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Andora | Glacier | Ice Temple Level 1 | Ice Temple Level 2 | Battle Squares |
ICE TEMPLE – LEVEL TWO
Lysara's Journal
Now I head south. Surrounding and killing the odd Aurilite Priest isn't difficult at all.
I then head west 2 doors on either side. The one on the south wall can only be opened from the inside. The one on the north side needs Lysara's Key to open. Tithian disarms the trap first.
A Crystal Golem is on the other side, and naturally I bring it down with magical blunt weapons. Note how Alliria gets an early shot or two with her Impact Arrows that inflict blunt damage.
The cabinet by the bed has Lysara's Journal. I try to read it, but .... monsters in the Ice Temple tends to have more of a wanderlust during a Tactics4IWD2 installation in comparison to a vanilla installation. So you need to keep an eye out for things. I get interrupted a few times, and have to deal with the odd monster that comes my way, before I can finish reading Lysara's journal for background information.
Cathin's Bedchamber
There isn't anything particularly crucial in this video. Cathin's Temple Key is needed to open the door to the room to the west. After a few more routine fights, the containers here hold some generic weapons, and some masterwork weapons, and a few armors as well.
Prism Device
Now I make my way to the room towards the northeast corner (not Oria's room by the way). I run into a few monsters along the way. One of them happens to be a Cult of the Dragon Necromancer. Note how I have Tithian retreat and hang back, while the rest of my party charges ahead. There's a rules related reason for this. The Circle of Death spell can mean instant death for any character 9th level or below. Characters of 10th level or higher are immune.
As I said previously, always vary your tactics according to the situation. In the room towards the far northeast corner, there are several Aurilite Priests are clumped together past a narrow doorway, so Lady Elanna naturally obliges with some Fireballs. Note that Alliria can now chip in with Flame Strike every once in a while. Nothing in the way of loot here.
Now I make my way towards the large central room, sometimes dealing with a few foes at a time in piecemeal fashion. Once I do reach the room itself, I am in for a prolonged fight against many foes that will both arrive gradually and will be spread out so as to make targeting with area-effect offensive spells difficult. There's more than one approach to this kind of situation. One is for Alliria to cast Static Discharge, which will passively inflict hefty electrical damage at a random foe at regular intervals. The spell is best used for prolonged battles. The other is to summon a few monsters of my own through the Animate Dead and Summon Insect spells. I can send them to hold up or go to work on more distant monsters, allowing me to concentrate on the closer ones.
I eventually win the battle after a while. It's hard not to notice the large Prism in the middle of the room. This is tied in with the completion of a few quests, as I'll soon describe.
Dead Bodies
Now I intend to search the rooms east of the Prism. There's a large trap in the way though. Note that if Tithian runs over the 'red zone' of a trap for a second too long, the trap will go off. This is why Tithian approaches the trap from its side.
Tithian begins to explore around a bit when he notices a Cult of the Dragon Necromancer. Remember, he's still vulnerable to the Circle of Death spell cause he's 9th level. So he beats a retreat, and lets the rest of the party wade in to kill the Necromancer.
Now I collect a Male Dead Body and a Female Dead Body that are lying around in the room, and place them inside the Bag of Holding that I acquired in Targos. They'll be used in a quest that won't occur until much later in the game.
The room to the north has another cloud trap, but I trip it anyway so that I can kill of the other Cult of the Dragon Necromancer and his Soarsmen as quickly as possible. The book shelves here will have a few priestly scrolls, and some cursed scrolls as well.
Nickademus
Now I travel to the room to the southwest. I approach from its door to the west. Tithian first has to disarm a whole series of traps before the door. After that, I just march straight in and kill off the Aurilite Priests. This is the Battle Squares room, that has an Ice Golem, some square tiles, and some levers. I'll come back here later. My point in coming here to begin with is so that I can ask Nickademus about it.
Nickademus himself is asleep in a room southwest of the Prism Device. It takes a while for him to wake up. But after that he can provide a lot of information on the Temple. You can also ask for his assistance. There's three options for his assistance: treasure, aid in defeating the evil spirit at the altar, or wisdom. Wisdom, which involves a 5,000+ xp bonus distributed amongst the party, is in my view of the most long-term benefit to the party.
Shadows and Coffins
The room just to the west of the Battle Squares room has several Shadows in it. They're pretty easy by now, whether it's torching them together in a group with Fireball or hacking them down individually.
Now Tithian searches and finds a secret door at the west wall. It is important to open this secret door as it will enable access to another room on this level.
I continue to make my way westwards through the secret door and gang up on a single Aurilite Stormsister.
Talisman Adventuring Company
Now I go to the room to the west and bunch myself up against the mirror on the left side. One of the mirrors has magical ammunition. Clicking on the other mirror will release the Talisman Adventurers, who will attack you after having gone insane from their imprisonment inside the Mirror of Trapping. I'll get hit with a Dispel Magic as soon as this battle starts so I don't bother with any pre-combat buffs. If I play it right I won't need them anyway. The key here again is crowd-control and packing everybody tight against the west wall so that the crowd-control will work.
Also, note how I hit 'pause' as soon as possible after clicking on the mirror. This is so I can get my first crowd-control spells going before the Talisman Adventurers even hit the floor, in the hopes that I can catch as many of them as I can. I went with this sequence: First round, Alliria – Spike Stones, Elanna – Web, Tithian – Stinking Cloud. Second round, Alliria – Spike Growth, Elanna – Chaos, Tithian – Slow, then Alliria caps the sequence with Static Discharge.
Elanna cranks out Fireball after Fireball. The rest of the party concentrates on whoever has made it out of the crowd-control zone. The Talisman Warrior is especially dangerous, so Alliria and Tithian use their Alicorn's Lance – Faerie Fire combination on him to make him easier to kill.
Elanna at some point manages to blow away most of the Henchmen outright with her Fireballs while the rest of the party is going to work on the Warrior. This leaves the Assassin, Mystic, and Bishop. She keeps going on the trio with Fireballs. Note how the Stinking Cloud often kept the Mystic and the Bishop from casting spells. She manages to kill off the Mystic with the Fireball, leaving only the Assassin and the Bishop. The Assassin is 'near death', and yet has the Evasion ability. So ... Elanna now starts pumping out Magic Missiles, which Evasion is useless against, in order to seal the Assassin's fate. Eventually, matters become a mop up on the lone surviving Talisman Bishop.
The Talisman Warrior leaves behind Tuqak Mauler's Armor (+1 splintmail, +5 hit points).
The Talisman Mystic leaves behind an Adventurer's Robe, and the Staff of the Elements +1 (25% chance of 1d6 fire damage, 25% chance of 1d6 cold damage). Elanna will use this as her interim staff.
The Talisman Bishop leaves behind the Flail of Shocking Cold +2 (50% chance of 1d6 electrical damage, +1d6 chance of 1d6 cold damage). This will be Alliria's blunt damage weapon in the interim.
Nathaniel's Bag of Holding
Note the door to the south of where I fought the Talisman Adventurers. It cannot be opened normally, but it also drops a clue, 'looks as though it has been etched by lightning blasts' or something along those lines.
The Prism Device is the key to opening the door. The Prism Device itself has two levers, one to rotate it, and another to trigger a lightning bolt that shoots out from the device. The idea is to have the Device shoot a bolt that will bounce a path off of several mirrors and then hit the door itself. Akutagawa traces the path of mirrors that the bolt needs to follow, including through the secret door that I had opened earlier. He then goes to the Prism Device itself, rotates it so that it is facing south, and then shoots off the bolt.
The party now returns to the Talisman room and is able to open the door. I have to take down an Ice Golem Champion on the other side.
The crates hold several items, including several cursed scrolls, a spell scroll for Fire Shield: Blue, some ammunition, a Gauntlets of Fumbling (-2 Dexterity, -10 to attack bonus, can only be removed after a Remove Curse spell), and a Ring of Clumsiness (-50% Dexterity, 75% chance of arcane spell failure, can only be removed after a Remove Curse spell).
Nathaniel's Bag of Holding can also be found in one of the crates. This is a quest item that Nathaniel will want back, but not just yet.
The Light of Selune adds another item to one of the crates, Stormbreaker (+2 Warhammer, sure striking, +1d6 damage vs. evil, cast Storm Shell 1/day). This will be Lord Markus' blunt damage weapon for the rest of the game.
Caged Fury
First I go to a room to the north and west, and find some ammunition in a drawer there.
Now I show the proper sequence for the Altar of Auril. I travel clear across the level, to the stairs on the east side. The stairs lead to the painting of Kuldahar. To answer "Lysan" sets the teleporter to take me to the room with the Altar of Auril in it.
Well, the Altar isn't in view. At least not yet. Notice the outline of a shadow on the north door? I have a character put himself right on it, and another character now open the newly visible door. I'm partway there.
To open the shadow door will require another use of the Prism Device. I again have Akutagawa trace the path of mirrors that the bolt of lightning needs to follow, with the important proviso that one of the mirrors (shown at 4:40 of the video) needs to be turned in order to set the path right. He then rotates the mirror so that it faces north, and then fires off another bolt.
The party returns to the room, with the shadow door now open. I don't need everybody to enter through the north. I had Stygar, who has the most hit points, head north and speak the true name "Caged Fury" to banish the Tempest spirit from the altar. Both doors will close temporarily, but I only need to wait out the storm for a little while. Another force of Aurilities will appear, and they can be torched through the doorway, assuming that you can aim your spells without a problem.
Now I go back to the stairs. This time I use Sherincal's long-winded proclamation about the Legion of the Chimera at the painting, and this takes me to the lair of the White Abishais. That is, after I've fully rested of course. I speak to Xhaan and get another xp bonus for freeing the White Abishais from Caged Fury's control.
High Priestess Oria
The last remaining High Priestess is Oria. First, I go over to the Kuldahar Painting on the east side of this level, and say "Auril, shower me with strength!" This brings me to the Battle Squares room on the second level.
Now I complete one level of Battle Squares (more on this soon) by killing monsters so as to have 3 squares lined up in a row. This gets me the key to Oria's room, which is on the north side of the second level.
Oria can cast both divine and arcane spells, and will be assisted by several priestesses of Auril and Winter Wolves. I take out her helpers first. I won't be able to get to her right away because of her spell protections. Again, I am generous with my potions for the sake of keeping my hit points up.
Once I go the distance with her she'll break her Staff of Power. She'll return as Oria's Essence. I run over to the south, and then ask for Nickademus' advice, which is forthcoming.
I simply go to the Battle Squares room, play around with the Mode Selector levers until 'Inner Sanctum' is indicated, hit the Mode Activator lever, kill her, and then hit the lever to turn the mode off. She'll leave behind a scroll of Cloudkill, a random mage scroll, and a Wand of Magic Missiles. Tithian inscribes the Cloudkill scroll into his spellbook, since it gives him another option for helping Alliria and Lady Elanna with crowd-control.
Nathaniel's Ring of Holding
Now I head back up the stairs at the east side, and use the phrase that starts with "In Auril's name ..." at the Kuldahar painting.
This takes me to the last remaining unexplored room in the painting, where I have to bring down another Ice Golem Champion. The crates around this room are trapped. They hold various items, like potions, gems, cursed scrolls, magical ammunition, and so on. One of them holds Nathaniel's Ring of the Ram (Knock 1/day, Bull's Strength 1/day, Alicorn's Lance 1/day). This is also another quest item that Nathaniel will want back.
But first, I complete the Battle Squares challenge.
