How to Cure Pandirna and Help the Rat in Baldur's Gate 3 ... (2024)

Along the northern end of the druid grove you’ll find a locked storage area, within which you’ll find a crippled tiefling guard named Pandirna. Outside the storage area prowls a rat who had an unfortunate encounter with an “evil thing”. Both the “evil thing” and Pandirna’s predicament are matters for an overly curious adventurer to resolve, and this page will cover how to cure Pandirna and how to brave the “evil thing” obtain the Cabinet Key and loot the Alchemist’s Cabinet in Baldur’s Gate 3.

Where to Find the Storage Room in the Druid Grove¶

Along the northern end of the druid grove you’ll find a storage area, a nondescript building noteworthy only because the door to it is locked [Sleight of Hand 10]. This building is northeast of Dammon’s shop, near the entrance to the prison. There are two ways to get inside this storage building, you can either just pick the lock (make sure nobody is looking and you’re hidden) or failing that, you can enter via the back of the building.

To enter via the back, make your way to the northeastern end of the prison, past Sazza’s cage, and jump down to a ledge to the east, then jump up to another ledge, also to the east, past the stone door leading to the underground passage. After the second jump you’ll be able to head uphill to reach the back of the storage shed - just be mindful of the Malnourished Torchstalks here and take them out with ranged attacks. Once you reach the storage building (be sure to loot a pouch while you’re back here for some gold) you can just crawl in through a hole in the roof.

How to Cure Pandirna in Baldur’s Gate 3¶

However you go about it, once inside the storage shed you’ll be pestered by a woman named Pandirna, who, although unable to stand, is keeping guard over the wares stored within the storage building. Unfortunately for her, she’s pretty much incapable of doing anything besides shouting at you or calling for help, and you’ll get a variety of checks (Insight, Persuasion, Deception and Intimidation, all DC 10). You’ll need to pass one of these to gain permission to stay in the storage shed, otherwise Pandirna will call the guards, perhaps after a bit of a delay.

If you don’t pick the [Intimidate] option, you can also ask about her predicament to learn that she quaffed a potion concocted by the old lady nearby - Auntie Ethel. It did what was promised, but with an unforeseen drawback, your typical Monkey’s Paw. Don’t antagonize Pandirna by stealing her bag (contains some gold and a Silver Ingot), otherwise she’ll turn hostile to the thief, and if she recovers from her partial paralysis she’ll call the guards.

Speaking of which, to fix up Pandirna you simply need to cast Lesser Restoration on her, which is a 2nd-level Cleric spell. If you get Shadowheart up to level three she should be able to learn it, and Pandirna will decide that you’re a goodly sort and allow you to stay in the storage shed just so long as you don’t touch anything. No promises, there.

How to Help the Rat and Deal with the Evil Thing in Baldur’s Gate 3¶

Pandirna isn’t the only distressed creature in the area that needs your help. Outside, often running near Dammon’s shop, you’ll find a rat running around (you can highlight characters by pressing the ~ button, which may make finding this critter easier). Make sure somebody has the spell Speak with Animals (Bards, Druids, Rangers, Warlocks who choose the Beast Speech Invocation, Wildheart Barbarians, Oath of the Ancients Paladins and Nature Domain Clerics all have access to it) and talk to the rat and it’ll eventually complain about its teeth, which were hurt by the “evil thing”. It’ll run off to show you this “evil thing”, which just so happens to be in a Pantry Chest in the storage shed.

Now, Pandirna hopefully allowed you to stay after you cured her paralysis, but she put some clear boundaries on your behavior - stay doesn’t mean pillage. No touchy. So of course we gotta loot, so we’ll need to find a way to do this. The easiest way is to hide near Pandirna and just open the Pantry Chest quick-like and empty its contents before she can stop you. You’ll lose some Attitude, which in this case isn’t a super meaningful stat, but if you’re quick you’ll end up with some gold, a gem (we got an Agate - your mileage may vary) and a Cabinet Key.

You don’t need to look far to find what this key opens, it’s the Alchemist’s Cabinet nearby. Problem is, Pandirna is still around. If she’s not staring daggers at your Rogue regularly, you can just pull the same trick again - you’ll lose more attitude, but you’ll gain 2x Basic Poison, Drow Poison and 2x Simple Toxin. If she won’t stop scrutinizing your Rogue - rightfully so, we might add - you’ll need to leave (travel to the Emerald Grove Environs waypoint and walk back) or you might need to use some distraction. A Minor Illusion might suffice to get her out of the way long enough for you to pillage the cabinet (amusingly, the rat will not react fondly if you summon an illusory cat).

It’s a lot of work for fairly dubious rewards, but you helped a paralyzed tiefling, defeated an evil thing for a rat, and purloined some dusty old poison. So that’s something.