Conquering the Temple of Sleepers

[sanahtlig]

Before I forget, I thought I'd write a quick guide to the game's infinite dungeon, located southeast of Deven. Properly equipped, you can farm this dungeon for jewelry to sell as an alternative form of income, as well as Spectral residue for quests or Ahksul faction reputation. Raising the Ahksul faction to Rank 5 is a great way to avoid the road tax, and trading Spectral residue will quickly raise your reputation with them.

Almost all enemies you'll encounter are specters. These enemies are immune to normal weapons, and thus you'll need a Blessing of Unbinding to enchant your weapons (from the Ahksul temple in Deven), items with the Unstoppable attribute (there's at least 4 of these in the game), or you'll need to rely entirely on magic damage. Specters have high evade, low HP, and deal cold damage. If you intend to farm for multiple turns, you'll want to bring cold resistance on your frontliners (Specters don't hit the backrow). Nedir's Conflagaration is ideal for killing Specters, as the damage can't be evaded, hits an area, and kills them in 2 rounds.

If you rest in any area within the bounds of the Temple of Sleepers on the world map, you'll be accosted by an army of specters that are immune to all but companion damage. As far as I can tell, this will mean certain defeat and a game over. So don't do that. In addition, exploration of the dungeon has a high probability of inflicting a Curse that drains Vigor and occasionally spawns a small Specter crew combat ambush when resting. This shouldn't be a threat if you can farm the dungeon. The Curse can be removed at a Temple of Ahksul. I've left it on for up to 1 month with no issue.

Now, for some secrets I've learned from hours of farming that might not be so obvious:

• Exploring the temple will occasionally yield insight into their language (Secrets of the Varotians). Once this value is high enough, this can be used to unlock temporary buffs and treasure. Once your value is at least 1, you can buy a book from the bookseller in Larnak that further increases the value by 3. You'll need 8 to unlock the door that leads into the main temple (not yet implemented at this time).
  
• The random dungeons have tiers indicated by the text when you find them, with higher tiers tending to have better treasure. The tier with the description "broken doors with intricately carved glyphs" always gave me an encounter that increased my Secrets of the Varotians value. Knowing this will save you a lot of time, as you can save scum or pass days to get useful dungeons.
  
• Venturing deeper into the Temple area on the map seems to increase the chances for higher dungeon tiers and better treasure. You'll need at least 6MP to have a good chance of clearing the dungeon, plus 2MP to initiate the event and 1MP to look for a dungeon. Overall, it's recommended to explore starting with 13MP or more, which is most easily obtained by going all-mounted.
  
• You might encounter a locked chest that requires a combination to unlock. Don't try to guess the combination, or you'll lose the treasure. You'll need Secrets of the Varotians to the required value to open it (so make raising this a priority).

[Wlerin]

Originally posted by sanahtlig:

items with the penetrating attribute (there's at least 4 of these in the game)

One correction, it's the Unstoppable attribute.