Gauntlet of Shar
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The Gauntlet of Shar is a Location found in the Grand Mausoleum in Chapter Two.
Walkthrough
This location plays an important part in Shadowheart's personal quest. There are 4 Umbral Gems in Gauntlet of Shar, you need to collect in order to progress through the dungeon and the quests Daughter of Darkness and The Chosen of Shar. In order to find the four gems you need to solve a number of problems / trials. You can do these trials in any order you want.
Entrance
Just inside the entrance is a statue with an Umbral Gem. Shar speaks to you through the statue, inviting you to take on her trials and prove yourselves worthy. Approaching the statue will repel you. In order to continue, you party must extinguish eight Mystic Thuribles around the room. There are two side hallways to the east and west of the room, and levers located in alcoves to the north and south of each hallway. each side of the room. The alcoves are protected by pressure plates, which can be disarmed (
DC 10 Sleight of Hand check) as well as vents that are activated by the pressure plates and produce a cloud similar to Darkness[Needs Verification]. Activate the levers to lower the Thuribles, then interact with them to snuff out their lights. Any Moonlanterns or other sources of light must also be unequipped. Once the room is shrouded in darkness, purple glyphs are revealed around the statue. Follow the gaps in the glyphs to touch the Umbral Gem. This opens the way north.
Alternatively, you can also bypass the puzzle entirely by teleporting to the gem via Misty Step, Dimension Door, or other means.
Meet Cute with Balthazar
After the riddle in the entrance room, you can go either north or west. You will encounter Reconstituted Duelists which attempt to warn you away before leaving to address tremors. A group of undead Dark Justiciars will attack you, and Umbral Tremors will spawn that continuously summon more Dark Justiciars until they are destroyed. The Reconstituted undead fight against the undead with you.
The tremors persist until the party moves west and encounters more Reconstituted Duelists. The tremors begin in earnest as more Umbral Tremors and Justiciars are summoned to attack the party. Several waves appear, until finally a Justiciar Crusader appears. Defeat it and its minions and the path opens, revealing Balthazar at X: -852 Y: -786 along with Flesh, a flesh golem, and three Ghoul Medics. Balthazar assumes you are a True Soul and tells the party to go and complete the trials for him, as the Justiciars have been making it impossible for them to move forward. The party can either agree to help him or attack him outright. Balthazar can be convinced to offer help in the form of a bell that summons his brother, Flesh.
Trials of Shar
In order to reach the Nightsong, you must find four 
Umbral Gems to access the heart of the Gauntlet.
Each trial must be started by interacting with the sacrificial bowl at the trial's entrance. If Shadowheart is in the party, she will volunteer each time, gaining 
+5 if she is allowed to give blood and losing -1 if she is not. Whoever gives blood to begin the trial receives a single turn of Bleeding (Condition).
Soft-Step Trial
The first trial room is on the left as you enter the Trial Hall, with a plaque that says "Her Most Vaunted Treasure" in front of the door.
The Soft-Step Trial is a stealth trial. There are two Shadows patrolling a small maze, which you must sneak past to get to the Umbral Gem. Only one character needs to successfully reach the end of the room to complete the trial. If a character is detected, all characters are teleported back to the start of the maze. You can either use normal Stealth mechanics or some form of Invisibility. There is a Scroll of Invisibility on a skeleton on a bench nearby.
A gate blocks your way to the Umbral Gem. You can open the gate with the Soft-Step Key in a hidden room of the maze. There is a button on the wall to the right that, when pushed, will rearrange the maze and allow access to the key. You can also lockpick the door DC 10 Sleight of Hand check, or use teleportation such as Misty Step to bypass the gate entirely.
Once you pick up the Gem, a transporter will appear that can be interacted with to teleport any characters to the beginning of the room.
Self-Same Trial
Along the corridor to the north from the Soft-Step Trial is a door with a plaque that says "Her Most Hallowed Mercy". This is the entrance to the Self-same Trial X: -767 Y: -727.
To complete this trial, the party must defeat shadowy copies of themselves. These copies have the same abilities and gear as the real thing, and cannot be restrained or shoved. If a character attacks a copy of a different party member while their own copy is still alive, they will receive a stack of Cheater's Folly, reducing all Ability Scores by 1 until Remove Curse is used or the party takes a long rest. The debuff stacks up to four times. Once a party member's copy is dead, they can freely attack the other copies with no debuff incurred.
Once all the shadow copies are defeated, one of them will drop an Umbral Gem to be looted, and the transporter on the upper level of the room will activate to give a shortcut back to the entrance. The Killer's Sweetheart can be found on the top level.
Faith-Step Trial
From the Self-same Trial, head north and down the stairs. At the bottom, you’ll find a door to the Faith-step Trial. There is a plaque on the outside of the door that reads "Her Most Sacred Path".
In order to complete this trial, you must follow an invisible path, as marked on the mosaic floor in front of the sacrificial bowl. Straying from the path will return you to the start of the trial or to the nearest platform, but only up to three times; failures after the third will instead instantly kill the character and then teleport them to the nearest platform.
Similarly to the Spft-Step Trial, this trial is most easily completed with a single character. It is possible to jump across gaps in the path or between platforms, or to use spells such as Misty Step to skip the trial and go directly to the Umbral Gem. In some instances, the path may be visible, though it is unclear what triggers this to be the case.
Once the final platform is reached (however you choose to do it), looting the Umbral Gem will trigger another teleporter that can bring characters back to the entrance quickly.
Yurgir's Tribulation
The fourth and final Umbral Gem is in the possession of the orthon Yurgir in the northern branch of the Gauntlet at X: -652 Y: -776, lying near his bed of corpses. You can fight him or help him resolve his contract with Raphael, which starts the quest Break Yurgir's Contract. It may also be possible to steal the gem and get out safely.
The Silent Library
Once all four Umbral Gems are in the party's possession, it is possible to complete the Gauntlet of Shar and proceed to the Nightsong. However, if she is in the party, Shadowheart will have a request: she wants to find the Spear of Night in the Silent Library so that she can become a Dark Justiciar.
The door to the Silent Library is located south of the Faith-Step Trial. The Library is heavily-trapped and patrolled by several undead Dark Justiciars. The Librarian can also be found here, generating a Silence effect that covers the entire Library and keeps any spells from being cast inside while the Librarian lives.
One of the trapped ( DC 15 Sleight of Hand check) bookshelves in the north east of the library contains a book called 
Teachings of Loss: The Nightsinger.
If you succeed on a passive Perception check you can discover a hidden button at X: -784 Y: -747. Alternatively, you can pick the door ( DC 21 Sleight of Hand check). The chamber behind it contains a pedestal named The Riddle of the Night, which accepts Teachings of Loss: The Nightsinger and produces the 
Spear of Night, 
Dark Justiciar Half-Plate, and a 
Dark Justiciar Helmet.
Find the Nightsong
Return to the Pedestal of Reckoning to the north of the entrance hall. You can place an Umbral Gem on the altar to unlock a platform that will take you downwards.
At the bottom, you will find another altar. Place the remaining three Umbral Gems on the altar, and a door will open. Inside, you’ll find the Verge of the Shadows waypoint and a pool of water that serves as a portal to the Shadowfell. If Shadowheart is in your party she will want to pray.
Entering the portal will take the party to the Nightsong's chamber.
NOTE: Entering the portal serves as the 'cut-off' point for Act 2, after which it will no longer be possible to return to any Act 1 areas (including the Rosymorn Monastery Trail and Creche Y'llek, and which will cause several quests to fail if they have not yet been completed. Before proceeding, make absolutely sure you have finished all that you wanted to do.
The following sequence completes the quest The Chosen of Shar.
Waypoints
This location contains the following 
:
- Gauntlet of Shar X: -758 Y: -794
- Verge of the Shadows X: -722 Y: -842
Related Locations
Related quests
- Lift the Shadow Curse
- Infiltrate Moonrise Towers (sub-quest Find Ketheric Thorm's Relic)
- Find the Nightsong
- Kill Raphael's Old Enemy
- Break Yurgir's Contract
- Daughter of Darkness (sub-quest The Chosen of Shar)
Notable loot
Notable items obtained in this location, whether looted, purchased, or obtained as a quest reward:
Boots of Brilliance - North of Yurgir at (X: -632, Y: -723)
Hellfire Hand Crossbow - Dropped by Yurgir
Dark Justiciar Gauntlets - Found lying on a pile of boxes near Yurgir at (X: -660 Y: -760)
Least Expected - Found in the NE of the dungeon just before Yurgir at (X: -730, Y: -800)
Callous Glow Ring - Found in a vault (Lockpick DC30) near Balthazar at (X: -821, Y: -752)
Justiciar's Scimitar - Dropped by Lyrthindor
Justiciar's Greatshield Dropped by Lyrthindor
Killer's Sweetheart - In the Self-Same Trial at (X: -833, Y: -729)
Circle of Bones - Dropped by Balthazar- Spear of Night - In the Silent Library
- Dark Justiciar Helmet - In a chest next to the Spear of Night
- Dark Justiciar Half-Plate - At the bottom of the altar with the Spear of Night
