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Hello, Gamers!
This guide serves to help you through the ‘Find the Missing Shipment’ sidequest inBaldur’s Gate 3. This quest can be found after crossing the broken bridge from theBlighted Village(if you take the north road, you’ll find the bridge) and entering into the area known as theRisen Road.
Before you tackle this area, you’re going to want to make sure that you have a strongRangedelement to your party. I recommend bringingGalefor this area, and abuse the heck out ofMagic Missileduring some of the fights we will describe later in this guide. In addition to Gale, you should haveShadowheartaround for some decent healing support, as the Gnolls of the Risen Road can doa lotof damage, and very quickly. For your third member, pickLae’zel- Action Surge will be invaluable for the coming fights.
The encounters in this area are level 4, but if you can, you should try to come back at level 5.
Approaching the Risen Road
Be careful - after you’ve crossed the broken bridge, there’s Gnolls all around the immediate area. Your first hint to their presence is just down the road from the bridge, where you will see the road’s littered with blood and gore, and Bloated Hyenas lying around in the mess. Bloated Hyenas are the hallmark sign of a Gnoll presence, as Gnolls are born from Hyenas - chest-burster style.
Encounter 1: Bloated Hyenas
You will see in the pictures above that there arefourBloated Hyenas, and one Hyena that’s roaming among them and seems fine. The healthy Hyena will run away at the start of the encounter in order to alert the Gnolls just up the hill from this location. You will want to kill this Hyena first, and then do your best to kill the Bloated Hyenas before they have the chance to become Gnolls in gruesome fashion. Hyenas are much easier to deal with than Gnolls, so try to take care of them in the first two turns before the Gnolls are born.
Once you’ve handled this first encounter, you can progress up the hill to take care of the rest of the Gnolls. There are four of them about half way up the hill, and you’ll get your first taste of what these nasty creatures are capable of.
Encounter 2: First Gnoll Pack
Hunter Gnolls will castSeething Fury, which will allow them to multiattack you for three consecutive turns. The other Gnolls will castSoulnumbingon you, which will disable bonus actions (which is also why I didn’t recommend bringing Astarion, as his double bonus action will simply not matter here if you can’t break the Gnolls' concentration). If you do happen to get Soulnumbed at any point, you shouldn’t divert your attention to kill it unless you know you can one-shot it with one character. If you can’t, it’s better off to focus on the Hunter Gnolls and wipe them off the face of Faerun as quickly as possible - they can just straight up one shot your party members if they get a lucky roll.
Kill them quickly, and when you’re done with this encounter, it’s likely you will need toRest.If you’ve wasted any resources, you should definitely go ahead and Rest to get back your spell slots and so forth.
Encounter 3: Flind, Gnoll Pack, and Hyenas
The next encounter is extremely tough - but you may skip it, if you so choose. I do recommend that you fight as many of them as you can for the experience, however, it’s in your best interest tonot kill Flindat the beginning of the encounter.
When you get close enough, all the Gnolls and Hyenas in the area will immediately bum rush towards you and start attacking.Kill what you can for experience. Area of Effect spells will be great for dealing with packs of Gnolls at a time - just make sure you don’t kill Flind before she approaches.
You don’t want to kill Flind because the moment she gets close enough to your Tav/Durge, it will trigger a cutscene. You will realize that Flind is being dominated by a tadpole, and by extension, can possibly be dominatedby you, if you pass the subsequent skill checks to command her.
When you get the opportunity, opt for the Illithid skill check route. The skill check should be relatively easy to pass, it’s only a DC2 skill check, but you should still save before rolling just in case you fail it. Like I did, while trying to collect screenshots to write this guide.
Once you pass the skill check, she turns around and takes her whole pack of Gnolls into the mouth of the cave, where there are two people guarding a shipment. We don’t mention it earlier, but these guys abandon the fight as soon as you aggro the Gnolls and try to run away. Letting them die here is free, and saves you from having to kill them later as the Gnolls will make fast work of them.
Once finished, Flind will return to you and seek your guidance once more. She’s still hungry - and there’s still meat around. Gnoll meat. Point her in the direction of her pack, so that you don’t have to deal with the rest of her pack alone. You can do this by picking the second dialogue option:“She wants more meat? Dominate her mind, ordering her to feast on the other gnolls.”
This will start another encounter with the remaining Gnolls. Your party and Flind will be on the same side, so she will not attack you or yours during this encounter. Once you have killed the other Gnolls, Flind will return to youagain,because she’s still hungry.
Here, you’re able to either tell her to leave, you can kill her, or you can order her to eat herself. In my playthrough, we opted to order her to eat herself - you can do this by picking the first option:“Dominate her mind, commanding her to feast on herself.”
Flind will listen, and she will lie dead on the ground as soon as the cutscene is over. You can loot her body for some nice loot.
Delivering the Shipment
Your next step will be to deliver the shipment, the strange box located in the cave. Pick it up, and head west to Waukeen’s Rest. Waukeen’s Rest is an inn that’s on fire when you find it, but you don’t have to help the NPCs here in order to complete this quest. Stay tuned for our Waukeen’s Rest guide!
Instead, you will go through the Waukeen’s Rest courtyard and to one of the small storehouses behind the burning inn. One of them will be guarded - as it’s a front for a small Zhentarim Outpost. Convince the guard to let you in, and then you can deliver the shipment straight to the local leader of the Zhentarim yourself.
If you open the box or loot it before you deliver the shipment, you will have to fight the Zhentarim. They do not take kindly.
Baldur’s Gate 3: Blighted Village Guide
After the Dank Crypt, the next big encounter area will be the Blighted Village - an abandoned village recently infested with Goblins.
