Lurkalot

I haven't had any great trouble with other fights in the game, but this one is dragging on and on and on and on forever without making any progress. I've got 2 blademasters and a shadowwalker and he's immune to physical damage. I can chip away with wands and the like, but with his infinite heals and demon summons and defender summons and charms and what have you I don't see that being enough. The occasional messages suggest that his immunities are on some sort of cycle or randomization, but the physical one seems to be permanent. Am I being dumb? Or is this really supposed to be another 3-hour slogfest like the Redbeard fight I've read about? (In which case I'm not going to bother.)

Thanks for the sage advice; looks as if there's a lot more trudging in my future. It does seem odd that the game text makes a special point of mentioning that the northern gate opens at Ess-Kalyn's death if you can't realistically ever go through it... I know, I know, leave my thing at the other thing...

I'm around level 40, just finished watching Solberg stomp Ess-Kalyn, and am pondering whether to try pushing up though the northern gate. I have a fair few loose ends around Formello - a second slave camp and a training area of some sort to the SE, and Giscard's mansion somewhere to the SW - and I'm tired of the tedious long trek upriver and east overland. I've seen the game's dire warning about the sliths camped by the bridge north of that gate, and have scouted far enough to know I can't sneak around them. I'm prepared for a long dull slugfest, especially since it looks as if I may able to draw them back and hold them at the gate. However, I've read enough to know that a lot of the sliths around here keep spawning forever, and I'd really really hate to have to sit through an hour-long battle until it finally dawns on me that it's never going to end. Can any kind soul provide advice? Ta muchly.

Just taken Nociduas down - I'd tried earlier and couldn't make any headway, but this time at around level 38 it was fairly painless. I noticed one interesting factoid during the course of the fight which I didn't see mentioned above. At one point, with shades and summons attacking him, Nociduas had strayed outside his circle for some reason, so I tried an arrow to see if his shield had disappeared. It hadn't; I got the usual message, and he seemed to be able to keep summoning too. But the arrow was from the Bow of Decay, and while he took no damage from the hit, he DID take damage from the acid on following rounds. Don't know whether the same goes for Acid Spray, but it's possible. He didn't seem to have a huge number of hit points, so a couple of direct damage-dealers might shorten this fight quite a bit.