Hi Raze,

Thanks for the swift reply! I do have a lot of backups at various points and I did try clearing the level cache as you suggest. Managed to cope with the problem late last night but you may be surprised by how I did it.
Deleting files from the 'LevelCache' folder did not help at first. For some reason those were recreated each time I loaded the faulty save. Eventually I found out that there's information about all maps, items and characters (PCs and NPCs alike) from Tactician Mode in 'HonourMode.lsv' which in turn was used to rebuild the bad 'lucullaforest.lsf'. And when I say info I mean everything right up to Leandra's staff and states from the very end of the first playthrough. Yikes... For some reason, when I started Honour Mode everything from the 'LevelCache' folder was implanted into the new 'HonourMode.lsv' save file where one would expect it to be a clean slate. Mind you, I have no issues with quest sequences - those have reset (praise be Astarte).
But I digress. The way I got out of this messy loop was to use Norbyte's export tool to crack open 'HonourMode.lsv', exsect Luculla forest's map and then repack the save file. Well, unfortunately, that left me with the infamous "corrupted or tampered" message but at least I am able to continue playing. My new worry is that said "tampering" will affect achievements negatively. Do you know if I will still get 'Never Say Die' or it is void now?