Down, Down, Down By the River: Let's Play Baldur's Gate 3

[Timrod]

Summary

: It’s time to kill everyone in Moonrise Towers, here in Baldur’s Gate 3. We’ll kill everything we see - that’s the Mara guarantee. …Fuck.

: We’ll also encounter shadow perverts and ruin a child’s hopes and dreams.

: I liked that song. It’s cute.

: We’ll see how cute you think it is when she makes you practice it EVERY NIGHT FOR THREE MONTHS.

: “Thaniel is resting - but it’s no easy slumber. I discovered what’s wrong with him.”

: As soon as we go back to camp, we get the ability to add Halsin to the party. Unfortunately, Halsin sucks unless he’s respecced. Druid in 2014 5E was a garbage class.

: “The shadows rended him in two when they bore him away to the Shadowfell. Half of his essence remained here, amidst the curse. What stayed behind would have been the strongest part of him, but after all these years left in darkness, corruption must have taken hold.”

1. Tell me how I can help.
2. Can it be undone?
3. How do you know this?

: “Tell me how I can help (get you to go on a date).”

: "It’s both simple and not - we need to find Thaniel’s missing half, and make him whole again.

: "Only, the missing half may not come willingly. The curse will have sunk its tendrils deep, twisting Thaniel’s essence into something.. else.

1. Any ideas on how to find this missing half?
2. You’re sending me to look for a needle in a haystack. In the dark.
3. Once Thaniel’s essence is found, then what?

: “Any ideas on how to find the missing half?”

: “No matter how it’s been twisted by the shadows, it is still part of Thaniel’s essence - it will resemble him somehow, and may show signs of his power. Look for signs of life in the darkness. Wildflowers where everything else is dead. The curse cannot subdue the power Thaniel bears. Not entirely.”

: “In fact, I saw just the sort before, not long after we first came within reach of the shadow curse. Fool that I am, I did not grasp their significance at the time.”

: He then marks a spot on our map. This will be the last real fight before we go after Ketheric. Off-screen, I kidnap all the Act 1 traders and empty their pockets.

: There’s one other spot I want to check out first, and that’s across from the inn. This is where I discover a fun fact.

: This house is part of the Fuck Zone. Now, I’d like you to pay careful attention to the party’s buffs. You might notice that the anti-curse buff from the pixie is gone.

: If you leave Act 2, you lose the buff. This isn’t a big deal because you have a bell that summons the pixie - except you can drop the bell or send it to camp, meaning it’s theoretically possible to softlock yourself.

: This house is pure environmental storytelling - you can find a basket with some wine and two skeletons on a bed next to each other both wearing rings.

: There’s also some armor which by this point is kinda useless.

: No, the reason we came here is to cheese a fight I mostly forgot about. This fight is kinda bullshit, unless..

: Meet the Meenlock. These things are annoying little pieces of shit. Like the shadows, they can teleport into dark areas.

: Unlike the shadows, they have an aura that requires you to save or get hit with fear. Notably, they don’t have a ranged weapon - probably because of the teleport.

: Right nearby is this box, which has a ring that we don’t care about. We’re here for the box.

: A couple of these up here block the upper route to where the party is.

: And two more down here block the lower path.

: Last Light has plenty of torches handy, so we’ll borrow a bunch and light up the room. This stops them from teleporting.

: Most of them will sit still or waste their turn dashing. Occasionally, they’ll decide to attack the barricade - but they can’t do enough damage to even scratch the paint on the chests.

: They knew how to build them back then.

: Most of the meenlocks arent carrying anything, but one of them is. This hat is one of the best items for Astarion and will not be replaced until nearly the end of the game.

: The meenlock room has a wall that can be broken which connects to Last Light’s cellar.

: Apart from a lot of booze, the only thing of value is this explosive barrel. Let’s go deal with Thaniel.

: On the way, we run into that shadow cursed shambling mound from earlier. Let me show you the cheese strat. It’s not worth a tactics segment.

: What you do is jump over here, and stick as close to the building as possible. This prevents the shambling mound from pulling you to it.

: From there, wait until they bunch up and kill one of the needle blights. The chain reaction of explosions will take off probably half of the shambling mound’s HP.

: We get a ring that allows someone to set themselves on fire, and more importantly an empty treasure chest. We’re going to need these, because the theme of this update is barricades.

: Thaniel’s other half is inside the building we were using for cover, and as soon as we go inside there’s a cutscene.

: “Boo! I scared you - I saw it. Nobody beats me at hide and seek.”

Narrator: Though shrouded in shadows, the child’s resemblance to Thaniel is unmistakable. This must be his dark half - warped by the curse.

: “Will you play with me?”

1. I know who you really are, and where you really belong. You need to reunite with Thaniel.
2. Who are you?
3. Play? This is no place for a child - if that’s even what you are.
4. Don’t startle people like that - easy way to end up killed by mistake.
5. In a moment, maybe. Have you seen another little boy? His name is Thaniel.
6. [BARD] I can play you a little song - would you like that?

: “I know who you really are, and where you really belong. You need to reunite with Thaniel so I can have snuggle time with Halsin.”

: “Spoilsport. I’m not going back. I like it here - I’ve made a family for myself, I get to play all the time.”

: “Don’t make this harder than it has to be. Either I get my boyfriend or I’m installing the killable children mod and throwing you off a cliff to join that dipshit from Monster Hunter: Wilds.”

: “But.. but.. Arkveld wanted to be free! I hate you!”

: Stop right there. Reload your save from before you talked to Oliver. We’re about to walk into an ambush, and fuck that.

: The first thing we’re doing is going back to camp to load up on empty chests.

: The ambush happens near the statue, on the side going to the graveyard where Arabella was. Make a barricade and get everyone but Astarion inside.

: It probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to switch out your party so that you have Halsin (respecced to a fighter), Shadowheart, and Minthara, and fill the empty space with garbage.

: As soon as you walk through that portal, the game teleports the person who walked through it (and anyone within conversation range) to this spot.

: The little shit will spend every turn summoning shadow children, who hit for a surprising amount of damage. That’s not the bad part.

: If everyone goes through the portal, they’ll be clustered up. One of the wraiths has an area of effect sleep spell. Being asleep gives enemies guaranteed hits. You can see where this is going.

: This encounter is one of the first I’d say is truly badly designed. The AI is set to gang up on anyone who gets slept, and on the run where I didn’t build the barricade they killed Lyselle and Karlach without either getting a turn.

: Oliver is protected by a dome, which reflects damage dealt to it. The only way to bring it down is by killing enough of the shadows.

: I forgot about the shadow owlbear. Is it worth experience?

: None of the shadows are.

: The barricade is 100% effective against everything except the owlbear.

: Once the owlbear is down, alchemist fires will take care of the shadow kids and break the barrier.

: Just make sure that someone can get in conversation range before the barrier dies, otherwise the fight will keep going.

: “Why couldn’t you just leave me alone? Why can’t I just stay here, playing? I had everything I’ve ever wanted, right here, and you’ve ruined it!”

: Someday I was going to grow up and make a shadow anime wife and we were going to get married!

: “I’m not leaving - you can’t make me!”

1. You don’t have to leave. All you have to do is lend Thaniel your strength.
2. You’re just a thieving shadow that thinks it’s a child. Playtime’s over - Thaniel’s waiting.
3. You have what you want, but not what you need: Thaniel. He’s your friend, your kin, - he’s you.
4. People are dying for the sake of your fun, kid.

: “You have what you want, but not what you need: Thaniel. He’s your friend, your kin, - he’s you.”

: People wonder why Superman was such a jerk to Jimmy Olson, and it’s because Jimmy Olson is this kid.

: “He’s nothing to me. He left me here, all this time. I had to do everything for myself! Even when it was scary. Even when I was alone. I didn’t give up.”

1. Nobody’s to blame here. The curse tore you two apart - now you can be reunited.
2. You were very brave and resourceful. Think of how much you’ll be able to help Thaniel.
3. Enough coddling - you’re going back to Thaniel - now.

: “Nobody’s to blame here. The curse tore you two apart - now you can be reunited.”

: “But would he even want me back? I’ve changed. A lot.”

: “Of course he will. You’re bound to each other - always.”

: “So I wouldn’t have to be alone anymore? He’d stay with me? Play with me? I’d like that. And he would too, I think. All right, I’ll do it. I want to do it.”

: Oliver teleported to camp, where he was promptly kidnapped by Minthara and sacrificed to Lolth. No, really.

: See, the game doesn’t expect that you’re going to have Minthara and Halsin at the same time, even though the developers intentionally made it far easier to do.

: The developers never fixed the issue of Minthara’s camp taking up the same spot as Halsin’s. As far as I am aware, Minthara will always over-write Halsin’s tent if she is present.

: Fortunately, there’s a mod that fixes it. The mod wasn’t released until late 2024, after it was clear Patch 8 wouldn’t fix the bug.

: I’m going to paraphrase the last quest because it’s dumb and bad.

: This guy is a “shadar-kai”, which is some kind of weird BDSM pervert elf from Ravenloft. He wants to perform a seance to punish this lady for reporting people to Ketheric.

: I didn’t understand this quest when I did it. She’s the bar server from Thisobald’s bar, but she would have died over a hundred years ago.

: This is one of the quests where Minthara can potentially break her oath. The pervert wants the diary we found in the bar in order to.. I dunno.

: One thing I missed in Thisobald’s is that there’s another Potion of Angelic Slumber in a chest near the entrance. I think you can grab this without getting into the cutscene.

: I only went back because I killed Thisobald but forgot to save, so I had to go back and do it again.

: Anyway, the pervert (and yes, there is a dialog option where he admits he gets off to this) does the seance and the bar server inhabits his body.

: You can either forgive her, humiliate her, have her stab herself… or have her kill herself, which initiates combat with the elf.

: Or we can kill him. Let’s kill him.

: If you don’t kill him, you get these gloves that let you summon a raven. If you do, you get nothing.

: And he’s dead, quest over. Before we go into the point of no return, I want to show one last thing off.

: Right next to the house of healing is this arch. This is the site of the first gith ambush that Voss mentioned way back in Act 1.

: Stepping too close to the arch makes a bunch of gith spawn in from nowhere. This fight is actually pretty difficult, since the gith can teleport and have all that fanfiction bullshit the other gith have.

: On honor mode, the gith in the center of the arch gets bonuses every time one of her soldiers dies. On tactician, she merely does a shitload of damage.

: I did this fight without any “tactics”, and the gith immediately teleported to Lyselle, killed her before she could act, and then killed Pollux.

: These gith piss me off. Barricades won’t work because they can jump and teleport. We have no choice but to block off every space they could possibly stand.

: This breaks the pathfinding so hard that going near those boxes will cause people to go out of bounds.

: With enough boxes, you can do just about anything.

: Have everyone hide and take out the gith closest to the barricade. Karlach runs in, gets two swings off, and then pushes the head gith off the arch.

: The head gith is an eldritch blast spammer who has knockback on her blasts. Don’t let anyone stand on that arch, or she’ll knock you off for an instant kill.

: The melee gith on the lower level get confused, while the ranged ones resort to using multi-target shots for far less damage than their melee would do.

: Our reward is this pair of bracers, which I suppose are okay if you have a caster who really needs to make a strength save. I’m not sure why you’d ever need to cast mage hand as a bonus action.

: Down the road is the path to the city, which is currently occupied by a raid camp.

: I call bullshit. Where’d they get all these goblins from? How did they get them all into one place without it devolving into an orgy or infighting?

: Very powerful mind control, or drugs. Or both.

: More importantly, when do we get to kill them?

Narrator: The countless distant silhouettes leave you no doubt - a veritable army swarms the path ahead.

: “There’s a point where bravery becomes stupidity. And walking into that would be very, very stupid.”

: “Why? They all think we’re true souls. They let us into the camp, we stab a few of them, and then set up explosives. There’s really no reason we shouldn’t be able to do this.”

: Oh, FUCK this!

: “Wait, how does any of this make sense? Where the hells were.. oh, right. We’re in the body pit underneath the prison. Which still begs the question of who threw us here when everyone in the prison is dead.”

: “This is a bullshit plot contrivance.”

: All that’s down here are two hook horrors, which Karlach can take by herself at this point. Note that this is one too few hook horrors to make another elixir of vigilance.

: The exit comes out into the tunnel to the boat. We could go right to the next major set piece, but technically Pollux doesn’t know why.

: “That drunken zombie told us about the Thorm mausoleum, and we know where that is, but we might as well exterminate the tower first.”

: Plus, I forgot to kidnap one of the traders. Remember that Zhentarim lady from the goblin camp?

: She has what is probably the best hand crossbow in the game once she goes to Moonrise. We could just buy it off her, but she doesn’t show up in Act 3 as a trader.

: I should mention why it’s the best hand crossbow - there’s a bug (still not fixed in Patch 8) where if you’re wielding two weapons, your off-hand will always do the same damage type as your main hand, so Astarion’s off-hand crossbow will do force damage.

: The key here is making sure you don’t accidentally turn all of Moonrise hostile. This means taking her to Last Light is a no-go. Why?

: Because entering combat with her causes her guards to go hostile. We need a better approach.

: By taking her somewhere that has the curse, she’ll get hit by it. It takes a minute to kill her, but it eventually will out-damage her out of combat heal.

: This runs the “make NPC a zombie” script, which prevents the guards from becoming hostile.

: Now I know what you’re wondering. “Mara”, you say, “If you can kidnap the trader to the curse zone, can’t you do this to everyone in Moonrise?” Let’s find out.

: The answer is yes. We can even kill them when they’re at low HP for the experience, but keep in mind they’ll come back as a zombie anyway.

: “Oi! You! You seen me mate? E went missin’, 'long with a few others.”

: “Karlach, kill.”

: “AAAAAAAAAAGH FUCK! IT HURTS!”

: “I think we’ve got a song for this one.”

: ONE, NOTHING WRONG WITH ME

: Two, nothing wrong with me!

: Three, nothing wrong with me!

: I don’t get it.

: Neither do I.

: You actually can’t kill everyone this way. There are two or three half-orcs who are too heavy to lift, even for Karlach.

: What you can do is kidnap everyone except the half-orcs and then kill them afterward. On tactician, this is a bit harder because there are floating eyes hovering about.

: Zrell is on the second floor, with a necromancer and some skeletons. We want to talk to her so we can kill the necromancer - otherwise, the necromancer will join the boss fight.

: By the way, if you let the drider get all the way here, he ALSO joins the boss fight. Don’t do that. From this point forward, I’m going to do a run without kidnapping anyone while also exterminating all the cultists.

: Before we go anywhere near Zrell, the first thing we want to do is go into the room next door, close the door, and wait for the patrolling eye to come in here. This is our first free kill.

: The room we were just in has a door leading outside, where these two cultists are sitting.

: These are also free kills, since the eye is dead and no one is anywhere near them.

: “General Thorm’s prayers and preparations must not be disturbed. The rooftop is off-limits to everyone.”

Radija: "Even you, Disciple Z’rell?

: “Everyone. Keep watch, and ensure that nobody passes. Excellent timing, True Soul.”

: “The goblins - tell me how they suffered. No. Better yet - show me.”

Narrator: Her mind enters yours abruptly, flickering across your memories in a blaze of excitement. She sees the goblins walking free, and a burning rage fans across your mind like wildfire.

: “Explain yourself.”

1. [DECEPTION] Dead, they’re a waste. Free, they spread the word of the Absolute.
2. [PERSUASION] They won’t get far. Let the curse take them, and save us the job of cleaning up their innards.
3. You said I could do whatever I wanted with them - so I did.

: “They won’t get far. Let the curse take them, and save us the job of cleaning up their innards.”

: “Very pragmatic. But very boring. Let’s see if there’s anything interesting in this brain of yours.”

Narrator: She parts the folds of your mind again, touching your wants and hopes. Tasting them. Every emotion soaks into her mind’s palate, but there is purpose to her exploration - she is searching for proof of your faith."

1. [PERSUASION] Distract her with thoughts of your romantic desires.
2. [DECEPTION] Fake it - fill your mind with love for the Absolute.
3. Distract her by drawing her toward your hunger for power.
4. [WISDOM] Overwhelm her by unleashing a wave of hatred as you prepare to attack.

: “Perfect. You crave what all True Souls should - to be touched by the Absolute. I have already been blessed to stand in her presence. It was bliss. She gave me everything I wanted.”

: “You had sex with the Absolute?”

: “No, I want to murder things.”

: “Oh, that’s great. I also want to murder things.”

: “You’re going to try and kill me as soon as this is done, aren’t you?”

: “Not just try. Succeed.”

: “Whatever, go find Ketheric’s necromancer buddy and get a relic from him, he’s in the family crypt, his name is Balthazar and he’s a fat lich.”

: “You can go into his room if you need a moonlantern, since our supply carrier mysteriously vanished along with half the people in this tower. Just watch out for his cursed porn stash. It’s trapped.”

: “I lost you like two minutes ago. I look forward to murdering you.”

: We get some experience for making Zrell think we’re a cultist. Let’s get back to killing.

: One side note: you can ask Zrell to “demonstrate her power”, which will make her kill the ogre somehow, though you never see her do it.

: Z’rell leaves into the room we killed the eyeball in, and now the necromancer and her skeletons are free kills.

: If Z’rell kills her ogre off, she’s alone in the room next door, so we can kill her off.

: She carries nothing but vendor trash. More importantly, we now have an entire section of the second floor cleared.

: One of the other doors leads to this central circular hallway. The guards will tell us to fuck off if we go inside, but we can open the door with the key you can get from any guard here.

: This guy is annoying because he’s a paladin and he has an eye with him. At this point, it’s possible you may need to long rest to restore your spell slots from killing the eyes.

: This door leads to Ketheric’s room, guarded by his skeleton dog. You can easily talk your way past her.

: You can also pet her before sending her to hell.

: Did we really need to kill the dog?

: Yes.

: Most of the rooms up here only really matter if Gale is your main character, or if you care about him. We don’t. Gale is only ever really plot relevant if you’re playing as him.

Confidential: Dictated to Scribe Yanthus by General Kethric

Young Gortash’s plan to enslave an illithid elder brain and make it our marionette under control of the Crown of Karsus has proceeded almost without flaw, barring the slight delay while our Bhaalist allies sorted out their leadership conflict. The weak point must surely be the sharing of the Netherstones - it was necessary to secure my engagement and that of the murder cult, but eventually it’s certain to fracture our fragile alliance. Clearly, all three Netherstones must be controlled by a single leader - me, by preference - but not until after all the stakeholders have made their essential contribution. Gortash fears that, energized by the dark energies of the Crown, the brain we now call the Absolute will eventually metamorphose into something new and more difficult to control. If he’s right, the need to invest the power of the Netherstones in a single wielder is urgent. Even more so in that Enver Gortash, at least, must be thinking the same way.

: That’s too much to bother to read, but what kind of villain writes down their evil plan and leaves it under the floorboards, especially when their plan is to kill their partners?

: No one said the villains were particularly good at their jobs.

: Sorry, went to get a drink. Did somebody find my hit list? I keep it under my bed in the box labeled “MARA’S, DO NOT TOUCH”.

: Case in point, I suppose.

: There’s not much else in here apart from this cape and some more lore dumps. We’ve already had the entire rest of the plot spoiled at this point, and I don’t know why the devs did that.

: Next door is Ketheric’s daughter’s room. I wonder who she could be?

: There’s another mimic!

: Thanks for the heads up.

: This necklace is kind of interesting if you’re an eldritch blast build, because at 10th level you can force enemies to make a save or fall prone each turn if all three of your rays hit.

: At this point, we’ve extracted most of the stuff we really need from the top of the tower. Now we can focus on killing the guards downstairs.

: I should note that the game does not expect you to do this. In fact, it very much expects you to not do this because it kinda breaks something later.

: The trick to killing everyone in the tower is to approach it from the top down. This is because of the fucky way stealth works in this game.

: First up are these two guards closest to the stairs. If attacked from behind, none of the other guards in this room will alert unless you go down the stairs.

: We reach 9th level, which isn’t particularly interesting. Lyselle and Pollux get some new, underwhelming spells. Astarion gets a third level in fighter and lowers his crit threshold by another 1.

: Killing the upper stair guards leaves a hole in the guard sight lines, which we can use to take the two guards on the lower staircase out from behind.

: Just two guards left, and both are paladins. Make sure all of the doors are closed, and then take them out.

: We’ll skip the main room with the traders in it and go over here. There are two guards and an ogre, but the door going back into the main hallway starts broken.

: Keep everyone back here and kill the ogre.

: If you’re lucky, only the cleric will see you. If not, you have to deal with both the cleric and the paladin. The cleric is a pushover.

: If the paladin died near the door, looting him will alert the merchant’s guards. They’re not a challenge. Otherwise, shooting them from inside this room should suffice.

: Half of the main room gets lured in here and is quickly exterminated. Remember to box up all the bugbear merchant’s items so they all drop on death.

: And with that, everyone that matters is dead, except an eye that got stuck on a box in the corner and noticed nothing.

: This is one of the side rooms off the room at the bottom of all the stairs, where we killed all those guards. The drow here is the source of one of the only permanent stat increases in the game.

: “Hi I’m a drow and also really horny for blood. Have I mentioned I belong to a noble house that got kicked out of Menzoberranzan for being too weird?”

: “I can believe it. Give me one reason why I shouldn’t kill you.”

: “Because if you let your vampire slave bite me I’ll give you a permanent +2 stat increase to strength.”

: “I suddenly take issue with this even though I would sell my soul and all my holes for power.”

: “He’s not my slave.”

: “Look, I need this to get off because everyone in Act 2 is a sex pervert.”

: I like how he’s all “Don’t worry I’m friendly” despite being fucking covered in blood from killing everyone else in the tower.

: “Fuck off.”

: “Tell your slave to suck me.”

: “Her blood is fucking disgusting.”

: “Just do it.”

: “We’re going to have SUCH a talk later about our relationship.”

: “We don’t have a relationship.”

: “OH BABY MOMMY’S GONNA CUUUUUUUM”

: “OH FUCK THAT’S FUCKING DISGUSTING!”

: “Here Karlach, drink this fucked up blood potion so we can kill this bitch.”

: “Yummy! I love blood!”

: “But if you don’t kill me I show up in Act 3 with a buff that makes your blood explode on hit.”

: Araj is hilariously broken. If attacked, she sprints full tilt in a t-pose through the wall. This also happens if she’s robbed.

: The only other room here is the kitchen, where we find this halfling who has mind-slaved a bunch of gnolls and is attempting to “civilize” them.

: If you make a wisdom check, you can turn them on her and have them kill her instantly. You still get the experience.

: At this point, we have nothing left to do but go to the mausoleum and find Balthazar. Everyone else is dead.

: The mausoleum is behind the house of healing. MAKE SURE that if you plan on using Astarion that you either have him use a scroll of disguise self or keep him split from the party and FAR, FAR AWAY FROM DIALOG RANGE.

: Great, this smug prick again.

: “Our hero thought but of treasure ahead, did not consider the peace of the dead.”

: “Through the dark he went creeping, and awoke what was sleeping.. a new grave they dug, which he himself fed.”

: “How long did you spend practicing that?”

: “Three days. I’ve grown quite fond of you, you know - in my way. I thought it only fair to warn you about the dangers ahead.”

: “I can handle myself, demon.”

: “Intrepid as ever. It would be pointless of me to try to bar you from entering, but I can.. set the scene, as it were. Prepare you for your role.”

1. Fine, paint me a picture.
2. How do you even know there’s danger ahead?
3. I know my role even if you don’t: killing Ketheric.
4. Just cut to the chase, will you.

: “Whatever gets you to shut up as quickly as possible.”

: “There is a stage down in the dark upon which a great drama has suspended itself in time. Its actors dwell there still, mired in the languor of their long-tired scenes.”

: “There is a creature that lurks in silence and shadow - a creature who, like me, is very much of the infernal persuasion. Should it make its way out through the very doors you are about to brazenly swing open, you’ll have unleashed a pestilence upon this realm.”

: “In truth, it is carnage incarnate. So if you meet the devil of which I speak, kill it. Consider no other course of action.”

: “Nah.”

: The mausoleum has a special buff that allows you to cast anything that summons undead without needing bodies to spawn them from.

: In the earlier patches, this was a big deal because bodies disappeared after one long rest, making it very difficult to raise skeletons.

: I should mention that we need to bring Shadowheart in or she’ll get real bitchy. If you make it to the point of no return without her, she leaves entirely.

Skull: “Nere, Z’rell, Minthara - whoever you are, leave. I shall carry out General Thorm’s will alone.”

: We’re not going to go very far into this next area in this update for two reasons. The first is that the next zone is pretty long, and the second is that I have a title for it that I want to use.

: What this will allow me to do, especially now that I’ve cross-posted the LP, is post a poll. There’s a demon in these ruins, and we have a couple of options for dealing with him.

: One thing we could do is kill him. This gets us a very good hand crossbow, but might have repercussions later. We could also spare him, which would definitely piss off Raphael.

• Kill the Demon
• Spare the Demon

: Right ahead is the door to the next area. I’m skipping some side rooms full of Ketheric’s angsty livejournal.

: There are three portraits with buttons under them. We have to trace Ketheric’s life story using them - all you have to do is press the buttons in the order I just laid out.

: Pressing them in the wrong order sets off the traps, which dump poison gas into the room that then gets lit on fire by spitting gargoyle heads.

: Before we go, there’s a chest in a corner we can unlock for a cape that I throw on Lyselle.

: Next time, we’ll cheese the trials of Shar. We’ll also fight Ketheric, then fight Ketheric’s fanfiction form before moving on to Act 3.

: Before we go, I should mention what happens if Astarion gets to talk to Raphael - Raphael offers to translate his scars in exchange for killing the demon. If you don’t kill the demon, Astarion leaves the party forever.