Zuma Path 2 (Part IV: Subtlety of Thay Walkthrough)

Part IV of the Guide to Subtlety of Thay, a NWN2 module for Obsidian's cRPG of 2006, Neverwinter Nights 2.

Zuma Path 2

Note: I'm not covering alignment shifts in dialogue because they are trivial and there are just too many of them. I'll only cover 10 point shifts and greater.

Quest: Who is Zuma? You have been given an ultimatum by Zuma, who has just revealed himself as a Red Wizard of Thay. The ultimatum is: accept his job offer or prepare to die. The first path was covered in the previous post. Here is the second:

PATH TWO: Refuse the job. Zuma turns hostile and you will be forced to slay him (100 XP).

Zuma's corpse: Mage's Skullcap, Masterwork Quarterstaff, Robe of Bones (Animate Dead charges), Bracers of Armor +1, 5 GP.

Chest behind the counter (OL DC 26, DD DC 26): chump change.

Don't bother returning to Borgen yet.. with the note destroyed he needs evidence that Zuma was Thayan. Aren't the Red Robes and my word enough?

• The door leads to the storage room.

Door: DD DC 22, OL DC 26.

• You may need to activate Search mode if you are to reveal a hidden trapdoor under one of the crates (+150 Exp). You can also simply bash the crate to reveal it. Either way, drop down the hatch.

 

• Zuma's Basement. At the bottom of the ladder you will find the corpses of human slaves who seem to have been victims of a tunnel collapse.

• Open the door and slay the hostile Gnoll Taskmaster, Gnoll Dog Handler and their attack dogs.

Dog Handler: Dog Trainer's Mitts (Hold Animal [3], 5 charges). Barrel: Fireball Bomb. Lockbox: Potion of Cure Moderate Wounds, Potion of Aid, Caster's Shield (Dispel Magic & Spiderskin charges, weight -40%), 4 GP. 

• It looks like Tarvis has wound up as a corpse here.. whether you recovered the stolen goods or not; whether you slew him on the road or not. It seems he was a smuggler for Zuma.

• The bomb will be used to destroy the portal later on. Hold onto it.

• A scroll on the table is an order to clean up the collapsed debris and keep the noise down, lest Zuma - or worse, still - someone by the name of Mistress Mythrell'aa - gets mad.

• Step through the portal to find yourself in another part of Zuma's basement. Prepare yourself for a dungeon crawl.

• Dungeon crawl. You begin in the north of the map. Slay the Gnolls and attack dogs as you make your way south down the hall.

• You will reach a jail.. unlock the cell (DC-15) to free Margal, a crazy and annoying dwarf who tags along and is hard to keep alive. You can also just slay him right then and there.

Bedroll: Amethyst, Gloves of Swordplay.

• Gnolls and their Dreadwarrior variants will mob you en route to the Barracks, which is guarded by a Gnoll Half-fiend that summons a Zombie Warrior. This is a pretty tough fight. I had to quaff a fair few healing potions to get through it. Loot the shrine to Yeenoghu of its gems.. then, take the door to the west.

Door: DD DC-15, OL DC-27.

• The overcrowded slave pen is guarded by Szass Tam (a Thayan necro) and his Half-orc enforcer, Bloodhulk.

Yay for AoOs. Pity they are not animated...

• Loot the necro's corpse for the Slave Pen Key and use it to free the slaves. Just leave them behind for the moment.

Trunk: Weapon of Impact scroll (random).

 

• Backtrack and head north to Braxas Harras' study. Braxas is another Red Wizard of Thay. She reveals that the slaves are used to transport supplies through the portals. It doesn't matter what you say, she turns hostile.

• I got lucky in this fight.. I charged her, landed a critical hit (22 dmg), and then landed a second crit on the AoO provoked by her spellcasting attempt (16 dmg). She flopped to the floor like a ragdoll (144 XP at player lvl 5).

Braxas: Wand of Ghoul Touch, Darksteel Scimitar, Potion of Cure Moderate Wounds x2, 24 GP. Liquor Cabinet: potions and a Wand of Missiles. Workbench: gems and a Heavy Shield +1.

• Be sure to loot the Inventory Ledger from the other side of the room (250 XP). It is the evidence Borgen needs of a Thayan presence in Glarondar.

• Now, to get out of this awful place! Backtrack to the previous room with two other locked doors. One of them requires a key that you don't have at this point. Unlock the other and be careful of this trap-laden hall (OL DC-25, DD DC-19/23/19).

• The slaves try to bust their way out! As you approach the portal a second Gnoll Half-fiend catches up with you. The stupid kamikaze slaves will attack the dog-heads. By the time I reached the scene of battle, every last one of the slaves had been hacked to bits by them!

• Ok, we're almost done here. Step through the portal, slay the gnolls that follow you through to the other side, and then use the Fireball Bomb to destroy the portal!

• Deliver the ledger to Borgen to cap off this quest (500 XP, 300 GP). 

Completed Quest: Who is Zuma?

.

Ok, back to the main quest...

Main Quest: Recover the Amulet. Now, regardless of whether you followed PATH ONE or PATH TWO you may now inquire into your reward for retrieving the amulet, and advance the main quest. You could have done this much earlier but I decided to complete the side quests in and around town, first.

• Anyway, Borgen assures you that your monetary reward is being "processed" and that you should come back tomorrow to collect it. Now, this "tomorrow" is a scripted one. That means you cannot just advance the day in real-time or by resting just anywhere: you MUST rest at the inn.

You can get Borgen to cough up some chump change to cover your stay at the inn, if you're cheap enough.

• Head over to the Daft Dancer inn and request a room for the night from Murdock, the innkeeper.

• Head upstairs and rest in your room until the next morning. Your room is the one at the end of the hall and you must click on the bed and choose to rest until morning by means of the dialogue choice given.

• The next day a guard tracks you down at the inn and notifies you to meet Captain Borgen at the museum, immediately! It seems there was an incident there last night...

Continued in Part V.

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