Side quest The Amber Temple Level 10

The Guide to the Temple

Since the Tsolenka gate opened, a man has led three parties up the goat path toward the Amber Temple and come down alone each time.

Walkthrough

Getting the quest

This one starts in The Tsolenka Guard Tower once the lowest-level hero in your party is level 10. There are two ways in, depending on how you got past the dead watch (see The Tsolenka Gate):

  • From the sergeant, if you were let through with the watchword ("Cold hearth, shut door.") or the Deception DC 15 lie that you're the relief. Talk to Sergeant Dorin Valcu again and ask Has anybody else gone up since we passed? His log shows three parties on the goat path round the tower this winter, with one lantern coming back down each time. Last night it was a man, a woman and a sledge with something small on it, coughing, led by someone who walks like he's never been cold.
  • From the watch log on the desk in the captain's room, once the gate is open. This is the way if you released the watch to rest or fought your way through and the sergeant is gone. The newest entries say the same thing: lanterns on the goat path round the tower, four or five to a party, one coming down, three times; the last a man, a woman and a sledge with something small on it, coughing.

Either way the quest starts (Asked), and a new road opens on the map from The Tsolenka Pass to the camp on the goat path (two hours).

Step by step

  1. Travel to The Goat Path Camp. On a shelf of rock above the path, a fire burns beside a low tent. The Guide, a lean man in furs, bareheaded in the cold, offers you tea. Remus explains that their daughter has had lung fever since the autumn and the guide says the temple can cure her. Floarea says nothing and watches the tea.
    loc amber road camp 1
  2. Find out what he's doing:
    • Medicine DC 14: (Look at the child on the sledge.) It isn't lung fever. Her pupils are pinpricks: someone has been giving her sleep-root every day. Floarea quietly admits he makes the girl's tea every night. This option stays if you fail, so you can try again.
    • Insight DC 15: (Watch the guide while Remus talks.) He watches the sledge like a drover the night before market. This only changes a line when the fight starts, and a failure is spent.
  3. Choose You've been putting something in her tea. (after the Medicine check), or Turn back. Take her home. Either way he stops pretending: something in the amber pays him a year of life for every family he brings to its door, and nobody turns back on his mountain.
  4. Fight The Guide (170 Hit Points here) with two of the people he led up before (Wraiths) and two of his own shadows (Shadows), 9,700 XP. He resists cold and necrotic damage, can turn two failed saves a day into successes, and his Whiteout hits up to three of you at once within 60 feet (Constitution DC 16, or 4d8 cold and blinded). His Amber Bolt hits hard at range, and he has Hold Person and Cone of Cold once a day each. Winning moves the quest to Fought.
  5. Talk to Floarea (or Remus) by the sledge. She pours the tea out onto the snow and throws the kettle after it. Without it the girl will wake in a day or two with only a cough. The quest is Done.

Choices and endings

  • Done (success). In the guide's pack are a purse of other people's money (400 gp), a list of names with lines through them, and a Rod of Alertness. Liriel +3, Godrick +2, Kip +2, Wren +1. The family goes home.
  • There is no peaceful ending. Leaving them to their fire just leaves the quest open; every way of confronting the guide ends in the fight.

If you're stuck

  • The sergeant has no new question. He only asks once you're level 10, and only if he is still at his post, which means you passed him with the watchword or the lie rather than releasing or fighting the watch. If he's gone, read the watch log in the captain's room.
  • The watch log says nothing about the goat path. Its newest entries only start the quest once you're level 10 and the gate is open. Raise the portcullis with the winch in the gatehouse, then read it again.
  • No road to the camp. It only appears once the quest has started, from the sergeant or the watch log.

Rewards

What your companions think

  • Liriel Dawnsong: +3 you stopped the guide on the goat path and the family went home
  • Godrick Pendlebrook: +2 you stopped the guide on the goat path and the family went home
  • Kip Smudgewick: +2 you stopped the guide on the goat path and the family went home
  • Wren Featherfoot: +1 you stopped the guide on the goat path and the family went home

Fights

Journal

Every journal entry and hint

Asked: The dead sergeant at the Tsolenka watchtower has logged lanterns on the goat path round his tower: three parties this winter, and one lantern coming down each time. Last night a man, a woman, and a sledge with something small on it, coughing, and a guide in front who walks like he's never cold.
Hint: Take the goat path from the Tsolenka Pass toward the Amber Temple, and find the camp with the sledge.

Fought: The guide had been keeping the child sick with sleep-root in her tea, to make her parents climb. Something in the amber paid him a year for every family. We stopped him.
Hint: Talk to Floarea by the sledge at the camp on the goat path.

Done (the end: success): Without the tea the little girl will wake in a day or two, with only a cough to carry home. Remus and Floarea are taking her down.

Every skill check in its conversations
  • Medicine DC 14: (Look at the child on the sledge.)
  • Insight DC 15: (Watch the guide while Remus talks.)