The Baldur’s Gate 3 Save Mayrina quest is one you encounter early on if you head off the beaten track from the Blighted Village into the Sunlit Wetlands. If you’ve spent any length of time in the area, you’ve probably realised there’s something a little strange about it, and one such strange thing is Auntie Ethel, the resident proprietor of the Riverside Teahouse.
You’ll encounter this quest when you bump into Ethel on the road alongside a pair of brothers who are accosting her, looking for their sister, Mayrina. This quest is fairly long and has quite a few complicated steps, but it’s well worth it if you want some great magical items and bonuses, plus enjoy being confounded by moral choices. It would also be a good idea to bring the Protection from Good and Evil spell with you. Either way, here’s how to Save Mayrina in Baldur’s Gate 3.
Meeting Ethel
This quest first starts when you head south from the Blighted Village into the Sunlit Wetlands, where you’ll find Auntie Ethel being accosted by two brothers who claim she stole their sister. This section doesn’t have too much bearing on the quest itself, but if you want the brothers to live, or at least you don’t want to kill them, you should side with them over Ethel. She’ll disappear, and they’ll explain that she’s holding their sister, Mayrina, captive in her teahouse.
You can try and convince them to not go after Ethel, but if they do, they’ll ultimately die offscreen. The better solution if your conscience is pricked, is to turn on non-lethal damage in the Passives section of your ability bar, side with Ethel, and beat them up. Either way, you’ll want to head into wetlands and beeline west.
Riverside Teahouse
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When you arrive at the teahouse, you’ll find Mayrina and Ethel, but after a bit of chat, Mayrina will disappear. This is the point where Ethel mentions your Mind Flayer Parasite and offers to remove it in exchange for an eye. If you’re planning to continue this quest, let’s just say it’s a really bad idea, since it gives you a disadvantage fighting hags, which will prove detrimental later. Whatever you choose, to save Mayrina, your next step should be into the fireplace—though switch it off first. Behind the teahouse fireplace is an illusory wall, so sneak through avoiding Ethel spotting you, and take the stairs down into the Overgrown Tunnels.
Overgrown Tunnels
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Now, there’s a whole lot of stuff in this room, but most of it is just info about the hag’s various victims and evil bargains. The most important item to grab is the Whispering Mask from the table, though don’t put it on straight away. Here are the steps to progress through the tunnels:
- Cast Protection from Evil and Good on yourself, so you won’t get possessed, and then equip the Whispering Mask.
- Walk through the wooden wall with the face that is revealed to be illusory.
- Take off the mask once you’re through so you don’t get possessed
- In the next room, you’ll find a bunch of mask-wearing people who did get possessed. You can try to sneak through, but you’ll most likely have to fight them either way. If you don’t want them dead, toggle non-lethal damage in your Passives, though remember that most ranged attacks and magic are still lethal.
- Jump through the waterfall and climb down the ladder. It’s worth noting that there’s an Underdark entrance near here if you want to unlock it. Head north around the platform to find another mask door for that, or simply keep making your way down by jumping and avoiding traps to spot Mayrina in a cage.
Before you go too far forward and trigger the confrontation with the hag, you can actually sneak around to the right of the hole and into the Acrid Workshop. You’ll find all sorts of loot here, including a powerful staff, an amulet, and a Mushroom Circle that will teleport you back outside if you want to camp and rest before this boss fight.
Fighting the hag
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When you trigger the confrontation with the hag, she’ll immediately set Mayrina’s cage on fire and you’ll have a limited time to get to the Control Orb to lower it and let her out. It’s far better to sneak up to the Control Orb or use Invisibility and lower it before the fight begins, so you only have to worry about killing Ethel. In terms of the fight itself, here are important tips and stages to remember:
- Ethel will summon clones of herself around the room, so you want to use Silence on her as quickly as possible. If she does create clones, they each disappear when you deal one instance of damage, so spells that cast multiple projectiles are handy. Generally, I’d suggest using melee attacks so she can’t use her most powerful spells.
- Around halfway through the fight, she’ll grab Mayrina and transform into her, leaving you to guess which is which. The level five Mayrina is actually the hag, so attack that one.
At around 20HP, Ethel will try to bargain with you, offering you a gift in exchange for sparing her and letting her have Mayrina. If you take the gift, you’ll get a piece of Ethel’s hair that adds +1 to an ability score. You can also convince her to leave you with the gift and Mayrina, and since these skill checks have no negative consequences, I’d suggest you do them unless you really want the hag dead. If you kill her you’ll get:
- Corellon’s Grace (staff): You gain +1 to unarmed attack rolls and damage. While the wielder is not wearing armour they receive +2 to saving throws.
- Tarnished Charm (Amulet): Makes it easier for the wearer to succeed at Death Saving Throws.
If you want to help Mayrina, you really shouldn’t let her go with the hag, so any option where she stays is fine. You can also use Speak with Dead on the hag after you’ve killed her, just in case you want to rub salt in the wound by asking who killed her. You can also go and rescue the people the hag was tormenting in the first room of the Overgrown Tunnels once she’s gone.
Reviving Mayrina’s husband
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After you talk to Mayrina, she’ll reveal that she was going to give her baby to the hag in exchange for bringing her husband back from the dead. She’ll leave and go to her husband’s coffin behind the teahouse, which you can get to by teleporting through that Mushroom Circle from before. The solution to helping Mayrina is the Bitter Divorce wand you can find in the Acrid Workshop on the table.
If you talk to Mayrina, you’ll be presented with a series of choices:
- Snap the wand, and Mayrina will run off crying. Done and dusted.
- Use the wand to raise her husband. Surprise surprise, he’s a zombie. This is why you never bargain with hags. You can give the wand to Mayrina and she’ll leave for Baldur’s Gate, husband shambling in tow, to find a cure that’ll restore him to life.
- You can raise Mayrina’s Husband and keep him for yourself. This will allow you to summon a zombie at will using the now, hilariously-named, Second Marriage wand. This is quite strong pre-level 5, but once you’ve got the Animate Dead spell that lets you make a zombie, it’s not as good. Mayrina will also understandably be upset.
Hard to say what the best option is, but presumably Mayrina’s quest will continue in Baldur’s Gate if you let her leave with her husband, so if you want to keep going with the quest, that’s your best bet.