gale. Make your way up the stairs to open the treasure room with the key you just got. This will have another Infernal Iron along with 500g and some other goodies. This is the last Infernal Iron that we need for to buff Karlach. We won't be able to use it until Act 2 though, so hang on to it.

Even though a quest marker says to return to Halsin you can actually teleport to the "Emerald Grove Environs" waypoint and he'll magically appear at the druid grove. Make your way in the gate and Zevlor should congratulate and reward you. Accept the reward from him and you'll get Wapira's Crown, which is great for Shadowheart. He'll mention a celebration party and ask if you want to start it now, decline so we can talk to some more people. Halsin will be nearby, go ahead and talk to him next. Now make your way down to the inner sanctum where we fought Kagha and the shadow druids. In here talk to Kath and he'll mention giving you a reward and give you a Rune of the Wolf. Go to the back of the area to the secret room Nettie opened up when you talked to her. Here you'll see a statue surrounded by four pedestals, three of which have a rune in. Place the rune you just received in the open pedestal and interact with each one, opening up a staircase. There's some miscellaneous supplies and a rare item down here that you can sell for some extra gold. Don't Long Rest yet, but just go to camp. Since we saved Volo, here's here and we can talk to him to trigger a setup for another permanent buff.

• What do you know about mind flayers?
• And there parasites? Do you know anything about them?
• A mind flayer placed one of their larvae in my brain.
• Ceremorphosis? Tell me more.
• If only your disbelief could alter facts.
• Examine me. Find out for yourself.
• I want rid of this thing by any means necessary.

Day 6

Today we'll be diving down into the Underdark.

• Morning Buffs
  • BOOOAL
  • Village of Kua-toa (x9)
• Short Rest
  • Bulette
  • Injured Minotaur
  • Drow (x1) and Hook Horrors (x4)
• Short Rest
  • Group of Duergar (x4)
  • Sovereign Glut

As soon as the day starts Halsin will debrief the group on how to get to the Moonrise Tower. He'll mention two different paths and we'll be exploring both of them for the sake of experience and loot. Speak to Volo to get a permanent "See Invisibility" buff that helps in uncovering any enemies that are invisible within a certain distance of you. The only downside is it costs your character an eye, but this is purely cosmetic and Volo gives you a fake one. If you want to get this buff speak to Volo and make these choices:

• Has your research turned up anything that might help with this parasite problem?
• How many times have you done this before?
• Do it.
• Endure the discomfort. Let him carry on.
• Clench your fists.
• Hold as still as possible.
• Eye the implement, but allow him to proceed.
• Hold your breath.
• [Any pain sound]
• All is well. I think.

Grab one of the Whispering Masks that you picked up earlier and teleport to the "Riverside Teahouse" waypoint. Once there, go ahead and do your morning buff routine of Mage Armor on Gale, Aid (tier 3), and Elixir of Hill Giant Strength on Karlach. As we unlocked higher tier spell slots I would recommend always using the highest one when you cast Aid at the start of each day. The higher the tier, the more max hp it grants for the day. For example if you use a tier 3 slot you'll get 10 extra hp instead of 5. Go inside Auntie Ethel's lair and get to the point where you had to traverse down a bunch of trapped vines. Off to the side here is a secret passageway only accessible if one is wearing a Whispering Mask. Go down the ladder and follow the vines north to see a ledge you can jump up to. Put the mask on Tav and stand near the wall, revealing it to be an illusion. Have everyone else jump up (Gale and Shadowheart may take a bit to find the right angle). Inside you'll find a portal you can interact with. If you need help finding this location, you can watch this video.

After being teleported to the Underdark there is a path ahead into a rock wall (another illusion) with a portal on the other side. Around your area will be some orange mushrooms named Torchstalks. Like with other mushrooms in this region, they trigger by being close to them and will explode. Use ranged attacks remove all of them. To the west you'll see a set of stairs. Stop once you get to the top as there are two defense turrets that will obliterate you if they see you. Separate Karlach from the group, use an Invisibility Potion, and get ready to run past them. The goal is to get to the back of the area and jump down some mushrooms to get behind the nearby tower. Here is a video clip showing you pathing:

Once you get to the bottom, pick up a Sussur Bloom by the glowing tree. Break down the door into the tower and inside you'll find a generator you can interact with. Put in the Sussur Bloom and that will not only power the elevator up, but turn off the turrets outside. Make your way up the stairs and ascend up the elevator to the next floor. On a shelf towards the western edge of this room is a Threadbare Book, make sure to read it. Around this floor are also Tongues of Madness and Timmask Spores, both of which you should pick up for a future quest. After getting those three items use the elevator to go up another floor. Use the lever near the eastern door to unlock it, allowing you to bring the rest of the party up to the tower to regroup. Now go outside the northern door of this floor to find a "Mundane Chest". This is actually an enchanted chest that obscures items within it to make them seem useless, but there are actually valuable items such as scrolls inside, so don't miss out on those. Use the elevator to up yet another floor. In the southeastern corner is a book called the The Roads to Darkness, make sure to read that as well. Loot whatever else you want and make your way up to the top floor. Here you will meet Bernard who we'll have a lovely chat with due to the two books we read on our way up here:

• 'Or art thou friend. a rescue from my lonely wake?'
• 'How can I trust? How will I ever know? / How can I show myself, my darkest me?'

The first line makes Bernard friendly and the second grants us the Guiding Light ring. Go ahead and give that to Gale. After you equip it a new button labeled Basem*nt will appear in the elevator. Go down here for some extra loot to pad your coffers. There is a gilded chest that holds The Sparkswall ring which works great on Gale as it makes him immune to being electrocuted. Make your way outside and back to the area with the orange mushrooms that you were at previously. Now in the northeast corner of the cavern area will be an orange mushroom off on a ledge. Attack it and jump across the gap to access a Cragged Rock leading into a hole below. Here is a video clip to help you locate the area:

Down below you'll come across a peculiar sight. A red cap going under the name BOOOAL has convinced a group of Lua-Toa that they are a god. By making some specific dialogue choices you can turn this group fight into a 1v4 fight against the red cap alone:

• You can give it a rest. Your 'god' isn't real.
• [Persuasion] He's a fabrication. Whatever you created him for, you don't need him.
• I'll just kill you and claim it for myself.

Ideally you'd fight the red cap along, but if you're unable to just focus your attacks in him first and whittle down the worshippers. If you do fight the red cap alone, split up your group and ambush the lua-toa for some extra experience and loot. After all the fighting is done here you can use your first Short Rest. Make your way back up and jump across the gap. You should be right next to a Cragged Rock leading further up. Go up here, but get ready to be ambushed by a mini-boss known as a Bulette. It will tunnel underneath your party and enter combat with you. There will be a vibrating dirt mound that the creature will jump out of. Move a bit away from it to prevent taking unnecessary damage. If you don't kill this fast enough it will run away, but by using the Twinned Haste combo here on Karlach and Tav, you should be able to kill it without issue. Cut through the webbing down the path and you'll see a ledge off in the distance where some orange capped mushrooms are (these are safe).

You should have a few Scrolls of Feather Fall from all your general looting so use one (or other means to traverse the distance) to make it across the gap safely. Follow the path up and to the northeast until you see a field of Torchstalks and Timmask mushrooms. Attack them all from a distance until the field is clear. To the north you'll meet a colony of sentient mushrooms that will be the town of this area. Go inside until you discover the "Underdark - Myconid Colony" waypoint. Immediately leave and head south, jumping across a gap. At the top of the path is a long Timmask mushroom you can deal with from a distance. At the top, turn around to find a ridge that bridges over the path you were just on. Here is a sword you can pull out of the stone for some extra vendor material by making these choices:

• [Paladin][Religion] Consider what the appropriate ritual might be.
• Shed a few drops of blood onto the stone.

From here go east and you'll see some wooden spikes with a wounded Minotaur behind them. Charge at the Minotaur and attack it before it gets itself killed by some defense towers. Near the wooded barricades should be an Oil Barrel for you to pick up. From where you killed the Minotaur there is a Selunite Outpost to the south that has the aforementioned armed defenses. To circumvent these, take control of Karlach and split her up from the party. Get close to the initial stairs of the bridge, turn on Turn-Based mode and use the Dash ability. Quickly run across the bridge and jump down to the ledge on your right. Walk around the ledge, deal with the mushroom, and on your left you'll see an open window granting you access.

The statue in the middle is powering the outside defense and you can turn that off by attacking the crystal on top of it. Interact with the lever near the front gate to open it and regroup with the party. There is a side room down here that has a teleport waypoint, so make sure you have that discovered. In this bottom area are four Oil Barrels to pick up. Towards the front of the outpost there are two staircases that lead up above the gate. Up each of these stairs are another barrel on each side. Go up the stairs in the back and immediately to the right is another barrel. To the left is a door you can picklock open, but since it has a DC of 20 you can just swap to Karlach and use unarmed strikes to break it open. Here will be another barrel and a chest you can picklock open. In the chest is the Helmet of Smiting which is great for Tav. Right next to this you should uncover a fake wall that opens to another room. Inside here is another barrel and a trapped chest. Make sure to pick up the barrel before attempting to disarm the trapped chest. Disarm and picklock the chest to get the Luminous Armor which is perfect for Shadowheart. With that you can teleport back to the town with the "Underdark - Myconid Colony" waypoint.

Follow the red/orange mushrooms as they lead to an upper platform. Here you'll meet the leader - Sovereign Spaw. Speak with Spaw and agree to deal with the Duergars that have been attacking them. Near the mushroom stairs leading back down there is an injured gnome called Thulla that you can give an Andidote to if you have one. Down the stairs and to the left you'll see an alcove with an hobgoblin named Blurg. Chat with him and choose the following to set up a quest that rewards another character buff:

• I've never heard of the Society of Brilliance.
• A mindflayer infected me with a tadpole.
• Explain the whole story.
• Yes. Absolutely.
• Relax and let Omeluum's mind search your own.
• Can you extract the tadpole?
• That doesn't sound ideal.
• Tell Omeluum about the strange mind flayer ship that you were on.
• Thanks for the information.
• Bypass? What kind of alchemy are we talking about?
• I think I already found what you're looking for.
• Drink the potion.
• [Saving Throw] Draw on your willpower and resist.
• [Saving Throw] Drown out the tadpole by focusing on a tune.
  • If you fail either Saving Throws, don't worry.
• You were supposed to make it weaker, not stronger.
• So I went through all this and the tadpole's still lodged in my brain?
• How about I tell you more about that nautiloid? Every last detail.
• [Performance] Give a dramatic retelling of your time on the mind flayer ship.

This will net you the very good Survival Instinct ability on Tav. Before leaving this alcove, speak to Omeluum as they now have wares you can browse. Get the very affordable Ring of Salving to give to Shadowheart and Boots of Stormy Clamour to give to Gale. Now speak to Blurg as he has wares you can buy as well. We want to buy Melf's First Staff and the Psychic Spark amulet. Give both of these items to Gale as well, replacing Nature's Snare with your new staff. The amulet is very nice if you use Magic Missile often as it adds an extra projectile whenever you cast it. Follow the path west and you'll be approached by a Myconid named Sovereign Glut. Agree to bring it along with you. Nearby you should also see a dwarf named Derryth Bonecloak. Talk to her and agree to help find her husband. Before leaving, check her wares and buy the Caustic Band ring, Amulet of Restoration, and any potions that you want. Give the ring to Tav and amulet to Shadowheart.

To the southwest you should see a pathway leaving the colony, go out that exit and follow the path west. You'll see a few green mushrooms ahead of you, so throw a Firebolt at them from a distance to clear the path. Climb down the vines to find a giant field of them. At this point take control of Karlach and separate her from the group. Approach the mushrooms until you get a cutscene where we find that Derryth's husband got himself trapped in there and he needs his back to escape. The trick is all of these mushrooms are explosive and trigger when you get too close, setting off one will set off the entire field. The goal here is to reach Baelen's pack, throw it to him, grab a Noblestalk mushroom in the far corner, and escape.

To successfully pull this off you want to jump along the ridges to your left until you can cleanly jump to the backpack among the mushrooms. Throw the backpack to Baelen so he can escape. At this point swap to "Turn-Based" mode and use your Step of the Wind: Dash ability. This makes it so you can jump as much as you want with using any Bonus Actions. Jump all the way to the Noblestalk (blue mushroom) and then jump your way back to the party. Here's a video to show the pathing:

Speak to Baelen once more to send him back to his wife. Make your way back up the vines and take the other path available leading you further southwest. In this next area are a total of four Hook Horror enemies and a Drow leading them. If you can ambush them successful to take them down one by one you can breeze through them. If not, they'll call the others for assistance. If that happens you can whittle them down pretty quickly if you focus your attacks. If you only see three Hook Horrors there is one more up above you along the tree roots. I recommend killing that one as well so it doesn't ambush you later. After clearing all the Hook Horrors, you're free to use your second Short Rest.

Make your way south until you're at a cliff overlooking a decrepit village. Split off Karlach and leave her up here. We'll take the rest of the group around to fight the enemies here, but Karlach will actually stay up top to reign down spears. With the rest of the group go along the cliff north until you can walk down into the village. Here you'll be able to ambush the group of duergars. Here's a video showing how you can sneak up on them:

To actually trigger the fight, walk down to Lurgan and trigger a cutscene. Now swap to Karlach and you should be able to see the leader Gekh Coal. He has a habit of reanimating all the nearby corpses and using invisibility to escape. To prevent that, have Karlach focus him with spear throws first. If that's not enough, Gale could send off a Magic Missile volley from around the corner. The enemies can approach both from the path to the left of the main group and through the building to the right, so be careful to make sure you don't position yourself into a bad spot. With Karlach throwing two spears a turn you should be able to make quick work of the enemies. Do a loot pass of the village and make sure to grab the "Underdark - Beach" waypoint at the bottom. You can swap to Karlach and teleport her down, sparing you having to run her all the way around. Speak to Glut and he'll want you to betray Spaw and make him the new Sovereign. Go ahead and just to kill Glut while you're down here for some easy experience. Take note of the ship you can interact with at the docks, but don't do that yet as it takes us to another area.

Next up, head back to Soverign Spaw. Report in that the duergar have been slain and you'll next be tasked with killing their ringleader - Nere. Agree to kill Nere and make your way west to the dwarf trader we met before. Speak to her to get your reward for bringing her husband back. Speak to her once more and make these dialogue choices:

• This is dangerous territory. You must be down here for a reason.
• Show her the noblestalk.
• Give it to her.

Day 7

Here are the plans for today. We'll be venturing down into the Grymforge.

• Morning Buffs
  • Mimics (x3)
  • Nere and duergar encampment
    • x21 in total but split across multiple fights
• Short Rest
  • Animated Armors (x4)
  • Magma Mephits (x9)
• Short Rest
  
  • Grym
    • Will be using a one-shot strat

Similar to what we've done before, you'll want to save a spell slot for our strategy against Grym at the end of the upcoming area. Specifically we want to save a tier two spell slot on Gale to use the Enlarge spell that we'll be unlocking later in the day.

Fast travel to the "Underdark - Beach" waypoint. Do your morning buff routine of Mage Armor, Aid, and Elixir of Hill Giant Strength. We have a big fight ahead of us so use another Soul Coin on Karlach and an additional Elixir on Tav. Head over to the docks and interact with the ship here to sail off into the darkness. During your sail you'll be confronted by a duergar commanding another boat. Talk your way through with the [Intimidation] option. This will bring you to a new area - Grymforge. After the initial landing conversation make your way up some stairs until you reach the "Underdark - Grymforge" waypoint. Instead of going further up, we're going to follow the path east. Follow the pier as it bends north to see two duergar throwing a bunch of gnome bodies into the water. Talk to them and make these choices:

• Grim work. Did you kill them?
• I hope you're checking them for loot first.
• [Perception] Inspect the corpses.
• [Deception] I'll finish up here. You're wanted with the others.

This will not only net you a ring that lets you use Invisibility once per long rest, but it gets those two away from the area. If you're unable to get them to leave, you can just quickly kill them. Picklock the large door near where all the corpses were gathered and go towards the back left of the room. You should uncover a button that opens a hidden passage. At this point separate Karlach form the group and take control of her. Enter "Hide Party" mode and open the door for the next room. Be careful of yellow puddles on the ground, you want to walk around these. This means a slime enemy is lurking on the ceiling above and they're honestly a pain to fight. Just skip them. While sneaking you will be able to walk up the two sets of stairs and along the cliff until you reach a gap. Jump across the gap and make your way up some rubble near a door. At this point you'll want to use an Invisibility potion (or the ring if you got it). The goal is to sneak up next to a gnome inside and steal a Runepowder Barrel next to her. If you approach her normally, she'll likely blow herself up along with it. This is hands down the strongest explosive in the game, so we don't want to let this opportunity pass by.

We'll be expressly saving this barrel for a fight in Act 3, so make sure NOT to use it until then.

After the gnome leaves feel free to loot this room if you want. Teleport Karlach and the party to the "Underdark - Grymforge" waypoint to regroup. From here go up the first flight of stairs going south. Instead of going up the next set of stairs you should be able to turn around and go down a long hallway. Eventually you'll see a group of skeletons near two sets of stairs, go up the left one into a side area. Towards the back of this and down you should see three chests. Those aren't normal chests though, but Mimics. Fortunately from up here we can safely attack them for some easy kills. If they get into the right position they possibly could get a ranged attack off, so at the each of each character's turn just move them away from the ledge. If you'd like help finding the mimics, here's a video clip showing the location:

Kill them from a distance and go back to the skeletons that we used as a landmark. If you have a Potion of Animal Speaking, use it here to help with an upcoming situation. From those skeletons follow the north path to find a group of duergar with some rothe (cattle-like creatures). Speak to them and make these choices to turn the beasts against them:

• You want me to cane those poor beasts?
• Leave it to me. I'll show these deep rothe who's in charge.

Speak to one of the rothe:

• [Persuasion] Give in to your rage and avenge your pain. Don't strike us all, just your masters.

Be very careful of any ledges and stay away from them as all of the duergars have a habit of using knock backs. Once the duergar are dead you can speak to the rothe once more to ask it to unblock the passage for additional experience. Don't bother going down that path though. Go back the way you came and keep your attention to the right. You should see a ledge that is actually a Cragged Rock that you can climb down to those mimics. Loot your spoils and make your back up to the main path. Follow the set of stairs that goes to the northeast and you'll see two duergars talking. Speak to Elder Brithvar and make these choices to turn some of the duergars into allies:

• Don't be absurd. I hate these True Soul cultists.
• A stench? Ridiculous. I'm no more a True Soul than you are.
• [Deception[ I was a True Soul. That cult lied to me - now I want revenge.
• Depends. What do you need done?
• I'm in.
• Leave.

Up ahead you'll see a group of gnomes trying to dig out some rubble. Go to camp and grab a Smokepowder Barrel. Place this barrel near the rubble and get your party into position. Split off Karlach to go up a ladder and space out Tav, Shadowheart, and Gale away from each other and away from ledges down on the floor. I personally spaced them around the large tent. You want to be VERY careful with your positioning here. The enemies will gladly knock you into the lava, so do your best to keep your distance.

Blow up the barrel with a Fire Bolt and a cutscene will soon play out:

• [Paladin] No more innocents will die today, Nere.
• [Paladin] And you waste your time persecuting them. That is true weakness.
• That's your cue, Brithvar. It's time you got paid.
• Side with Brithvar and the rebels.

Your instinct may be to focus on Nere first, but you actually want to target Mind Master Dunnol and Mind Master Fonmara. These two enemies can mind control members of your party, which can cause some serious issues fast. After the two Mind Masters are dead, definitely focus down Nere. Once he's dead, you can start whittling down everyone else (including the allied duergars). Same as before with the ogres, after a certain amount of damage they may turn hostile against the attacker, so use your judgement on who to attack.

Once the fighting is over interact with Nere's body. You will be prompted to cut off his head for Sovereign Spaw. As for the loot, give the Disintergrating Night Walker boots to Karlach and use the Mind Flayer Parasite Specimen on Shadowheart to unlock the "Favorable Beginnings" power. The other loot of note is the Jorgoal's Greatsword from Corsair Greymon. The damage may be slightly less than your current weapon on Tav, but it has a very nice attack option called Colossal Onslaught. It's a linear cleave attack that doesn't have a cap on how many enemies it can attack, unlike other Cleave abilities. If any enemies got knocked into the lava and you want to retrieve their loot, there is a way to manage that, but you have to do things in a specific order:

• Have a character near full health.
• Enter Turn-Based mode.
• Jump into the lava near the body and loot it.
• Turn off Turn Based mode and immediately return to camp.

If you time it right you should only take one tick of lava damage, and when you return you'll be somewhere nearby that isn't in the lava itself. Next speak to Beldron, the gnome that is lingering nearby, and agree to help his captured compatriots that are at Moonrise Tower. Before you progress further, we can pick off a few remaining duergar. Walk back to the dock area to pick off any lingering patrol units. Right next to the boat may be two guards, but there should be at least two up some stairs directly east of the waypoint. Kill them and send the gnome that approaches you back to the others at the dig site where you fought Nere, which you should go back there as well. You'll see a set of planks going over the lava to an apparent dead end to the southeast. Off in the distance is a ledge that is more than likely outside of your jump distance. Fortunately with your new fancy boots on Karlach, you can use the Misty Step ability to teleport over to that ledge.

As soon as you jump over you'll see the Splint Mold (Heavy) on the ground near a body, pick that up for later. Up the stairs and nearby to the right will be the "Underdark - Ancient Forge" waypoint that you want to make sure you grab. Teleport the rest of your group up to this point, but still keep Karlach separate. Now you can finally use your first Short Rest and we're going to use Misty Step once more. Go back down to the ledge that you initially used Misty Step to and further above you is a different ledge that we can use the ability to access. The angling could be hard to communicate over text, so here's a video clip:

Follow the path down and to the north and jump across a gap to rundown hallway. Continue north until you see a Double Iron Door to the right. Picklock the door and enter this side room. Go up two sets of stairs and you'll see a third covered by rubble. At the top of this third set is a skeleton that is holding a Shield Mold, which is our second mold item. Feel free to loot this room, but don't go into the door on the southern part of this room. Inside is a group of enemies that we don't want to fight on our own and it's really not worth the hassle of bringing everyone else up here. Teleport Karlach back to the "Undedark - Ancient Forge" waypoint to rejoin the group. From here to the southwest there is a group of Animated Armors that we'll fight. You can ambush them from a distance and they won't pose much of an issue. Just don't fight near the lava. Near where these enemies were there is a pathway leading down towards the lava. Jump over the flowing lava to reach the glowing Mithril Vein. Attack this and pick up the Mithril Ore that is dropped. Once more go back to the "Undedark - Ancient Forge" waypoint.

This time we'll follow the long narrow staircase leading south. Jump across the gap and to the left you should see another large Mithril Vein. Don't go running towards that just yet as there's a group of Lava Mephits lying in ambush. I would recommend sending in either Tav or Karlach by themselves and having Shadowheart cast Sanctuary on them. Send that person into the ambush while the rest of the party waits on the staircase. Like the Mephits you fought previously, these too explode on death. Once you kill enough a second wave will spawn, but if you kept the rest of your party up on the stairs you should be able to pick them off before the overwhelm you. Once that fight is done, make your way over to break the Mithril Vein to claim your second piece of Mihtril Ore. Further down the staircase is a boss fight, but before you do that we have a few things to do. By now you should be level 6, so let's do some leveling up.

Head back to camp and next we're going to dismiss Shadowheart for the upcoming boss fight. Yes, you read that right. By recruiting a specific Hireling, we can actually one-shot the boss. Go over to Withers and ask to recruit a Hireling. We'll specifically want to get Danton, the Druid. Level him up fully to level 6 and he'll have access to the Owlbear form which is crucial to our plan. Regroup back at the "Underdark - Ancient Forge" and use your second Short Rest to just top everyone's health up. Go down the long set of stairs and jump across the first gap. From here split up your party into two groups, Tav/Karlach and Gale/Danton. Tav/Karlach will jump over to the mechanical platform and Gale/Danton will stay here on the stairs in the same area where you probably attacked the Lava Mephits from, just looking over the southern end. With Tav place a Mithril Ore in the Crucible and the Shield Mold to the Mold Chamber. Go over and interact with the "Forge Lever", causing the platform to sink down.

Split Tav and Karlach up. Move Tav to the east, next to the "Lava Valve". Move Karlach to the opposite area of the platform, to the circle area on the western end. At this point I will describe the fight, but I recommend reading it and then watching the subsequent video to make sure you know the right process here. Have Tav interact with the "Lava Valve" to trigger lava to flood the arena and summon the boss. Have Karlach use her spear throw to attack the boss, causing it to target her. You may have to wait until the second turn for it to start moving. You essentially want to kite it over to the platform Karlach is on. Once the boss is in position, swap to your second group. Turn on Turn-Based mode to give you ample time. Have Gale cast Enlarge on Danton and then have Danton use Wild Shape: Owlbear. He's not done yet though. Use the Crushing Flight ability to essentially body slam the boss from the top turnbuckle WWE style. The key here is you want the outer attack ring to highlight the boss, don't directly hit it with the center circle. The principle here is the fall damage and enlarged status boosts the attack's damage enough to one-shot the boss. As promised, here's a video showing the strategy:

Day 8

Here are the plans for today. We'll be chasing after the Githyanki Creche.

• Morning Buffs
  • Kobolds (x12)
  • Gremishka (x9)
• Short Rest
  • Eagles (x2)
  • Guardian of Faith
  • Ghustil Stornugoss
• Short Rest
  
  • Kith'rak Therezzyn and Githyanki guards (x4)
  • Ch'r'ai W'wargaz, Githyanki guards (x2), and wolves (x2)
  • Lady Esther

Before we do our buffs we're going to bring Lae'zel into the party to help with a conversation. Swap out Karlach for Lae'zel and don't worry about leveling her up, we only need her for one conversation. From camp travel to the "Waukeen's Rest" waypoint. Take the main path in front of the settlement west and soon you'll come across a wooden structure that you can walk under. Here's you'll see an unfortunate group come across a Githyanki patrol. Approach the scene to talk to them yourself and be careful with your choices. One wrong move and you have to deal with this Githyanki group yourself and let me tell you, they pack a punch. With our passive buffs at this point we automatically get a +10 bonus and this route only makes us contend with a DC of 10, so unless you roll a critical failure, you can sail through this conversation.

• Nod to Lae'zel. Go ahead.
• [Persuasion] Mouth a silent command to Lae'zel: 'play along'.

Warp back to camp and swap out Lae'zel for Karlach. After leaving the camp now would be a good time to do your morning buff routine of Mage Armor, Aid (tier 3), and Elixir of Hill Giant Strength (just on Karlach). Loot the bodies left by the Githyanki patrol and make your way west. You'll be prompted to enter the Mountain Pass. The 'loose ends' warning may seem scary, but you can ignore it. Shortly down the path there will be a "Treilka Crags" waypoint to the right of the road that you don't want to miss. Here the path will split, follow the path to the right. To the left is an annoying group of undead that aren't worth fighting. As you follow the path right, further to the right you should see a camp where Lady Esther is hanging out. She's trying to get a Githyanki egg from the nearby Creche, agree to help her out. If you still have that Owlbear Egg you can try to pass it off to her, but don't bother burning an Inspiration point. Gather up whatever loot you want to sell to as Lady Esther doubles as a vendor. She actually has a really good chestpiece and gloves for Karlach that you don't want to miss - The Graceful Cloth and Gloves of Cinder and Sizzle. Buy those and any other supplies you'd like.

From here continue following the path north and you'll see a cable car station. If you pass the Strength check of 15 on the wheel, you can bring the cable car up to you. If you fail on all your characters, you can go to the east and down to jump across a gap leading north. This will lead to the same spot as the cable car, but be careful as knockback traps are littered around this path. Further north you'll get to the monastery and unlock the "Rosymorn Monastery" waypoint. After a cutscene between some Githyanki and captured gnomes, the way forward is locked and you can't picklock it. Look to the left and you'll see a broken window that you can climb through. In this side room a drunk kobold will walk in and collapse. Be careful in this area! The next room is littered with explosive barrels and the Kobolds explode on death when killed with fire. Pickup the Firewine Barrel in this side room and attack the sleeping kobold in front of you. The recommended strategy is to fire off ranged attacks from the doorway and hunker down in this side room. This should wake up and lure all of the kobolds into this room where you can either pick them off as they funnel in or hit them with an area attack. In the larger room there are a total of 7 Firewine Barrels to pick up and send to camp. Today is the day we finally use some of our barrels, so the more the merrier! Make sure to loot all of the kobolds as one of them drops the Ceremonial Mace which is an item we need for a puzzle in this area.

In the back of the room is a hole in the wall you can walk through. Jump across to a ledge and traverse you way up to where you can jump onto a courtyard type area. Ahead there are some wooden boards that you can use a basic attack to break through. Walk forward and there will be a door to your right. Open it and stay outside for now. Inside are a nest of gremishka which are a rodent type enemy that can transform into other creatures if you don't kill them fast enough. They only have 20hp each though, so you should be able to tear through them fast enough by luring them outside. Inside this room is some loot along with another Firewine Barrel. You can use your first Short Rest of the day here.

Go back out to the hallway and venture east. You'll see the path split north and east. North will be a puzzle that we'll need two more items for, so jump across the gap to the east. Around the corner you'll see vines you can climb up to the rooftop section. At the top you'll find an the bird nest with two eagles. One character will get put into a conversation with one eagle. Swap to another character to get into a conversation with the other. Then with a third party member, attack one of the eagles. The eagles can knock you off the ledge, so be mindful of your positioning. Also they can summon reinforcements, so I recommend killing them quick. In the nest you'll find another item that we need for a puzzle, the Ceremonial Warhammer.

Climb back down the vines and go through the door to the south east. Immediately to the north will be a crumbling wall that Karlach can punch down. Inside this room will be a Guardian of Faith. Fortunately we can cheese this fight a bit by firing range attacks through the broken wall. As long as you use ranged attacks from outside the room, the enemy actually won't attack at all. Inside you'll find the last puzzle item, the Ceremonial Battleaxe. Make your way back to where the path split and enter the room to the north. Here are four pedestals and one of which has the Ceremonial Longsword on. We want to place the three other ceremonial weapons that we picked up on the open pedestals. To properly solve the puzzle you want the following items placed on the pedestals:

• Northwest: Ceremonial Longsword (already placed)
• Northeast: Ceremonial Warhammer
• Southeast: Ceremonial Mace
• Southwest: Ceremonial Battleaxe
  
  

Solving this opens a grate in the northern end of the room where you can loot a note that'll update your journal and the Dawnmaster's Crest which we will need to get an upcoming Legendary weapon. Make your way back to where you broke down the wall to fight the Guardian of Faith and follow the nearby broken stairs down to go further below. At the end of this room and to the left there will be a barricade that you can break your way through. There is a nearby door that leads you to a long hallway. Once you go through this door, directly ahead in the corner will be a Grease Bottle. Pick this up for a backup plan later in the area. Loot your way through the hallway and take the door at the other end that leads further down. This will lead you to the Monastery basem*nt where the Githyanki have built an encampment.

• I'm on your side! Captain Voss sent me to find an item for you.
• Produce the artifact as evidence.

Shadowheart won't be a fan of this route, but it removes having to pass any DC 18 roll that could turn sour fast. Walk forward to see the path split in three different ways. First we'll go to the west and take the left path. This will lead into a dormitory area with another room in the back with an infirmary in the back. Go into the infirmary where you'll see Ghustil Stornugoss working in the corner. Make sure the door behind you is closed as we're going to fight her and we don't want to piss off the Creche (yet). I was able to one-shot her with Karlach using Flurry of Blows: Topple, so you should be able to make short work of her. Loot the area, especially the three Mind Flayer Parasite Specimen scattered around the room and the Nautiloid Tank. Take this time to unlock the "Luck of the Far Realms" perk for Shadowheart and both the "Transfuse Health" / "Shield of Thralls" perks for Tav. You can go ahead and use your second Short Rest while you're here.

Go back to the hallway and take the other path to the west. This will take you to the githyanki hatchery where we can get a egg to hand over soon. Split Tav off from the group and jump up to the cliff, but be careful as knock-back bombs are hidden up here. Make your way over to the scientist overlooking the area, Varsh Ko'kuu. Making these choices will net you access to the lone githyanki egg:

• I wanted to see the hatchery. I didn't expect it to look so empty.
• What will happen to this egg if it doesn't hatch?
• [Persuasion]Why risk the situation at all? Give it to me - I'll take care of it.
• I'll raise it as if it's my own flesh and blood.

If you failed getting this, we still have our backup Owlbear Egg. If you did succeed, Varsh will give you some boots that make you immune to acid surfaces. Put those on, jump down, collect the egg, and make your way back to the group. Once you're back to safety, swap your boots back. Now go east until you find a waypoint portal and through the doorway to the south you'll see a path leading to a group of githyanki in a rocky area. One of which is a vendor, A'jak'nir Jeera. The vendor has two very good items that we want to buy, the Knife of the Undermountain King and Gloves of Dexterity.

Since you're on Honor mode, this will cost you a nice chunk of money. Some might be of the mindset of killing the vendor for the items, but the loot that vendors drop on death is randomized. This is why I personally don't bother with that tactic. With those two items and arrows bought, give the gloves to Tav and the knife to Gale as his offhand (with the Spellsparkler being the main hand.) After the next segment this vendor will become hostile, so this is your only opportunity to buy anything from her.

Now's the time to finally start using some of our explosive barrels! We'll be venturing into an area that blocks access to our camp, so we're going to load up a bunch on one character. While this will make them walk slowly for a bit, this is a worthwhile tradeoff. Go to Camp and grab all your Oil Barrels and Nautiloid Tanks. The other barrel types we'll use in Act 2/3. For context I had 15 Oil Barels and 6 Nautiloid Tanks, which were split up into two sections. If you need to substitute in other barrels to meet that number, please do. Also, two last things to make sure you have - the Dawnmaster's Crest that you picked up back in the Monastery and something that applies the Grease effect, like the Grease Bottle we picked up earlier.

With that all taken care of, walk into the next room for a cutscene. After which approach Kith'rak Therezzyn and make the following choices:

• I was granted entry by your sentries. They told me to seek the Inquisitor.
• I have important information.
• I have what you're looking for.
• Produce the artefact.

Follow her to gain entry passed the energy gate. In this hallway, right before the bridge we'll set our first trap. Here is a screenshot showing where I placed the barrels and which I used. You essentially want to spread out seven explosive tanks evenly in the little area where two sets of stairs converge, but before the last set of steps leading directly to the bridge.

Across the bridge we'll enter the room with a boss fight. Fortunately the fight doesn't start until we talk to Ch'r'ai W'wargaz in the center of the room. Here we'll place all the remaining barrels that we brought. We definitely want to immediately kill off the boss, but we should try to pick off a few other enemies to make things easier. I would recommend the Fighters up near the entrance to the beginning. Place six barrels directly around the boss with a trail of them leading up the stairs to the Fighters. Here is a video showcasing the barrel and party placement:

Don't bother talking to the boss, just fire off a Fire Bolt to a barrel and you should be able to mop up the remaining enemies. Once the fight is over, you'll be graced by a projection of Vlaakith, grand leader of the Githyanki. You actually want to be careful here as the wrong dialogue choice results in a game over. Pretty much you want to be respectful and not insult her:

• Kneel.
• I didn't steal it, it just... found me.
• I will do as you wish.

Before we do anything, let's handle going to the astral plane. While we could skip entering, doing so will get us some extra loot/experience and not risk royally pissing off Lae'zel. Interact with the planecaster in the middle of the room and accept the prompt to go. Jump down to the area below and loot the area before entering the swirling purple cave. While Vlaakith tasked us with killing the Dream Visitor, we can't actually do that, so make whatever choices you want.

Once you're done go through the new portal outside to return back to our original plane. Do a looting pass through this room and the side rooms to the left and right. The notable loot here are the Diadem of Arcane Synergy found on Ardent Jhe'rezath and the Necklace of Elemental Augmentation in a Display Case found in the eastern side room. Give both of these items to Gale. Go to the western side room and you'll see two statues. You need to rotate both of them three times, but the left one requires passing an Athletics check. This is where your grease item comes in. If that statue gets jammed, use the grease on it and you'll be able to rotate it freely. Once both statues have been rotated, a hidden passageway behind two barrels against a wall. Move the barrels and make your way through. Upon entering the next area you'll see an "Energy Source" near the energy barrier. Destroy it to progress.

At this point split off Karlach from the group and take control of her. Enter Turn-Based mode and go into the next section. Here you'll see a trap you can disarm. Failure to do so leaves a strong chance of getting Karlach killed. To try to prevent that, keep along the wall as best as possible. After disarming that, climb up a nearby ledge and loop around to find another "Energy Source" in the tunnel. As soon as you drop down the ledge there will be another trap to your left. Do the same thing you did before to safely disarm it. There is one last "Energy Source" to destroy. From here there should be a ledge to the south where it can be found down below. Go into the final chamber and approach the center pedestal. Insert the Dawnmaster's Crest to safely retrieve The Blood of Lathander, which is a perfect Legendary weapon for Shadowheart that she'll actually use for the rest of the game.

Make your way back to the boss room and then the bridge we crossed over. Here Kith'rak Therezzyn will set up an ambush with some wolves and githyanki. Using another Fire Bolt to set off the explosives should nearly kill off everyone one. Gale's Metamagic: Distant Spell will allow you to easily hit a barrel outside of the enemy detection range. Loot the room she was originally in and once you make it back to the waypoint portal this would be a good point to leave the creche. Travel back to the. "Treilka Crags" waypoint and head to Lady Esther's camp. Double check you bought everything you want from her and attack her. We're mostly doing this so you don't walk into a bad situation in Act 3 (save the Githyanki Egg for Act 3 for some extra gold). Or you can give her the egg and kill her to take it back, your choice really.

With that, we are essentially done for the day. Teleport to the "Blighted Village" waypoint to trigger an event that will automatically use your Long Rest. It actually doesn't matter what waypoint we travel to, as long as it's outside the Mountain Pass region. Instead of appearing where you wanted to teleport, you will automatically appear at camp. This is exactly what we wanted. At camp go speak to Lae'zel:

• Tell Lae'zel what happened in the artefact. Vlaakith's mission was unteanable.
• I don't trust it, Lae'zel. On this, we see eye to eye.
  
• Leave.

Upon sleeping you'll get a cutscene of Kithrak Voss approaching your bed. After hearing about what happened at the Creche, he has come to offer an alliance, which we'll want to go along with:

• Go on then. Speak.
• What are you asking of us, Voss?
• Vlaakith's led you astray. I believe him, and so should you.

Following that you can interact with your bed once more to end the day. One Act down, two to go!

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