Lift the Shadow Curse |
|
|---|---|
| Type | Quest |
| Act | Act 2 |
| Location | RUINED BATTLEFIELD |
| Reward | Halsin companion and Ally in Gather your Allies |
Lift the Shadow Curse is a Quest in Baldur's Gate 3. Lift the Shadow Curse can be acquired during Act 2 and is related to Halsin. Completing Quests allows players to learn more about the world and characters in Baldur's Gate 3, as well as earning more loot and experience to become more powerful.
Help Halsin remove the shadow curse surrounding Moonrise Towers.
Lift the Shadow Curse Objectives
- Look for clues as to Thaniel's whereabouts.
- Meet Halsin by the Lakeshore.
- Defend the Portal.
- Meet Halsin at camp.
- After this step, Halsin may be recruited as a follower during normal gameplay.
- Seek Thaniel's Shadow.
- Speak to Halsin at camp.
- Kill Ketheric Thorm.
Lift the Shadow Curse Walkthrough
- Go to Last Light Inn, and talk to Art Cullagh. He is magically asleep in the first room on the right of the Inn, the ground floor. You will need to complete the quest Wake up Art Cullagh. (You need to deal with Malus Thorm in House of Healing and retrieve the Battered Lute)
- If Art is dead, you can cast Speak with Dead to interrogate him and continue the quest.
- Return to Halsin at camp, and talk to him. He will move to the lakeside north of Last Light Inn.
- Make your team combat ready then speak with him on the lakeside. He will trigger a time-based fight where you must defend his portal into Shadowfell from waves of Wraiths, Shadows, Shadow Mastiffs, Shadow Creepers, and Shadow-Cursed Harpers, Flaming Fists, Zealots, and Githyanki Warriors. If the portal is destroyed, the quest fails and Halsin is lost.
- Three waves of many enemies will spawn. AoE Spells such as Wall of Fire, Sleet Storm, Guardian of Faith and Fireball are very handy. (You can also place explosives to make the fight easier.)
- Halsin will talk to you when all enemies are dead or the timer for him to return elapses. He then returns to camp with Thaniel.
- Talk with Halsin at camp. He will task you to look for Oliver (the strange boy you met in House in Deep Shadows). He can be found directly east of the Shadowed Battlefield waypoint.
- From this point on, you can have Halsin follow you like any other character. This is however not required to complete the quest.
- Find and talk to Oliver. You may need to play hide and seek with him.
He will hide first near the cart outside of the small hut, and then inside the house again. Merely walking close to him reveals him.
- Ask Oliver to reunite with Thaniel. He refuses, and opens a portal inside the house where you met him. You can take it to follow him to the center of the town, where you must defeat him by breaking his shadow dome.
- Mommy and Daddy, when killed, will deal 60 damage each to the dome.
- Oliver will create 6 copies of himself, each with 1 HP, on each of his turns, if none are present. Killing each shadow clone will deal 10 damage to the shadow dome.
- Killing Mommy, Daddy, and the shadow clones is the most efficient way to destroy the dome. Using Magic Missile is an easy way to destroy the clones.
- The dome's description when you inspect it says it reflects double the damage dealt to it back to the attacker, but that doesn't seem to actually be the case (as of Patch #4). So you can also trying attacking the dome directly.
- Return to camp and speak with Thaniel and Halsin to finish the quest.
How to unlock Lift the Shadow Curse
- Talk to Halsin during Act 2.
Lift the Shadow Curse Rewards
- Halsin may be recruited as a follower during and after the completion of this quest.
- Ally in Gather Your Allies
Lift the Shadow Curse Notes & Tips
- If you already completed Act 2, you can still start this quest even if Art Cullagh is dead by casting Speak with Dead on Art's body. This will let you ask him about Thaniel. After you do so, talk to Halsin to continue the quest.
- This is one of the times where you can ask more than five questions to the target during Speak with Dead.
- Proceeding to the Gauntlet of Shar Inner Sanctum before this quest triggers Art's death[please confirm].
- Finishing this quest will not actually remove the shadow curse from around Moonlight Tower. Halsin states that "it will take some time" for it to heal.
- Quest completion will trigger by entering Act 3.
AnonymousI'm experiencing the strangest bug - I entered the shadows and rescued Oliver, but there's no portal back. I can't teleport to camp or anywhere else.
- Anonymous
vast majority of the enemies came down from the graveyard. that first spawn on the shore is a waste of spell slots for lingering effects
- Anonymous
There's several strategies for the portal fight, but this is what worked easiest for me.
1. Cast Sleet Storm on the left side of the area, where the enemies spawn in, it doesn't have to reach their spawn point but it should cover any ground between the point and your platform.
2. Cast Hunger of Hadar on the spawn area to the left, it will overlap Sleet Storm a but.
3. Have Shadowheart/any Cleric cast Radiant Spirit Guardians and chill on the platform.ll
4. Cast Darkness on the ground in front of the platform and have Wyll stand in it. Wyll should have Devil's Sight and the Sentinel feat as a Pact of the Blade Warlock. If Wyll is casting Hunger of Hadar, have your 4th member cast Darkness or use a Scroll so that Wyll can maintain concentration on Hunger of Hadar.
The adds from the left will virtually never reach the platform because they'll keep falling on the ice and being slowed by Hunger of Hadar. Your party stays on the platform, minus Wyll, and picks off the enemies with ranged cantrips and ranged weapons, don't bother casting Fireball or anything, you need to maintain concentration on the above area spells. If Wyll has Sentinel, any enemies who enter Darkness will get hit with opportunity attacks and be unable to move. The only enemies that may reach the platform are the crows and the creeper vines and Spirit Guardians will destroy them quickly.
Remember you don't need to kill all the enemies, only last 4 rounds, which is very easy to do with this strategy as you near completely lock down the field. It's even worth respeccing some characters to accomplish this as you get tons of item drops to sell and make back your gold after the fight is over.
- Anonymous
As stated before in a reply: Don't leave Act 2 scenery, if you want to meet Halsin at the Last Light Inn - based on my playthrough. I didn't managed to win the fight at first, so I decided to gain a few more levels. Afterwards Halsin disappeared and wasn't where he was supposed to be. I did enter Act 1 to sell some stuff - that's where I broke my questline. Luckily it was a mere hour, so I loaded an older save game and played exactly as intended, but without selling the stuff. Now Halsin is waiting for me at the Last Light Inn. Hopefully this helps someone:)
- Anonymous
If you complete the portal fight while some kind of area of effect spell or damage type is applying to the shadow child, the appropriate cutscene won't begin, you'll kill him, and then the quest completely breaks. He needs to be alive and his 'bubble' needs to be burst--and ALL other enemies need to be dead--in order for the cutscene to trigger.
Having a cleric with spirit guardians is pretty key. You can lockdown the shadows with Tasha's or a variety of other means. Not a super dangerous fight, but the kids he summons do hit fairly hard, as will the owlbear. Necrotic is the dominant form of damage.
- Anonymous
Just for moderators to confirm, I played through the entirety of the Gauntlet and saved the Nightsong before doing this quest and Art was still alive for me.
- Anonymous
So I did everything I was supposed to and this stupid kid just gave me a ring, nothing else will happen I cant make this **** progress. This quest feels broken, its also just shitty I had to reload like 4 times because you fail on a perception check that happens automatically. This game is good by my god is there so much horrible crap in it that is so unfun
- Anonymous
I didn't play with the kid and defeated the shadows before this was a quest. Now I have quest Seek Thaniel's Shadow but he's not at the location. Have to talk to Halsin and say something like "I saw a kid that looked like Thaniel but he's dead now" and Halsin tells you he's hiding. Went back to the location and Thaniel was now at the location.
i totally skipped this quest as i never spoke to anyone related to it... i noticed this quest existed after dealing with the immortal dude and preparing to go to baldur... is this quest relevant?
- Anonymous
I played the instrument for Art and was prompted by Halsin to meet him at the shore. I did the rest of the Shadowlands (except moonrise) and most of the Gauntlet of Shar and the monastery first, thinking that might lock me out of some content if I remove the curse straight away.
Halsin was now stuck in camp, saying I need to find an unliving witness. I talked to Art again, who gave me the same journal update I had already received - to meet Halsin at the lake. Talking to Halsin again, he just repeated the dialogue options.
I loaded a bunch of saves, fortunately finding one at the very end of shar's temple (which seemingly still counts as part of the shadowlands), and I could still meet Halsin by the shore at this point. It looks like changing areas will break this quest, so once you talk to Art, be sure to follow through with the quest!
- Anonymous
Is there any chance of progressing in the mission even if you killed Oliver long before starting Halsing's mission to find him?
I'm asking for a friend.
I read somewhere that you can let Halsing know that you killed Oliver and he will tell you that as a spirit he can't die.
- Anonymous
Ok, if you can't speak to Oliver to get him to go to Thaniel after beating him at his games, just cast a fireball at him and it'll force the quest to move along to the portal stage. After that just win the portal fight and he'll go to Thaniel after you speak to him.
- Anonymous
I started the Hide and Seek thing with Oliver but never completed it, after that I proceeded to wake Art/defend portal etc etc. Now the quest is stuck at "Speak to Halsin in camp". Have since completed Oliver quest, however now he won't speak to me beyond giving me default lines and force ending converation and the quest marker is still stuck on speak to Halsin. Anyone know of any fixes?
- Anonymous
Aight I figured out how it bugs. So you need* his lute to wake up the art or talk to dead body. then when you deal with thaniels other half it can bug during the fight. drop a quick save. if you dont kill all the other enemies and attack thaniel the quest cant progress at all. the marker will be messed up and you will have to reload the save. you need to finish off all the enemies and his dome. then a cutscene will trigger.
- Anonymous
Don't be like me and keep asking yourself: "Why won't this quest progress or give me any clues?!" Instead, check for the quest "Wake up Art Cullagh" after having read the letter produced from his belongings and hit "Show on map". Things will become alot more clear after that....
- Anonymous
another note is if you complete act 2 without talking to Art Cullagh then halsin will have disappeared from your camp, but he is in the moonrise tower you can recruit him again or continue the quest if you "speak with dead" art Cullagh and then find him in the tower again.
- Anonymous
I already met oliver and played with him before i met halsin so i couldnt progress i think, so what i did was to go with halsin to oliver and attack oliver so he flees into his portal. that worked for me but im not sure if there was anything else that couldve progressed the quest lol.
- Anonymous
The walkthrough on this page should say that the lady by the sleeping dude gives you a "worn letter" and you need to read it to progress. dont be like me and think its bugged.
- Anonymous
I've gotten to a point where I did hide and seek with oliver and the two specters and all he keeps saying is "Not back to gloat, are you? Nobody likes a bad winner." and I can't seem to progress further.
- Anonymous
I completely missed and forgot this questline all the way to the end of the act and I hate that it all begins with some guy in the Inn sleeping or dead who's very easy to miss and forget.
Shadowheart / clerics are a godsend to this entire quest, thanks to Spirit Guardians and Turn Undead for killing / weakening / distracting the weak shadow mobs.
- Anonymous
I freed the Nightsong and killed Thorm, Halsin isn't at camp nor at the lake so I guess it's either bugged or auto-fail? only thing left I can do is go to Baldur's Gate. Oliver claims he won the Hide-and-Seek somehow, when I found him, then killed the shadows, Mommy and Daddy, and the Dog, too! Then found him again... Oh well. guess it'll be cursed forever, even tho Aasimar flew around and cleared the curse after freed the first time, says the curse is still there even tho I can walk around without moon lantern without problems
- Anonymous
I had a glitch where the next step was to find Oliver in the Shadowed battlefield, but for some reason the objective kept telling me to talk to Halsin at camp and it never went more forward.
I've since reunited Oliver and Thaniel and finished the quest, but the marker and objective are still there — the game doesnt think that its progressed. So you can complete it to its end, but not actually progress it for the game. If there's an achievement for it, you'll have to use a steam achievement app to unlock it should this happen to you. I scoured all around forums and saw no one with this problem, though
- Anonymous
Art didn't die for me after I finished Shar's gauntlet.
I didn't wake him before finishing it, so mileage may vary. Can't find Halsin tho
- Anonymous
Shittty quest is bugged if you dont play with him. He not show up anymore.
- Anonymous
The quest does not autofail if you do the gauntlet of Shar. You can save it by using speak with dead on the corpse in last light inn then speaking to halsin in moonrise if you've killed ketheric, provided you didn't start act 3.
- Anonymous
Super fun portal fight, but I didn't expect it to be so big, and had no spell slots on Wyll nor Gale lol. As it does with the entire Shadowlands, the Blood of Lathander did a lot of heavy lifting with the absence of AOE spells since it just blinds everything. Most enemies lock onto the portal, so if you can take out the ranged enemies, often times sheer damage from opportunity attacks on melee enemies as they run towards the portal can take them out.
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