Act III

Founder’s Sanctum

The Founder’s Sanctum is somehow connected to the Academy, but it’s not nearly as pleasant. The dank hallways are barren, except for the presence of the Myrkulites; worshipers of Myrkul that are looking for the same person you are. They’re nasty enemies, and many of them are warlocks, to boot.

Head to the north from the entrance, and eventually you’ll find a room that branches. To the west is a teleporter; step on it to fight some elementals, if you happen to need more spirit energy. To the northeast, you’ll find another large room with many a Myrkulite in it. The teleporter here will lead to a room with Spiritwalkers in it, and an awesome shield for clerics in a chest, but the teleporter that leads onward is to the south of the obvious one.

Taking Down Araman

As the auto-save before the last teleporter indicates, there’s a tough fight coming. Araman, along with his Mykrulite cronies, are waiting for you before the door that leads to the Founder.

Araman and his cronies are tough, so be sure to call in some backup before approaching.

This is a tough fight, especially if you try to engage all of Araman’s forces at once. Araman, in particular, has a nasty spell that he’ll cast that will stun most of your party for a lengthy amount of time if they fail their saves. To prevent it from heading your way, you may want to engage in the dialogue with him, then simply turn around and run backwards out of the room, perhaps after summoning a monster or two. Ammon Jerro will be uncontrollable here, as well, but he’s powerful enough to take out a few of the Myrkulites by himself.

When the situation stabilizes a bit, head back into the room and get to work. Araman is just another spellcaster, so any sufficiently powerful melee character will be able to take him on. Kill him and his men, then loot the bodies.

Conversations With The Founder

Head through the door here to speak with the Founder. Safiya and she will converse first, and Safiya confirms something you probably long suspected. This is another ultra-lengthy conversation, so take the time to soak up all the information that the Founder provides you. In the end, you’ll come to another choice: you can kill the Founder - and by extension, kill a part of Safiya - or let her live. Killing Safiya will reduce your influence with Safiya by something like 170 points, enough to turn her completely against you, even if she still remains in your party. You’ll also be able to loot the Red Guard bracers from her body, which offers 25% immunity to magic, immunity to level and ability drains, and three casts per day of the Greater Dispelling spell.

Even though we were evil, keeping Safiya on our good side was well worth the thought of having the Founder running around in a tomb. Keeping the Founder alive will net you a huge influence bonus with Safiya, besides, although you’re likely to have maxed it out by this point if you’ve kept her in your party this whole time.

A thousand years of living has taken its toll on the Founder.

Either way you go, the Founder will give you the true Silver Sword of Gith, which will be a pretty powerful weapon to put in the hands of anyone who can use it. You can also find the secret room behind the exit portal here to find the Mourningring and the Thayan Knight Halfplate, both very good magical items.

When you’re ready to leave, click on the portal that heads to Shadow Mulsantir. Ammon Jerro will leave your party at this point, but he’ll promise to rejoin you later on.

Wells of Lurue

After heading through to the Veil, feel free to return to Shadow Mulsantir, or, if you need spirits or to resolve any unfinished quests or stock up on new items, return to Mulsantir itself and continue on from there. If you haven’t finished the Love’s Sweet Torment quest in the Wells of Lurue, now would be a good time to get that done.

Speaking of the Wells of Lurue, there’s one last task for you to complete before you head into the Death God’s Vault. You should have obtained two Mask Fragments in the game thus far: once from encountering Bishop in the Wall of the Faithless, and once from sleeping by the rock in the Immil Vale. (If you didn’t obtain the latter, feel free to head there now and do so.)

However, there’s one more mask fragment that you can obtain. Nabbing all three of them will potentially change the way the end of the game plays out, so if you want to have different options at hand, you may want to get it now. To do so, head to the northeastern corner of the Wells and drink from the pools there after buffing yourself and Gann. If you do so, you’ll enter…

Dreamscape: Wells of Lurue

This last dreamscape will hold the key to saving Akachi permanently.

Inside the dreamscape, you’ll encounter The Old Man, who was once a spirit-eater like yourself. He was the one who sought to trap the spirit-eating curse inside Okku’s barrow, to prevent anyone else from finding it and taking it into themselves. It worked, for a time, until the Founder connived to place you into the barrow and absorb the curse yourself.

When you defeat the creatures here, speak to the boy to learn that he is Araman as a young man. He’ll give you the Mask Fragment (Boy) before the dream breaks up.

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