Ice Caves of Sorrow (mission)

Objective: Rescue Evennia and Saidra from the Mursaat.

Background: The truth about the White Mantle has been revealed. They are a cult worshipping strange beings known as the Mursaat. Having achieved Ascension, you are now (supposedly) ready to return to save the Shinig Blade and stop the White Mantle. While you were away, the White Mantle have cornered the Shinig Blade into the Shiverpeaks and have captured both Evennia and Saidra.

Mission Walkthrough: You begin the mission facing a group of Pinesouls and Imps. Beware because near them there will be a group of Mursaat Elementalists. They are the floating beings with golden outfits and black tentacles coming out of their back. Avoid them at all cost. All Mursaat (this includes spell casters as well as Jade Armors and Jade Bows) have a power called Spectral Agony. For now this power will wipe out your entire party in a matter of seconds. It will massively drain away your hit points.

Sneak around the Mursaat and head left. You will come across an area being pounded by seige weapons and several groups of Stone Summit. Kill them and pass the seige area. You will see two paths, a bridge and a way down onto an icy path (where the Stone Summit have set up their seige weapons). Follow the path down into the ice and destroy the group protecting the first seige weapon and the second. Fire the second weapon and you will see a cutscene where a herd of Yaks rampages through the White Mantle encampent and helps destroy the seige weapons for you.

Now, go back up and cross the bridge into the White Mantle camp. Immediately up the hill will be a gate guarded by Jade Armors. Avoid them. If you continue to the left of that gate, you will find a path around to another door guarded by the less imposing White Mantle. Kill the patrols and grab a keg from the near-by Powder station and blow the door away.

You will enter into an ice cave. If you keep to the left side of thecave you will be able to go around all the Mursaat groups and out into an area that has a circular path with a pit in the middle. Evennia and Saidra are opposite to you on this circle. So, you can either go left or right around it. You will need to avoid the Mursaat and the easier path to do that is to go left. Thereis one patrol to dodge. Then there is a patrol of White Mantle Savants and Psychophants which you can take out. There you will find a cave that will take you around the left side of the circle and get you out very near the cell. There is another patrol of Mursaat to dodge here. There is a near-by powder station (past the cell). Get a keg and blow the cell door.

A cut scene will show you that Saidra sacrificed herself for you. Boo hoo. Now you will need to blow a gate then run Evennia to the ship. By now you should be very adept at running.

Bonus
The bonus in this mission is rather straight forward, but I am not sure how it can be done at the first time you do this mission. At this point you have no infusion on your armor (next mission) and so you cannot stand up to the Mursaat. Doing the bonus requires that you fight at least three groups of Mursaat.

Anyways, the bonus is to rescue an imprisoned dwarf. There are two points to this bonus:


 * 1) The prisoner is located in a cell that is inside the ice cave you took to get to the circular path where Evennia's cell was. Before exiting to the circular path, you will see a path in the cave to the right. This path is guarded by Jade Armors. Fight them, and then fight the Mursaat spell casters after them and then you will get to a locked door. Get a powder keg and blow this door open. This will lead to a snowy path guarded by White Mantle and at the end you will find a small cell with the dwarf inside (you'll need to blow it up to speak to him).
 * 2) There is a second dwarf who is looking for this prisoner. He can be found after rescuing Evennia. When you rescue her, she will lead you to a closed gate by her cell. Blow the door open and you will go into a short ice cave. After you come out, you will see a path and a HUGE number of Mursaat coming from your right and she will ask you to run. Ignore her advice and wait at the exit from the caves. The group of Mursaat will pass from the right to the left. Now go where they came from and you should see a dwarf there.

Now you can actually go about doing this bonus in either order:
 * Free the prisoner, have him follow you to the other dwarf.
 * Speak to the rescue dwarf, he'll ask you to look for the prisoner, go back and free the prisoner and he'll thank you and you'll get the bonus (with the added benefit of not having him follow you).

Either way you will notice that it will be very hard to do the mission and the bonus on the first attempt (if not for having to fight Mursaat, then for the large host of Mursaat you just allowed to be ahead of you on your way to the boat). I suggest you do the mission, then after you get infused in the next mission, comeback and just do the bonus.