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 Shining Blade and stop the White Mantle. While you were away, the White Mantle have cornered the Shining Blade into the Shiverpeak Mountains 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 health.

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 a bridge and a way down onto an icy path (where the Stone Summit have set up their seige weapons). Go onto ice and destroy the group protecting the first seige weapon and the second. Fire the second weapon (point A) and you will see a cutscene where a herd of Yaks rampages through the White Mantle encampent and helps destroy the seige weapons and forces for you. (Note: Skipping this cut scene has prevented the whole party from getting a morale boost for destroying the catapults at least once. You should get 8%.)

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 (point B) 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 (facing a few White Mantle 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 (point C). 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 (point D). 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. Follow the purple path on the map to the ship (point E).

Bonus
The bonus in this mission is rather straight forward, but it is not clear if it can be done 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 two 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. Before exiting the cave, you will see a path in the cave to the right (green path on map). 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 (point 2). Get a powder keg and blow this door open (powder stations at point A and point D). 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. After you blow the gate to flee, you will go into a short ice cave. After you come out, you will see a path and a large 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 (point 3).

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). One idea to overcome that large group is perhpas to wait for them to get to point 4 (they move very slowly). they will engage some Stone Summit there. Then take the other route (the green one) quickly to get ahead of them.