You start off in the barracks, and you learn about what is going on. You can gather information from Aribeth and a new face, Aarin Gend (Lord Nasher's spymaster). You also get to pick a henchman again. I suggest picking the same henchman as last time if you completed their quest, because to get the henchman quest in here they have to trust you and know you, not just level up...and the only way to get them to trust you is to complete the first quest.
Talk to the mayor to get a quest if you want and cross over to the Alliance Arms Inn to learn about the werewolves and get your gem quest, check around town for items and such. The magic store will give you a book quest, while a ranger nearby will give you a quest for the woods.
Once you leave the barracks, a young man will run up to you telling that he needs help, and to see his father. You can persuade the captain in the dock house to send relief packages for some experience and gold, but it is not a quest.
Once you feel you've searched everywhere and gotten all the quests (check quests below for list) then head up north to the caves. It doesn't matter which one you go in, but I suggest the top most one, so you can just make your way down.
The caves are pretty straight forward, and there are a few bosses, but nothing to worry about once you get them alone (though the bugbear chieftain can be a pain). This is a great place to get some nice loot and experience, and remember to look everywhere because there are a few prisoners that will tell you some information, as well as the farmer's wife, who you need to release to complete a quest.
Once you get to the very bottom you will come to your first real boss of this chapter (the human, not the ogre mage), again nothing really to worry about. Read his journal which will tell you more about the plans of the clan, and report back to your leaders.
What you do next is actually hard to determine, in terms of difficulty. If you choose to go to Neverwinter woods there will be more battles, more quests, and thereby more experience, but there is a quest there that you might not be able to complete for awhile.
On the other hand if you choose Charwood there aren't lot of battles until you get to the actual castle...and when you get there the battles are quite hard. I suggest you go to the Neverwinter Wood first, which is what I did, but it is up to you.
Neverwinter WoodStart out by going out on the east road, and follow it into an archaeologist camp site. Talk to the people there to find out what happened, and get three quests. (An escaped criminal is in this part if you accepted the quest from Port Llast's mayor) Now I highly recommend you go into the troll and ogre caves, if not to complete the quests, then because of the fact that you will acquire a great amount of experience, gold and magic items.
The first golem you run into in the ancient's ruins requires a ring, you can find it in a chest on that floor. On the next floor the password is found in a chest just like the ring was (thanks to adam "mousemaster" walter.) or you can fight him or steal the key... so head down further and the third will attack you. continue on to find the book that you need for the last quest involving these caves.
Whatever you choose you can now you can now go into the Neverwinter Wood. Talk to the druids and learn about what is going on. You can get a quest here from the armored woman off by herself, but it is only for druids. Accept your quests so that you get permission to enter the forest and then you can advanced. (One of the escaped criminals is in this druid camp, if you took the Port Llast mayor's quest.)
Enter the cave and find one of the missing druids in there. In the back of this section is a nymph's house, where you can find another druid, as well as a special dagger and mirror. Take these and head deeper into the woods.
If you want you can enter the cave for a boss fight. It gives 420 experience which is a lot, but does hit hard, knockdown works well on it though. Now head north ignoring the alter and head into the next cave. (let me just say this is the best house I've ever seen built inside of a cave!) Do the usual search thing, and make sure you pick up the tome of resonance.
When you get to the ugly witch, just give her the mirror she asks for and she will give you the key to the cell (which holds the last missing druid) and the first gem for your gem quest. Free the druid and head to the shrine in the waterfall.
Click on kill yourself (all the other choices will result in bad things happening.) and you will be in the spirit of the forest realm. A few feet away you will find a man gone crazy, you can try and talk with him, but eventually he will attack you and you will learn the same information from his journal, so just kill him.
Directly north there are rocks that contain the antidote, from there just head to the center and you will find your first real boss fight.
Boss Fight: Spirit of the woodThis guy lets you feel challenged again. He attacks very fast, has knockdown and stun and also can cast spells. After awhile he will give up. Talk to him and listen to his story then go loot the alters, then talk to it again to cure it.
He will send you out and you can go report back in with the druids to get experience for cleansing the forest and rescuing the druids. From the information in the journal they say that the cult is in :Luskan, but we need more proof before they push thier buttons and allow you to enter the town, so now its off to...
CharwoodIn the south road you can find a cave where you find the remains of some ancient warrior, and eventually you'll come to a well. If your constitution is high enough (use a potion of endurance if necessary, you can make the swim across from this well to another. In a room nearby, you can pull a chain and an ancient warrior will ask you a question. (thanks to DavidS for reminding me to update this portion of the walkthrough)
Just answer it, and it doesn't matter which one you pick really, in fact some of the choices will produce some really funny answers. You'll get a magic helmet and random items. Now head back out to the south road. You can go to the tower in the southern part either way for a tomb and a gem (see quests) and there is also a portal up on top.
There is another cave in the north were you can find a werewolf (see quest) and then you can go deeper and enter the farmland. (note there is an escaped prisoner in the farmland) you can get a simple quest from peter the farmer (see quests) but besides that there is basically nothing else to do in here.
In the cursed forest you will find a glowing pillar, the code for this is found on a parchment elsewhere in this same area, in a chest. Nether, then shall, then rule (if you're incredibly lazy). Doing this will open a portal to a hidden tomb with a lot of good items, but a lot of nasty fights as well. This is basically the only thing in here, and you can continue up to Charwood. I was reminded of a way to get practically unlimited experience by using this portal: simply answer incorrectly, and you'll get two skeleton warriors to fight. Every time you answer incorrectly, you get two more. Season to taste. (Thanks to Shot for reminding me of this one)
Welcome to the most strange town in Neverwinter. You have the choice to either fix it, or leave it as it is. First of all go to the house to the left of the mayor's (basically the only other house you can go in) and talk to the next cult member. Again he's gone crazy and will eventually attack you, but you learn everything you need to know from his journal.
You now have a choice of either completing the Village of Eternal Night quest, or heading back and going to Luskan. I suggest you save the town because of the experience and items gained in doing so, but if you don't want to just scroll down.
Head north to the castle, you can easily persuade the man guarding it to let you through, as he seems pretty confused. Once inside make sure you go down the center path, as it has no enemies and a lot of magic items, the right path has a lot of enemies and some magic items, and the left path has a lot of enemies and no magic items. You can only choose one path so choose the center. Note that you CAN get through all three paths if you use an area-effect spell on the left and right doors, such as fireball or Evard's Black Tentacles. The idea is to get an enemy on the other side of the door to acknowledge that you hit him so he'll open the door, thus letting you through without choosing that path. Thanks to J-F for reminding me to put this in the walkthrough.
Now you will find yourself talking with a spirit, who gives you the task of being a judge in a case that he won't tell you about! The reason for this is because he is a god and its up to mortals to situate mortal matters.
You must go up the two towers and gather the information of each side of the story and get their testimonials and then make a decision, and if you make the right decision (it's an easy choice) then you save the town and complete the quest.
So go gather your information and items as well, get the testimonies, and get two tombs, one in each tower, then you go back to the spirit to make your choice (note: You can summon Belial and get his oath to find out that both are innocent, then you have a hard choice. You can choose to condemn the entire town to living outside the weave of time including the spirit by having the spirit guard the phylactery, this being the only punishment for Belial. You can also keep the phylactery and everyone goes free, including Belial, exp both ways but if you set people free the mayor gives you a chest with gold/loot. thanks Lokus!)
When you learn all the information you should be able to make a choice easily...which is Quint is innocent. Nonetheless they both are killed and the town is returned to normal, and you must leave never to return. Now you can return to the barracks with the proof needed to go to Luskan!
Remember before you go to Luskan make sure you COMPLETE your QUESTS because there's no turning back once you go in there. Scroll down for the quest section.
LuskanBefore entering Luskan you'll want to check out the Green Griffon inn area. The main cave where the big boss werewolf is here (only after you saved the other three children) as well as the final tome (in the cemetery to the north east) the final gem for the gem quest, and the *final* escaped convict (see quests).
Also there is a dungeon challenge run by the owner of the inn that costs 500gp to enter, and the rewards are spectacular. It will take you awhile to do it but its worth it, again see quests.
Once you enter Luskan all previous quests, except search for the clan, will be wiped from your journal, as well as alot of the quest items. You walk up to see a man attack shape shifters. Talk to him for information of the situation going on in the town and then you can get on your way.
First head east to the Cutlass to get a couple of quests, then head to the whore house to get some more quests and vital information/items.
Now what you have to do now is either kill one of the high captains (required) or both. If you want to kill both, then i suggest you head to the sewers first, if you want to just kill one and get through this blasted chapter, again head to sewers. But if you want to complete all the quests that you get here then you will have to at least go in both hideouts.
Once you enter the sewers one of high captains is waiting for you. Actually its just an illusional sending but he will offer a truce, offering you a lot of money and reward for killing the other one (this is why you accept the quest if your planning on killing both of them) and you can also make him say that he will release the children if you got the quest in the inn.
Now head back out and head to the burnt tower and use the key to go through. On the other side of the sewers you will see a house with a big pillar in front of it. This will lead you to a VERY hard quest, with tons of monsters and bosses, but awesome loot experience and cash factor.
If you don't want to do that or done with it, head around the docks till you reach a huge building. This is Kurth's lair. There are some tough fights in this place, especially the final battle...
Boss fight: Kurth and 3x named guys. (note: the 3 named guys can be dealt with in another way... read on)This is extremely challenging. I had to use the recall stone many many times in order to do this, for the plane fact that there are four bosses that all hit the same amount of damage. You have to focus on one at a time, making sure you leave Kurth to the last, because I believe these three power him up making him almost impossible to damage. Now that you've read this, you have another option, which Alex reminded me about: Outside the room Kurth is in, you'll find a portal room surrounded by summoned demons of various types. There is a small quest on this level to shut down that portal. I won't give too much away other than to say the instructions for shutting it down and one of the components you'll need to do so are located in the bedroom right outside the portal room, on a body. The other component is in a pool on the other side of the map (roughly) from that bedroom.
Once you kill him you take his head, rescue the man's sister (see quests) and you can leave. Report back to the sewers to get your reward. Don't bother trying to persuade him because it won't work, and when you ask about the children he laughs and tells you he has already killed them. If that doesn't make you want to go and kill him then maybe the fact he is the leader of a massive amount of lycanthropes (wererats in this case) will. Still not enough? How about the nifty magic studded leather and magic weapons he dual-wields, and a good amount of treasure in his accompanying chests?
You can threaten him and he will stay there, just go to the door behind it and bash it for you to get attacked by all the enemies. Luckily most are easily defeated zombies. Go through to the sewers till you get to a Yuan-ti necromancer. She's easily defeated and you'll get a note from her corpse describing what is going on in the floor above. Head up the stairs and through the door.
Head west and first go south into the spider part (obvious once you open the very first door on the left as you head west) and rescue a nanny from one of the web cocoons. She will tell the story of what happened to the 9 children she was nanny for, (See quests) and gives you proof to bring to the mother (who is in the bar in town). Now head to the west and destroy the two tombstone look alike things around the machine creating the zombies. The machine will blow up and you can head back into the center room.
Now the necromancer nearest the machine you destroyed will attack instead of just boasting. This can be a tough battle with the mass amount of zombies and skeletons jumping on you, but get through it and head all the way to the east. Now you'll see a bunch of skeletons kneeling in some sort of ceremony. Killing all of them will prompt an enemy (scaled to your level - queen spider sometimes, other times perhaps a greater mummy) to pop up where the empty souls used to come out, and after defeating it, that last part of the machine breaks.
Again head back to the main room and the second and last necromancer will be ready to fight. After you kill her you get her journal and a key to pass onto the next area.
Now just go through the door and across the walkways, right away you'll see Beram, with two casters near him (Sorial's note: I've never seen these zombie mages. I *always* see a single female cleric of Mask who bolsters Beram with spells, then attacks.) These are just regular zombie mages, which do very little damage. You should have little to no problem, only having to use the recall stone once, if you have to use it at all. Gather the loot and leave. If you'd like to *potentially* make this battle a little easier, destroy the two stone gargoyles (which won't animate) before you actually attack Beram. Beram does double-hit pretty hard, so you may or may not have the time to do that. If you read the Yuan-ti necromancer's journal (retrieved earlier), it mentions those statues and how they are designed to augment Beram's power. While I haven't verified that they actually work, I usually take the time to destroy them anyway, as typically I can take what Beram can dish out by the time I get here anyway.
(PS you can return to the guy who gave you the keys and information in the whore house to get 50 exp for each of these guys you kill)
Now return to Aarin Gend and he will make you a certificate note from one of the high captain's seals you retrieved from either Kurth or Beram. Now you can enter the tower of the arcane. Make sure you finish any quests you have before going because there will be no turning back.
The Tower of the ArcaneA lot of info to get in this place, so don't waste the chance. You get past the front gate showing him your letter, and enter the courtyard, proceed up and another person will ask for it. You can ask him questions too, and a lot of things will be learnt.
Inside you can talk to two other representatives, and you will learn some very horrible news. Find the journal that confirms it, along with a key and you're on your way to finishing chapter 2. Head to the teleportation platform and go up to level 2. Each level you will receive a key which will allow you to raise to another level. If you want the quick way through the tower, just take the portal to level 6 (the stone is in the room with the wizard who gloats "Do you know who you face?" before you kill him ;), then from there to go the pinnacle via the stone you find on this level. There is quite a bit of loot to be had here, so if you're after money and those few extra experience points, don't take the quick way up.
Otherwise, the tower is easy enough to figure out; and on level 4 just make sure you make the golem for yourself, it will break down the door and kill most of the enemies in the room beyond. Just stand back and watch till it disappears, then you have to fight...
Boss fight: Rimardo DomineSince it is a mage tower you would expect to have to fight some magic users huh? Well this guy isn't tough if you know how to beat him. He has a greater water elemental that he summons, which is the real challenge there, to be able to defeat that while he casts all his powerful spells on you. Once the elemental is dead you can do damage to him, and he will surrender soon.
Get as much information as you can out of him and either kill him or let him go (will effect alignment) and head up to the next floor. Once you get to the top floor you find a lich in the middle of a blue field. Talk to him and get as much information out of him as you can, and accept to release him.
Now you have to smash the four braziers, each one popping out a mini boss. You shouldn't have any trouble with these guys. Knockdown works wonders on all of them, and they don't seem to get any harder as you go on.
Once the lich is free, talk to him and he will open the door. Now go out and you'll be on the roof. You'll be forced to watch Aribeth be converted to a Blackguard (fallen paladin) by the lizard queen Morag. Maugrim (who you've been hearing about if you've paid any attention) is also in attendance. They will teleport away once you've rattled the door a few times and they go through their chattering about Aribeth accepting her new mistress and forsaking Tyr, and a horde of old ones will rush at you. Most of them are easily defeated, with one harder warrior, a "Gorgoth", but still you shouldn't have any problems. You can run downstairs into Maugrim's chamber if you need to use recall stone, but watch out for the stone golem down there if you're low on hit points.
You can find a journal in the same chamber as well as some treasures in the chests and crates where you saw the ceremony being held. Now bring the journal back to Aarin Gend and that's it! Chapter two is done! Enjoy the gloomy theatrics.
QUESTS
Later on you will be approached by him again, and he will warn you to stop interfering with the clan. He also tells you that the ring he gave you was a tracking device that they have been using to track you this whole time. Ignore his warnings and keep the ring.
Later on you will run into him with a few guards; he is easily killed and has an important note to return to Aribeth. Once you return the note this quest is completed. (If you don't return the note you can get 2 additional quests...thanks to Sporkboy!)
Zor is found in the locked room in the Green Griffon Inn. Right before he dies you can talk to him and learn about the prison break and a hint of where another convict may be located, but he then attacks you again saying that he wants you to get the reward and not another weak mercenary.
Wyvern is in the northwestern part of the druid encampment in the Neverwinter Wood. He will trick you into following him and summon two easy wolves, then give up when near dead. He will tell you his story and if you let him live (he cuts off his ear for the reward) you gain some alignment points. He also tells you where you might find another escaped prisoner.
Delilah is in the 2nd floor of Jax's barracks, in the east road. He won't try and get out of it, and you will have to kill him.
The final convict is located in the farm lands, in the hollowed tree stump. He offers to play a game with you to give you his ear. I failed the game and ended up killing him, but he is a baby killer so I didn't feel too bad about it.
Now that you have 4 of the 5 you can return to the mayor and he will inform you that his daughter was kidnapped by the 5th escaped prisoner, and gives you a key to the old mines. Yesgar will try and get out of it, and with persuasion you can learn the truth of what happened, and you can persuade him to give you all his riches, and cut off his ear, and give the key to the prison to release the daughter. Return the final ear to the mayor and this quest is completed.
The first gem is in Wanev's tower. There are two ways to approach this. She will give you a key to his cabin, and you can go in his cabin in the town. You will pick up some ingredients (2 skeliton knuckles, a beetle belly and a slaad tongue) and when you get to his kitchen you can put that in the brazier and that will transport you into a room with treasures, one including a journal of Wanev and a ward stone.
The ward stone will make it so that the monsters in Wanev's tower will not attack you. You can still go in to the tower and be attacked, but it will be considerably harder because there are a lot of monsters. Regardless of this you will still have to fight Wanev, and you will find the gem in his back room.
The second gem is in possession of a warrior named Zamithra, who is heading for Luskan. Now since Luskan is closed off you can know that she will be in the Green Griffon inn. She is there with guards. Now if your male you can talk her away from her guards to go into her room for "privacy" and when your up there turn the tables and tell her it was just a ploy to get the gem, she will give it up to you. I'm not sure what you do to get it if you are female though...maybe she is bisexual :)
The final gem is owned by the witch in the Neverwinter woods. Just give the witch the mirror and she will give you the gem.
The first boy can be found right in town. Urth is hiding in his house, and is easy to miss (i did) Thanks to TrevorKKbo for this information.
The second boy is found in the very South East corner of the East road, by the entrance to the south road.
The third and final boy is found in a cave to the north in the south road.
After you have cured all three boys you can go after the master werewolf, where it all happened. This is in a cave in the Green Griffin Inn area in the south eastern area. After curing this wolf you find out that he is not the head werewolf, but in fact the man selling anti-werewolf materials!
Now head to Alhelor's house and defeat the final werewolf, and return to the temple with news to complete this quest.
The Tome of Fire and Tome of Death are found in the Castle in Charwood, one in each tower.
The Tome of Resonance is found in the witches house in the Neverwinter woods.
Another tome can be found in Wanev's tower.
The final and the hardest tome to get is found in the cemetery outside the walls of Luskan. To be able to go in here go into the cremator's office to get the key, then down into the catacombs you go.
This place is extremely hard, filled with zombie warriors and skeleton elite that just pop up from the ground. There are many times were you have to fight over 10 at a time. The loot is good and so is the experience but be careful because the damage they do consecutively can kill you very fast. Eventually you'll make it to...
Boss fight: Brother TorasThis is another extremely hard caster battle. The stun and mesmerize along with web will drive you crazy. But first thing's first, take care of the 10 zombie warriors/skeleton elite/mages/ before you even try and fight brother Toras.
He has the usual 700 hp damage shield that a lot of casters have and would be best if you tried to lure the others out first before trying to kill him. The tome is on his body and there are some chests around with some treasure. Now that you have all the tomes the quest is over.
You can also use the information from these tomes in the quest-giver's library to create magic items (much like the dwarf in chapter 1 made things on his forge).
He asks for a password, which you can give, or you can kill him (remember that blunt weapons, including your fists, do more damage to undead than edged weapons) after you level up for a bit, and you'll eventually find the book he wants. Return the book to him to get the reward.
With enough persuasion you can talk the wolf into not attacking the cattle, and then talk Peter into believing that the wolf will keep its word. If your not good at persuasion you'll have to finish off the wolf and bring him back its head.
To kill the shadows just lure them to the pillar of light (a man will tell you this if you give him a potion). You can save one of the people from a monster on the first level, and right before you enter the final test, the other dwarf challenger will attack you.
The final challenge is just to put the egg into the chest, just go slow, save and rest often, and you should be able to get through it. The reward is a ton of money, a ton of experience, some magic items, and whatever you find down in the dungeon.
VERY hard fight. Besides the fact that this guy could kill ten of you, he is accompanied by hoards of zombie warriors and skeleton elite. His spells include web that will stop you in your tracks, a stun spell that will stun you and your henchman for up to a minute, daze spell that will incapacitate you for over a minute, confusion, ice stream that does 70+ damage to you and your henchman, rain of fire which can cause 20-80 damage to whoever is under it, plus the fact that he has a shield around him that absorbs quite a bit of damage before you can actually start to hurt him. He also summons a huge bear at the beginning of the fight. It took me almost a half hour to defeat this guy, and it all depends on luck, don't hesitate to use the recall stone, and when its all over go collect your treasures and leave this awful place!