Moving On

Codex of the Doomed

This quest sounds like it should be the name of some cheesy 70’s paperback fantasy novel. Still, in order to find your soul, you’ll need to meet up with the Scrivener. Head to Eternity’s End and enter the Temple of Kelemvor there.

The Scrivener is inside. You can choose to attack him or not; this appears to be a simple good guy/bad guy decision. If you do, he’ll fall easily; he casts some buffing spells, but he won’t be able to do much against the damage you’re probably outputting at this point. Further into the Temple, you’ll find a sarcophagus with the very nice Steadfast Chain, an excellent set of armor for Gann or a rogue in your party. You’ll also find the aforementioned Codex. Read it, and you’ll find the location of your soul in the Wall of the Faithless.

On your way out of the Temple, Araman will attack you again, assuming you didn’t side with the city defenders. He’ll be an easy kill.

Wall of the Faithless

You can find the Wall on the southern side of the map when you enter the map screen. Kelemvor himself will appear before you here. He appears not unsympathetic to your cause, and though he disagrees with your methods, will allow you to approach the wall.

Kelemvor is unable to intervene in your quest.

Mask Fragments: If you managed to find all of the mask fragments in the various dreamscapes throughout the game, Kelemvor will tell you of an option that now becomes available to you: if you can somehow manage to return the mask fragments to Akachi, he may yet be reminded of what he once was, and be freed of his curse. If, on the other hand, you didn’t manage to retrieve all three fragments, this conversation simply won’t occur.

If you sided with Rammaq before and gave over the two Tomes to him, his minion, Blademistress Sorona, will be waiting for you here. Stand next to her while you buff; you can cast Stoneskin on her, if you like. When you head towards the wall, you’ll need to attack your spirit which lays embedded within. The wall will counterattack with golems and laser beams, of all things. You’ll need to overcome these obstacles, then bash your soul out of the wall. When you’ve succeeded…well, you’ve succeeded! Take your soul, absorb it into your body, and you’ll have eliminated the curse of the spirit-eater.

Dreamscape - Crossroads Keep

Uh, not so fast! It would appear that freeing your soul has simply allowed the beast that Akachi has become to devour your soul from within. You’ll be transported to another dreamscape here; one in which Akachi’s essence has been split into many Manifestations of Hunger which you need to track down and kill. If you’ve managed to form an especially strong link with one of your followers, they’ll also appear on the battlefield and help you out.

Quickly make your way through the Manifestations here.

Your goal here is pretty simple - find and kill all of the Manifestations of Hunger before they manage to kill all the fragments of your soul that are wandering around, in the personifications of the followers that you had back to NWN2. This can be easy or difficult, depending on your class; fighter characters will find it pretty easy to kill a Manifestation with just a round or so of wailing on them, while casters may find it more difficult to take them down quickly. Summon helper creatures if you can to help in the battle. It’s pretty important to keep as many of your soul creatures alive as possible; each one that dies will impact your remaining spirit energy, which you’ll need to keep as high as possible to survive this gauntlet.

When all of the Manifestations have been defeated, head up the hill to face the Faceless Man. He shouldn’t be very difficult to defeat, at this point; he mirrors your own abilities. Kill him and move on.

Into The Keep

When you enter the keep, you’ll warp to West Harbor, where more Manifestations are killing your childhood friends. Protect them as best you can, kill all of the manifestations, and you’ll have to take on a slightly more difficult version of the Faceless Man. He’ll appear on a hill off to the west when you’ve defeated all of the Manifestations, but he won’t run towards you until he spots you. Take advantage of this and pelt him from a distance with a powerful spell before engaging him.

West Harbor has been the scene of battles before, but nothing quite like this.

When you defeat the Faceless Man a second time, the Founder will appear to you, and lay down the law on how things are going to go after your final encounter with the Faceless Dude. If you choose to slay him in this dreamscape, your soul will be freed, and you’ll be able to continue about your life, but the curse of the spirit-eater will pass on to another. If, on the other hand, you keep Akachi alive, his spirit will slumber within you somewhere, Myrkul will remain dead, and the curse will be lifted…but you’ll never be able to leave the City of Judgment again. If you happened to reunite the Mask of the Betrayer, then you may attempt to remind Akachi of what he once was, reform his essence, and restore him to life.

But first…you must fight.

The Soul

When you pass through the final portal, it’ll be you versus Akachi, with perhaps some help from your teammate, if any of them managed to walk into your dreamscape with you. Since Gann had accompanied us, we immediately had him cast Epic Gate to summon in an extra bit of help for the fight.

Ah, the loving embrace of a demon's wings. This guy will be a big help against Akachi if you can cast Epic Gate.

Akachi is a tough enemy indeed, and even incredibly well-geared characters may have a tough time with him. He deals negative energy damage, so if you have any equipment or spells that protect you from it, you may want to use them now. Something like the Bracers of the Inner Planes or the Deathless Diadem, if you happened to kill Rammaq, might be useful. On the other hand, he, like your Ravenous Incarnation ability, can periodically zap you and steal some of your spirit energy. If that drops to zero, then you’ll be dead, so you’ll need to periodically use your own Devour Spirit ability on him. You can use it as often as you like here, with no cooldown, but using it will prevent you from doing anything else for a turn, including attacking, but you will wind up doing a good deal of damage with each blast.

As the fight progresses, Akachi will shed parts of himself and create minions of himself. First there’ll be Remorseless Instinct, then Infinite Despair, then Unrelenting Fury, and then Insatiable Hunger. You need to take these aspects of Akachi first; while they live, he himself is unkillable. Kill them while whatever summoned creature you have keeps Akachi busy, then return to attacking him. Repeat the process until Hunger is dead, then focus all your fire on Akachi to finish him off.

Aftermath

Awesome.

With Akachi lying at your feet, all that remains to be determined is what action you take. There’s a relatively good result, one somewhat neutral option, and one particularly evil act. If you choose the evil choice, be sure to bind the feat that you earn onto your action bar and use it in the next fight. If you can’t manage to identify the scythe that Akachi drops, it’s appropriately called Akachi’s Scythe. It’s pretty amazing, too, with a damage bonus of 4d6 negative energy, Damage Reduction 10/-, and a +10 Enhancement Bonus. If you happen to have a weapon master, feel free to place it in your inventory and export your character to another module.

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