Baldur's Gate 3 has a lot of quests that feel resonant around this particularly spooky time of year. It has an elaborate haunted house that unravels a sordid saga of love and betrayal. It has vampires and vampire hunters. It has shadow monsters that hide in plain sight until you trigger an ambush. But none of these segments got my heart pumping as much as my trip down to the Iron Throne.

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Aesthetically, this return to our old pal Sarevok's sunken stomping grounds isn't nearly the creepiest or most unsettling part of the adventure. That would probably have to go to the Mindflayer Colony below Moonrise Towers. It's a murky prison full of evil fish men and some unpleasant surprises, but the somewhat BioShock-esque decor isn't doing the heavy lifting on its own. The key here is that it's one of the only places Baldur's Gate 3 flips our mechanical expectations on their head to create genuine panic and terror.

The reason I feel my stomach starting to churn every time I approach this quest on a new playthrough is that diabolical timer.

If you haven't been here before, I'll keep it light on story spoilers. But basically, the party has to rescue a group of captive gnomes and a couple important plot characters from an underwater prison run by the Sword Coast's own Prince of Cringe, Enver Gortash. He's not exactly thrilled by your submarine escapades, though, and triggers a series of events that will flood the prison and kill anyone in it after six frantic rounds.

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