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and it makes the fight a lot easier.

Note by Sorial:
It's sometimes worth it to take a few hits from the Gaeoler to do your persuading, so the devourer has nowhere to run after you kill the his current host. The easiest way I've found is to pause when you enter the room, then run to the west (left as you're facing away from the door) and circle the room, persuading guards as you go. The last guard usually hovers reasonably close to the Gaeoler, so try to save that one for last. If you're playing a rogue, tell your henchman to stand their ground by the door and use stealth to talk to the guards. Make sure you don't talk to a guard in full view of the head gaeoler, since when you talk you disable stealth mode and he'll see (and attack) you.

Strategy hint by Sorial:
This is a terrific place to make use of skills like knockdown or stunning fist.
They will make the battle much more simple, and keep you from getting your head ripped off by the Gaeoler's halberd (which you can get from his corpse, along with a piece of ironwood that's one of the components you can get the dwarf in the back room of the Shining Knight to make into a better item).

Beggar's Nest
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In the Beggar's Nest, the guards will inform you that the dead are rising from their graves. The entire district is packed with zombies and the like, so stay on your toes.

Your ultimate goal here is to stop the zombie infestation. Again there are two ways to do this, one is shorter and the other longer. You can also do both ways if you want to fight more and get a lot of experience.

Head to the inn to gain more information and quests. Go meet with the two people the person in charge instructed you to, to gain the information and item needed for each of the two ways. Jemanie will also give a quest.

Now you can either go in the secret clan's hideout (long way) or the factory (short way). They all lead to the same thing and each have a mini boss along the way. You can go through the clan's hideout and instead of going out into the cemetery continue the other way to go through the factory part if you want to do both ways for experience, but you cannot go through the factory and do both, because you will encounter a barred door.

Either way you go you will encounter a similar mini boss, either the leader of the gang of thieves, or the leader of the mysterious clan. These guys can be annoying, and all depends on luck of the dice. They can disarm and knockdown so it can really be aggravating. They also hit pretty hard and if I remember correctly the head of the cult can cast spells.

Eventually you'll come to the Graveyard where you can enter a tomb to get the 2nd artifact for the Never's Tomb quest (see quests) and then enter Warrens of the damned.

There are a lot of traps so be careful, you'll also find the body of Jemanie's brother, and eventually you'll meet up with...

Boss - Gulnan the Yuan-Ti

This is the creature that gave the gang's boss the power to summon the dead. She is also what the mysterious clan is worshipping. Make sure you break the altar first (right click smash) to weaken her power, or when she summons her minion he will kill you very easily. Also, if you run past all the undead and go straight to altar-smashing, all the undead will be destroyed, leaving you only Gulnan and her summoned shadow to fight. Without the alter giving her power she is pretty much an easy boss to fight. Heal if you need to and loot another 1/4th of the cure.

Now that a lot of your quests are done, you can go back to the Shining Serpent inn and talk to the halfling to get a reward, and return the information to
Jemanie and Krestal, and do any quests you want to finish in this sector then head back and give the 1/4th cure to Aribeth in the Hall of Justice.

Docks District
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This is where things get interesting. Instead of just entering and killing, you start getting more stories. The gate guards inform you that this part of the city is run by muggers and thieves and pirates. I suggest you make sure you go around the entire place getting their coins because you can trade them for magic items a little later.

Make sure you go on the big boat and kill the pirates to get a uniform. Also note that the "locked house" has two entrances, back and front, both having different items to get. In the front entrance you'll find a key, which you can use to get into the pirates hideout.

When you're done exploring head for the tavern where the auction is supposed to be held where you can get drunk with a pirate, and buy some items from the auctioneer, also trade for the special coins.

Now go into the back room and either persuade or pay off the guy guarding the door and you can also get the password from the guy in the sauna upstairs, don't worry about the key you have it from the locked house, or from the drinking contest with the pirate. Make your way through until you find a group of pirates tormenting some girl.

Talk to her and learn more about the revolt, and where to go next. Make sure you take the instructions from the pirates so you can open the door. She also gives you an amulet for you to get down to the sewers by way of the silver sails trading company.

You can take a quick detour to enter the mansion to the north of the aqueducts to acquire one of the stolen arts, see quests below.

Now head to the aqueducts, kill the pirates and talk to the man by the boat, who'll take you upstream. You can also enter it by way of the Silver Sails trading company.(you must talk with the girl first)You can find a tomb here to the west(thanks to Porphyre) that will show up as an "exit" on your mini map.

After a short walk you'll encounter the two opposing sides of this conflict. You don't really get a choice because the man on the other side will say that you are there to kill the man on your side, and you will be attacked.

Boss-Callik w/ guards This is a tough fight for many reasons, first his guards are pretty tuff, second he is very tuff, and he can disarm, and does quite a bit of damage per hit. After you defeat them, make sure to loot the amulet (for a quest) and head around to talk to the other man, Vengaul.

Vengaul thanks you and then tells you to take the feathers. You can let him go or kill his guards, it's up to you. He'll "flee" at any rate. At any rate you can now take another 1/4th of the cure back to the Hall of Justice. Finish up anything you want to finish up and then its time for the final district.

Blacklake District
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This is the final and most challenging district. It is also the only one that you have to pass through a monster infested area to get to, but in retrospect, the only district that doesn't have enemies or body's all around.

You start off in No Man's Land, you can talk to the person nearby to get a quest, and head through to a guard post. Now that your in town you see a loud girl in the town square (you can't miss her) once you talk to her you learn about the situation.

This is not an optional quest; you have to do this to get the final part of the cure. Say that you will kill him and bring the key back, even if you don't want to kill him, and head up north to his estate.

Note: the Hodge and Rumbottom estate are good places to make fast cash and experience, and also the places where you get the other two stolen art. Also in the southwestern house you can persuade the woman there to tell you about her bookcase, which leads to the last artifact.

Also note in the nobleman's residence you can persuade the woman inside then force her to pay you therefore moving your alignment 3 points toward evil, a good way to lose alignment if you want to be evil.

You either can persuade the man at the gate to let you through, or you'll have to pay. There is another way to get in submitted by Lord Shitzu: Find an old woman named Milly, and if you can persuade her to talk to you about the wizard she will give you a key to her house and open a portal to the bedroom of his home. Thanks Lord Shitzu!

Note from Sorial: If you can't persuade Milly, you can always tell her to talk or she'll be cleaning without hands... Keep in mind that this is an evil act.

Once you get inside a dumb orc will ask you who you are, you again can persuade and he will open the door, or will have to fight/pay him. Alternatively, you can walk right past him and pick or blow down the door to his right (as he's facing you) and just walk through.

Do the usual things, make sure you search around for items and watch out for traps, and also make sure to rescue a man in prison for some easy money. When you get to a big room with a cage in the corner save. When you move close to the cage the prisoner will scream that he is near and he will magically appear behind you, near the red symbol on the floor.

Boss - Meldanen
He's pretty tuff but luckily he doesn't hit that hard. His magic can kill though; in fact his ice storm spell thing will kill your hireling and possibly kill you. Again, it comes down to luck; which spells he casts at you, how often and how fast you can get his life down. Like the head Gaeoler, stunning fist and knockdown are terrific feats to use in defeating Meldanen.

Eventually he will surrender, you yell at him for taking the dryad and he begs for his life, bribing you with 500 gold. Make sure you get the key and his tooth as well as the 500 gold, so you can get 500 gold for "killing" him from the young woman speaking outside, near Meldanen's warehouse. Now free the Dryad and either be nice or mean to her depending on your alignment and you will get the last part of the cure.

Note from Sorial: You can get all the same rewards for killing Meldanen outright, from the tooth you rip out of his head to the gold, and his staff, which you can't get otherwise. It's a pretty nice staff for a sorcerer or wizard, giving some bonuses you'll have a hard time beating. Killing him is not an evil act, since he is evil himself. Alternatively, if you're feeling mean, you can talk Meldanen into telling you about Formosa (the loud half-elf woman talking to the audience in Blacklake). He'll pay you handsomely to kill her, in which case you'll get the reward she would have given you for killing Meldanen, plus a few extra goodies. If you're a wizard or sorcerer, I'd suggest killing
Meldanen for his staff. Otherwise, kill Formosa for what she's carrying.

Go back and report to (or kill!) Formosa outside Meldanen's warehouse, give her the tooth and the key and you will get your reward.

If you're feeling exceptionally mean and nasty, you can kill Meldanen AND
Formosa. If you take Meldanen's money in exchange for killing Formosa, you end up with a bit more money than what Formosa would have given you, AND you get
Formosa's money from her body. If you kill Meldanen and then kill Formosa on your own, you'll get Meldanen's staff, which is worth more money than he'd give you to kill her (killing Meldanen and taking out Formosa just because you're mean is the more profitable way to go, but isn't exactly going to make you good aligned).

Do any remaining quests in this area you want to do and head back and give the component to Aribeth, but remember once you agree to go make the potion all your quests waiting to be completed disappear so make sure you're ready! Quests are an easy way to make money and experience.

Relief at last?
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When you're ready you are taken to a special room where you see Aribeth, Desther and Fenthick performing a ceremony to make the cure. Talk to the characters with names and the ceremony will start. Watch this disturbing but predictable event take place, and kill the enemies. You don't gain anything extra by keeping all the Tyran priests alive, but it's quite a challenge.

Now you must go to Helm's hold, through the open portal.

Helm's Hold
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This place is pretty straight forward. There are three ways to enter, through the cave, through the front, and through the side.

The cave is to the west as soon as you enter, and will lead to lower prisons, where you can talk to a prisoner and learn about what's going on. You can also buy/sell from a little boy in there. If you choose to enter this way just go north to see the spirit first.

I found the way to get through the front door the 2nd time through (although I fought the actual monsters first then realized how to do it), There is a gem you find in the courtyard on a body, that will go on the altar. I got 50 exp for doing this after the guardians inside the front door were dead and according to
Ketzer they all run away, at the time I got over 200 exp for each of them though. Keep in mind they are VERY HARD.

Sorial's note: The guardians do not simply "run away" when you put the gem on the altar. They instead teleport to locations inside Helm's Hold and begin fighting all the skeleton mages and priests (and other creatures, depending on your average party level when you enter the Hold), and will appear as allied with you when you run into them next. Take care not to use area-effect spells that might harm them, or they'll attack you too. You might have realized already that using the gem is the easier but less XP method - if you kill the guardians (yes, they ARE tough) and then clean out the Hold, you'll end up XP ahead, but perhaps dead. :)