Lol! Sorry about that. Now I think about it, the whole area across the bridge from Aleroth is probably called Rivertown.

The cat can be found but it isn't in the sewers. Look at the conversation you had with the little girl. He asks her a question that should tell you where the cat is but you may have to complete a small quest that starts in the Poor Area to find it.

Did you find the lich cave?

Don't forget Polly77's suggestion that you visit Kistandalius and Corinna from time to time to see if they have different spells on hand. And keep going back to the sewers. You can get really rich in a couple of them, freebooter. <g>

I think Josephina is the only one that has a shield. Polymorph, even at level one, stops everything I've used it on as easily as the scorpions. Once you use it, you only have to kill them. That's not always possible the first time any more than it was possible to kill Josephina with Deadly Gift.

Josephine's shield does drop on occasions, but it can be hard to survive until it does.

You should find Deadly Gift useful in a number of places :)

I know this is moot now, but elemental damage, poison damage or Polymorph should all be much more effective following Curse. Did you try Meteorstrike? That can be cast quickly and has a bit of a stunning effect, so even without Freeze it should have worked well (if you were not Blind, at which point you'd need to wait out the effect or switch to an area effect spell that doesn't need a target to damage her, as you did with Hell Spikes).

How quickly did you try Freeze? As long as you were not Blind, you should have been able to target Josephine with the spell, which I would think should have worked (spiritual resistance less than 30) after a couple casts of Curse. Level 5 Know Creature would let you see an opponent's resistances (handy if you are a mage, but gets in the way with irrelevant info otherwise). It is possible she could be immune to Freeze, but people have mentioned using Polymorph (which, at level 5, requires a Spiritual resistance of 25 to resist) so it isn't a case of spiritual based spells not working.

Lowering resistances isn't going to help with physical damage. Hell Spikes need to be level 4 or 5 for best effect (more spikes take longer to walk off, and it is easier overlap the areas effected, to keep hitting an opponent).

Burning Wall can be very effective, though does require getting close to opponents for best effect (a tight wall around Josephine will finish her off in seconds).

After I <spoiler>ascended</spoiler> I had a ton of skill points to spend, so I picked up five points in Know Creature and a few in Curse. I gotta say I really didn't understand how resistances worked before, including the fight against Josephine, but it makes much more sense now. I really wish I had known how to use Curse effectively sooner. It would have helped a lot against the hordes of insane skeletons.