Tree of Life - Baldur's Gate II

This guide will walk you through the Tree of Life in Chapter 7 of Baldur’s Gate II. This area’s code in the game files is AR2806.

baldurs gate 2 map tree of life — Map of the Tree of Life

Overview

The first time you arrive at the Tree of Life, you’ll see a vision of Queen Ellesime. She’ll tell you that Irenicus is using parasites to drain power from the tree, and that if you were to kill them, then she’d be able to sever his connection to the tree, making him vulnerable to a fight.

You’ll find three parasites on the tree. To reach them, you’ll need to use the Small Tree of Life Nuts from the Elven Palace to extend the tree’s branches and create “bridges” for you to cross (#1). This will happen automatically if you have the nuts in your inventory.

The parasites (#2, #3, #4) aren’t actually creatures. They’re interactive objects that you can “attack.” The first time you attack a parasite, it’ll summon two elementals to protect it. After defeating the elementals, when you attack the parasite a second time, you’ll “kill” it. This process will earn you 2000 xp for starting the battle and then 12,000 to 14,000 xp total for defeating the elementals.

When you kill the third parasite, you’ll automatically move to Irenicus and Ellesime (#5). Ellesime will try to make Irenicus remember what he was like before his obsession with the Tree of Life, but her words won’t sway him, and he’ll attack you while Ellesime teleports away to try and rally the elves against him. That is, Ellesime will leave you to fight Irenicus by yourself.

Irenicus is the most powerful mage in the game. He’ll use multiple Spell Triggers and Time Stops to buff himself up and cast lots of nasty spells on you (like Maze and Power Word, Kill), which means you’ll need to 1) survive and 2) remove his buffs so you can actually damage him. The two easiest ways to do this are:

Run away. Irenicus will be so busy buffing himself up that he won’t move for a while, allowing you to leave. Then you’ll just need to get into sight of him enough — or send summoned creatures at him — so he casts both of his Time Stops. After that, you can just stay out of sight for a while until all of his buffs wear off. From there, if you buff up your party and charge at him, then you should be able to take him down quickly.
Use traps. You’ll be able to visit Irenicus at any time while you’re on the map. He’ll just be invulnerable inside a magical barrier until you’ve killed the three parasites. So if you have a thief who is skilled at setting traps, then you can just place a bunch of traps at Irenicus’ feet. They’ll trigger when he turns hostile, and they might kill him outright (especially if your thief has trap abilities).

You can also buff up your party and then just go toe-to-toe with Irenicus. This has a decent chance of working, but the longer the fight goes on, the more likely it is that somebody in your party is going to get killed.

When Irenicus dies, he’ll get dragged down to Hell, and because he has your soul, you and your companions will get dragged down with him. But in better news, any dead companions will get resurrected, and your entire party will automatically “rest,” regaining health and spells.