How to remove Melinoë's surface curse in Hades 2
How to complete the Unraveling A Fateful Bond Incantation
Not too long into your adventure with Hades 2, you'll get access to an Incantation to remove the Witching-Ward to the surface, allowing you to open up the game's second route. You'll need to collect some Shadow for this, but it's otherwise pretty straight forward.
The problems start to arise, however, when you reach the surface and discover that Melinoë is cursed. She can't actually stay up there without constantly losing health. And this isn't like a "lose a bit of health every level" kinda health loss, it's massive, compounding health loss until it eventually kills you. And while I look forward to the YouTube video that proves me wrong, it seems mathematically impossible to even get out of the first surface zone with the curse active.
With that in mind, let's talk about how to remove the curse and get some of the resources you'll need to do it.
How to complete the Unraveling A Fateful Bond Incantation
Once you get the Unraveling A Fateful Bond Incantation (which will just happen naturally from dying to the curse on the surface), you'll be prompted to pickup two Nightshade, two Lotus, two Moss, and two Thalamus.
The first two, Nightshade and Lotus, are very common flowers in the first two areas of the Underworld, and you'll likely have several already. If not, just do some Underworld runs until you get them.
Moss is a surface flower, which is obviously a bit of a problem since you can't spend anytime on the surface without dying. But the game is very generous with Moss spawns before you lift the curse, so you'll find two Moss very quickly by just popping up there, grabbing some, and dying.
The thing that you're going to be stuck on here, is Thalamus, which is a pain in the ass, so we're going to talk about it in its own section below.
Where to find Thalamus
So, Thalamus is that painful combo of random and requiring multiple runs. However, it shouldn't be that bad if you have two things: Nectar and Chaos' keepsake, the Transcendent Embryo.
To unlock Thalamus, you need to get Chaos to bond level two, which means you need to find them on a minimum of three runs. Once you've met Chaos, and met them again to give them their first gift, the next time you give them Nectar they'll talk to you about your quest to the surface. They'll then kick you one Origin Seed, which you can plant in your garden and harvest after you've pushed through seven rooms in a run.
The great news about Thalamus is that once you get the Origin Seeds to grow, you'll get two Thalamus for one single seed harvest, which is enough to finish the Incantation.
The quest for Thalamus isn't difficult, and there's no skill barrier here. It's just a little random and time consuming, which is mostly just frustrating because you're probably excited to explore the surface!
Well, once you turn in all your plants and complete Unraveling A Fateful Bond, you'll be able to spend as much time on the surface as you'd like. And, believe me, you'll be spending plenty of time on the surface for the rest of your Hades 2 playtime.
