Infiltrate Moonrise Towers Walkthrough | Baldur’s Gate III

Welcome to NGB and our Baldur’s Gate III walkthrough on the Infiltrate Moonrise Towers quest. Infiltrate Moonrise Towers is the first quest of Act II in Baldur’s Gate III. Having reached the Shadow-Cursed Lands, the party’s mission is to infiltrate the cult of the Absolute to learn more about them.

Objectives

• Reach Moonrise Towers
  • Seek Protection from the Shadow Curse
  • Resolve the Abduction
  • Find Ketheric Thorm’s Relic

Infiltrate Moonrise Towers Walkthrough

Reach Moonrise Towers

Coming from Underdark

For this section, we arrived in the shadow-cursed lands from the Underdark. Follow the main path until a cutscene with a group of Harper triggers. After a couple of dialog options, you’ll be thrown into a fight against a group of Shadows. Defeat them, and then one of the Harpers will mark Last Light Inn on your map as a place of refuge.

Seek Protection from the Shadow Curse

Make your way to the Last Light Inn, west of where you met the Harpers. As soon as you enter the town, a cutscene will trigger, and you’ll be interrogated. Mol will come to your rescue if you save the grove (and will even bring up you saving her friends from the harpies and the snake… if you did). You’ll then have the option to show the artefact to your interrogator and tell her everything that’s happened. As long as you don’t attack her, you should be permitted to stay in the town. Feel free to look around and speak with the people there. When you’re finally ready to proceed with the story, locate Jaheira and speak with her. This will kick off a conversation where she toasts your health. If you pass a Medicine skill check, you’ll notice that a truth serum has been added to your drink. She’ll ask you to drink anyway, but the choice is yours. If you comply, your whole party will disapprove. Refuse to drink, and most of your party will approve. Jaheira will then ask if she can trust you. The choice is yours! (We said she could trust us). Toward the end of the conversation, she will send you upstairs to speak with Isobel. Make sure you are healed up first because this will lead to a fight. (See Resolve the Abduction below for more info).

After the fight, head to the town entrance and speak with the Harpers standing on the bridge. They will tell you about an ambush to get what the cultists use to move through the shadows. Agree to meet them there, then set out for the ambush site south of the town.

Approach them to trigger a cutscene with a group of enemies walking with a lantern. One of them will notice you, allowing you to attack them. You can also pass a series of skill checks to make them give you the lantern and bugger off (that’s what we did). Head over to the lantern and pick it up. Inside, causing it to glow, is a pixie. She’ll say if you don’t free her, she’ll die. If you choose to keep her in the lantern, she’ll be super salty, and you’ll have safe passage through the shadow. You can ask her for help with the shadow curse if you release her. She will then give you a bell with a permanent blessing to ward it off. You’ll now be free to reach Moonrise Towers. Continue on with the Infiltrate the Cult of the Absolute objective below.

Resolve the Abduction

Enter Isobel’s room, then head for the balcony to find her there. Speak with Isobel to begin a cutscene leading to a conversation with the cleric. As the end of the conversation nears, someone shows up to kidnap her. You’ll have the choice to stand with Isobel or side with Marcus. For now, we are siding with Isobel. This leads to a fight against Marcus and a handful of Winged Horrors. You must defeat all enemies before they reduce Isobel’s health to 0. This will cause her to get knocked out, and they will leave with her. Make sure she stays healed and remove the enemies as quickly as possible.

Infiltrate the Cult of the Absolute

Once you reach Moonrise Towers, you’ll be greeted by another True Soul. You’ll be allowed entry if you don’t attack them. You can also sell out the Harpers, but we aren’t doing that during this playthrough. Head inside to reach the entrance hall, then pass through the Absolute’s Door to trigger a cutscene. When prompted, do what you will with the goblins (note that Disciple Z’rell will check later), then head up the stairs behind the throne to find Z’rell and speak with her. After reviewing how you dealt with the goblins, she’ll assault your mind to see if you truly believe in the Absolute. You’ll need to pass a skill check to distract her. She’ll then say she has a mission for you and will send you to the Mausoleum. (You also can attack her here, but we are playing the spy role for now).

Before heading to the Mausoleum, head to Balthazar’s room past the library where Z’rell is, and use the key she gave you to unlock the door. Head to the bookshelf and look for the Protruding Book on the bottom right. Interact with it to unlock the altar to the right of the bookshelf. Next, loot the corpse in the room or Viscera’s pile of flex for a heart, then interact with the altar and combine the heart with it. This will open a secret door behind the bookshelf. Head inside and read the Research Notes.

Investigate the Thorm Mausoleum

So, there are a couple of ways you can start this objective. First is to follow the story and speak with Disciple Z’rell, who will send you here on your first mission. The other is by talking with the Brewer at the Waning Moon near Moonrise Towers and questioning him during a drinking game. Once you get this objective, make your way to the Mausoleum north of Moonrise Towers and head inside (if you haven’t been here yet, Raphael will be waiting. Make sure you bring Astarion with you as it’s needed for his companion quest).

Once inside, make your way to the northern part of the area to find a sarcophagus belonging to Isobel Thorm. There will be 3 portraits with buttons under them that you’ll need to push in the correct order. That order is SW (tower), SW (Thorm with wife), then N (Thorm sitting on Thorn). This will open a secret path in the northern wall. Follow the newly opened path and use the traversal gem at the end to reach the Gauntlet of Shar. (You also might want Shadowheart in your party as this is tied to her companion quest).

Follow the path north and through the doorway at the end to reach a room with a statue of Shar in the middle and a gem in front of it, protected by an invisible barrier. There are also a ton of traps scattered around the room that you’ll need to watch out for. You’ll need to reach out and interact with the gem to move forward. Start by heading to the four crypts (watch out for the floor traps on each one) on both sides of the statue, then flip the levers on each one. This will lower 4 Mystyic Thuribles from the roof to surround the statue, putting the total number of Thruibles to 8. You’ll then need to interact with each one to put the flame out and cause the barrier to appear. You can now follow the path to reach the gem, but you’ll want to ungroup a single character and use them to do it.

You can pass through the door north of the statue leading to a hallway. Head up the stairs and to the left to find a group of skeletons who will speak with you. Shadows will attack you after a couple of lines of dialog. First, focus on destroying all 3 Umbral Termors to stop them from spawning in more skeletons, then focus on the remaining enemies. After the battle, follow the path west past the Ancient Sigil Circle to find another group of skeletons. Approaching them will trigger an event leading to another battle with the dead. As before, focus on the Umbral Tremors first, except this time, a few more will spawn each turn for a few turns. Once that fight is done, the door the skeletons were guarding open,s allowing you to speak with Balthazar.

You can present yourself as an ally or take him out during this conversation! For now, we chose to play along. He’ll send you to search for the Nightsong. To reach it, follow our Daughter of Darkness guide here as it relates to Shadowheart’s companion quest. Your choice with the Nightsong determines how the rest of the act plays out.

Assault Moonrise Towers (Saved Nightsong)

Having saved the Nightsong, the assault on Moonrise Towers has commenced. Beforehand, you can stop at Last Light and speak with Isobel to tell her what’s happening. After that, head to Moonrise Towers and enter the fray! Approach the tower to catch up with Jaheira via a cutscene, where you can tell her the plan of attack. You can also convince her to join your party as a secondary member if you want, and you’ll also want to loot the dead to find a couple of tadpoles if you’re using their powers.

Head inside to start a battle with Disciple Z’rell, Glourik, a small army of zealots, and Lann Tarv. If you freed the gnolls in the kitchen earlier, they will join as allies; after the battle, head up to the next level, where you’ll have to face Radija and her undead minions. She’ll use an incubation spell that explodes and summons another if you kill one. Once they are dealt with, head through the Ornate Door.

You’ll now be face-to-face with Ketheric, and a dialog will ensue. No matter your choices, you’ll have to fight the boss man. His faithful hound, Susdera, and a handful of Necromites will join him. When his health gets low, a cutscene will trigger where Ketheric will be teleported away. You’ll have to mop up any stragglers before you can pursue. Also, make sure to loot the Bone Key off of Susdera and use it to loot the chest near where Ketheric was. This will completed the Infiltrate Moonrise Towers quest.

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