Relics: What they are, what they do and where to get them.

A comprehensive guide to all the relics currently in Caveblazers, where they are, what they do and how to get them :)

Introduction

Hello there ! Welcome to my second guide ever written.

This time we'll be taking a long hard look at how to obtain and best use the relics found within Caveblazers.

So what are these relics thingamajigs then ?

Well that's both a simple and a complicated question.
Relics in Caveblazers serve many purposes. From advancing personal achievements to "spicing up your game"

Players familiar with Risk of Rain will understand the concept of relics, and how much they can impact the procedural generation even more.

Essentially they can be considered "new game modes" in which many or few aspects of the core gameplay change to both help or hinder the player (or both)

Fantabulous. So what do i do next ?

Well let me tell you :D

First off, while it's entirely possible to do this in one entire sitting, it's reccomended you don't attempt them all at once if this is your first time playing. Many challenging puzzles and threats will surely ruin your battered corpse over and over, so it's highly likely you will fail, but fret not ! Persistence is key.

Some base knowledge of the game's mechanics is required for the vast majority of these puzzles, and a bow is absolutely required for half of them (barring some perks from attempting this)

I'll do my absolute best to describe as clearly as possible what needs to be done where, when and how.

Thanks buddy ! So do i need items or anything for that ?

If needed, i'll mention it in the guide section of the guide (heh). As for perks and blessings, there are no mandatory perks or blessings you need in order to achieve victory in these, however (as always) mobility is key in all of them. Having reduced movement speed or jump height will cause you to fail the majority, so go ahead and unequip that xandu blaster :)

However, there are things that make this way easier. I will be listing them where appropriate (and if they get patched / nerfed i'll adjust them :D)

Oh boy i can't wait to go and get my ♥♥♥♥ wrecked started on collecting these relics !

Fantastic ! Keep in mind that as with everything, but especially relic runs, be careful, be aware and keep cool. You'll get through this just like i did.

Good luck !

The first relic: Arrowhead.

So let's get started then :D First up is the very first relic, Arrowhead. Located on the very first floor of the depths (Cave 1), this nifty little thing can be easily accessed by following the steps listed below.

Step 1:

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Find a rune that looks like this embedded in the wall.



Shoot it to make it turn white. Can also hit it with a sword or use bombs (they won't break the switch)

Step 2:

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Repeat this process 3 more times. There are a total of 4 switches on the floor



Once all 4 have been switched on, a door will open up below the last switch triggered. Enter it

Step 3:

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Prepare for a fight ! You'll be challenged with a variety of monsters and enemies from various regions of the game. Be smart, take your time and be very careful. You'll probably try this many times before you succeed, but once you do, your efforts will be greatly rewarded.

Step 4:

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After beating the arena, grab your spoils, and obtain one of the best melee fighter blessings out there. The Champion's Blessing. Gives 10% melee attack speed and all heavy attacks stun targets ! Exit through the newly opened exit afterwards.

Step 5:

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Obtain the Arrowhead relic by stepping on the large switch in the center of the room :)

Description of arrowhead:

What it actually does:

While not specifically stated, this does mean all damage done. Magic, ranged, melee, special effects, everything except damage over time ticks from poison or burning :)

Become a real glass cannon with this shiny new relic. Best used on runs challenging yourself or becoming a real quick in/quick dead player !

Use with care.

FURTHER NOTICE

If this was your first relic obtained, and it likely was, then upon return to the main hall, you'll notice a new room will appear on the left side of the area :)

Any relic can be gotten in any order, but the first one will always trigger that room to appear.

The second relic: Paragon.

Moving onward ever so slowly, the second relic awaits :)

Step 1:

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Starting from stage 3 (just after the first boss, congratulations on that by the way) navigate your way around the new area until you encounter an odd looking stone tile.

Step 2:

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Proceed to throw upwards of 5 items on top of the tile. These can be any items in your inventory, but keep in mind that the items will be permanently lost.





Enjoy your newly opened doorway into the next challenge :)

Step 3-6:

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Welcome to a rather easy challenge despite looking very intimidating at first.
Your main goal in this room is to locate and hit 5 separate crystals while navigating segments filled with traps.

CAUTION: Be especially aware of the fire traps. Not only do they hurt, but they will continue to drain your HP at an astonishing rate. The arrow traps and spike pit traps are weak compared to those. Luckily there's only a few of them around.




After the initial fire traps & dart traps.




The first crystal :)




An evil looking eye thing in the center of the room, that will track your movements and fire curving shots at you. Be aware of the slight course oddities of the projectiles, since they don't tend to travel straight.




That sucker can't catch you there, haha !. At this point, upon hitting the crystal, the eye deactivates, giving you some breathing room.




In this next area, rows of spike traps travel from left to right. Timing is key here since you will not be fast enough (without movement speed buffs) to run across without getting hurt. Observe the timing and make a run for it :)




The last crystal needed for this room to clear. Be mindful of the spike traps that are shot in tandem. The only way to avoid damage is to do a "small" jump in between the both of them, but more often than not you will get tagged :)




EUREKA !. Enjoy the benefits of your hard labor and go get that relic ! You've earned it :)

Description of paragon:

What it actually does:

What it says is what it does. Bosses become a bit harder but not hilariously so. The extra rewards can be extremely helpful and having more randomized attack patterns can be a refreshing challenge for many :)

The third relic: Twilight.

Wowee, things sure are getting tougher by the second, but fret not, you came this far, you can totally do this next one too. I pinky promise.

Step 1:

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In stage 5, locate this strange assembly of uninhabited cobwebs
(AKA the only acceptable kind of cobwebs.)

The goal here is to trip an invisible switch. There's still a bunch of debate regarding how to actually trigger it but i consistently was able to trigger it with a downward stab (sword types only) inside of the cobweb pit. If done correctly you'll hear a satisfying click and....

Step 2:

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Oh crap oh crap oh crap.

Ok stay calm. STAY CALM DAMMIT !.
This little thing is called an Archfiend, and it is apparantly none too happy with you disturbing its home. It will fly around the immediate area and shoot ricocheting arrows at you. While easily avoided by jumping, keep in mind that they bounce, so you could end up taking one in the rear (read: shafted) if you're not careful

It has a few phases it cycles through. Every so much HP it will cause a knockback explosion and proceed to do more agressive actions.

Phase 1: Slow flying and shooting bolts every so often.
Phase 2: Slightly faster flight and shoots bolts more often.
Phase 3: Same speed, same bolt frequency but now throws out bouncing mines.
Phase 4: Dead. :D

The mines themselves can be destroyed, but are slow and easy to avoid. Be aware of tight spaces when fighting it to avoid getting swamped by mines. It has a whopping 450 HP, so expect to duke it out for a while.

Proceed to systematically beat it into a bloody pulp, and voilá !

Step 3:

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Alright ladies and gentlemen, it's puzzle time again ;) This time a rather straightforward one involving little to no trouble.

CAUTION: A ranged weapon is MANDATORY in this section. A bow would be ideal but people have mentioned it's doable without one.

CHEATS MODE: Having the flying demon eyeball or similar "follower" that shoots lightning on ranged attacks will allow you to attack through the logic gates, thus allowing you to skip a large portion of this puzzle.

You should arrive in an area that looks like such:




Now a bit of explaining about this.
The goal is once again to hit a number of crystal switches in the area. This time there are no lethal traps but instead you are faced with a number of "logic" gates.

There's red ones and blue ones. The green outline shows the red one being fully lit. This means you cannot pass through it. Also note the little empty block. You cannot move through it but you can shoot through it

The trick here is to navigate the area towards the door by lighting up and dimming the logic gates using the crystal switches.

You can mess up in this area but there is a giant reset button in the middle of the room surrounded by concrete blocks. Just jump on top of it if you feel like you've messed up and it resets all the gates to their original position ;)



Another part of the puzzle. This shows the Reset switch (yellow) more logic gates, another crystal switch and more critical thinking ahead !



This next area shows blue blocks as inactive. Hitting the switch will make them light up, trapping you in the room with them if you used a melee attack. This is where bows come in. Shoot the switch and proceed to the next area :)

This is the correct sequence as follows:

Hit the switch inside the blue boxes with an arrow.



Go back down, fire an arrow at the left side switch past the open block



Go through the now open door, and fire an arrow at the right hand swich through the open block



Go back to where you came from, use the blue blocks to reach the switch on top and hit it



Travel back down, hit the 5th switch to open the final door



And you're done ! Enjoy your brand new twilight relic :)

Description of twilight:

What it actually does:

Well it's not lying. A large death wall is slowly coming from the top of the map, going down at a steady pace, killing everything caught inside of it. Pots will break, NPC's will instantly get gutted and monsters will suffer the same fate.

Speed is key with this relic active. Don't tally too long, or you might end up dissolving in the corruption... houuuu~....

The fourth relic: Blackjack

Oh you're still here ?!

You just don't quit do you ? Amazing.
Time to get that 4th relic then !

Step 1:

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Travel to Area 6.
Why yes, this is indeed an even number despite all the other relics. "But why" i can hear you think, "Because" i say.



Block shown as it can appear



Block shown as it can appear without muddling effects on the tile. Thanks @Klokinator for the image !

Find this little block on the 6th stage. It looks like any other block except it has a red mark over it. It's very easy to litter the entire map with blood, making it harder to find, so be sure to look thoroughly.



Proceed to bomb the crap out of it with a bomb. This step is super duper important since you will need the key that comes from it. You're done here :) Proceed to exit the area and make your way to stage 7

Step 2:

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While in stage 7, you will come across a locked gate of sorts. This is where that key comes in handy. Proceed to drop it from your inventory on top of the gate, and after a short time the lock will disappear and the gate opens.



Enter the next area through the now unlocked door.

Step 3:

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WARNING. FRUSTRATION AHEAD. >:(

The following sequence of events will induce rage. It is HIGHLY reccomended to have at least one double jump blessing, or the jumpy perk before attempting this. Alternatively if you're a true hero, you can use the Xandu blaster and propel your way across like a badass, but this is only for the brave and the stupid.

This next part i have little to no screenshots of. This because it is absolutely the hardest relic to get and many great minds were baffled by the amount of precision needed for this. I apologize but i will explain as best i can until i can reach it again with a future playthrough.

You will start in a little floating area with no way out but down. Don't bother trying to bomb the walls, they are made of some sort of super dense material causing you to waste your bombs.

The thing to do here is to jump in the hole. BEFORE YOU JUMP however, note that if you fail the jump, you will enter a forced arena fight that will NOT AWARD THE RELIC.

Now that i've made myself perfectly clear and hopefully informed you of the dangers, jump down the hole and go right as much as you can.

If you did it correctly, you will be seemingly floating in midair on an invisible platform. These glimmer every so often giving you an indication of where the next one is and how much wiggle space you have. If you fall, you're done, so godspeed.

Proceed to navigate the platforms as shown below.








If you can see this platform on the right, you're almost there.



Alternatively you can consult this larger map:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1922074194

If you're staring at your screen with shaky hands and pounding heart, and see something like this, congratulations. You've made it across. Take about a minute to settle your nerves. It's virtually impossible to fail now.



Head down and keep hugging the right wall. If you fall here you will be the biggest doofus so be smart and hug that wall like it's a puppy.



Just a few more steps.



Boom ! Done ! hard part's over :)

Step 4:

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Actually get the thing :P
Now i did the following. You might want to do something like this too. Maybe not. Maybe you're much more better than me. Anyways, i did this.





... You evil man

Description of blackjack:

What it actually does:

Blackjack is by far one of the most game impacting relics. Instead of the occasional pickups on the map, there are now exactly 0 pickups on the map (save for shop statues, random item statues and chaos shrines) and getting across is now much more of a breeze.

The key difference is that after every map that is not a boss map, you will be transported to a room filled with items instead. You can browse and buy any of the items you see presuming you have enough gold saved up for it.

CAUTION: Vampire / odd ring users beware. This room will continue to drain your HP if you have items that cause lifedrain.

Conclusion: No more freebies, but with enough luck you can specify your build for that run much more precisely ! It's a great thing in my opinion :)

The fifth relic: Oblivion.

... And an end to all things :)

You're well on your way to becoming half decent at this game. How many deaths before you got to this part? 12? Maybe none ? Regardless of how well or poorly you did, congratulations on getting to one of the hardest parts in the game :) Luckily getting the relic is fairly straightforward. No evil blackjack shenanigans this time. No sirree...

Let's get to it.

Step 1:

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In stage 9 of the game, your main goal is to locate a structure that looks like a big square made out of stone blocks with 4 distinct rune icon blocks in each corner.

Mad science awaits !

Step 2:

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It will look a lot like that, minus the "active" parts and the fact that it's usually always buried between layers of sand blocks. You'll have to bomb an entrance and can easily take up to 5 bombs to reach, depending on how (un)lucky you are.

Proceed to hit one of the runes until the machine starts working (as shown above)

bzzzt

And presto ! You're left with 5 pieces of dragon glass :)



Take a moment to figure out what you're supposed to do here. I'll wait.

Step 3:

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That's correct ! You are indeed supposed to throw the dragon glass into the lava pool in order to drain it. Wow, so clever of you to figure that out ;)



Annnd.... bummer. Nothing in this pool. But no matter ! You have 5, so you must have enough right ?



Nothing here either... 3 dragon glass left.



Huzzah ! Science prevails !

After witnessing the small miracle you just caused, proceed into your brand new shiny doorway and prepare for another logical puzzle !

Step 4:

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Woo puzzles !
A bow is highly reccomended in this area :)



In this next area, we'll be messing around with more science. Namely tractor beams !
The goal here is to get the blue cube from the bottom floor in the shiny blue square on the upper floor. Now we know we cannot push objects in this game so the way to do it is as follows.

Hit one of the tractor beams to pull the block upwards. The beams themselves dont damage you, so no worries. Then turn on another tractor beam to pull the block to a new location. And doing so navigate the block upwards using sheer science !

If you somehow fail, there's a reset switch on the left side should you need it.

CAUTION: Concrete blocks are heavy. If they fall on you, you will be hurt quite a lot. So don't let that happen.

The procedure is thus:



Hit the switches in sequence until you've hit the 4th switch.

The 5th switch requires some timing. Ensure that the switch is turned off when the block is in the approximate position as shown in the image. This makes sure the beam directly above it can carry it onward. This might take a few tries but that's the only time you need to do anything remotely hard ;)

Proceed to use the beams to drop the block inside its rightful place.

Step 5:

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Final step :)
Proceed through the door and find your shiny new oblivion relic just lying there... waiting to be discovered by random individuals for almost seemingly no logical reason....

Hmm....

Description of oblivion:

What it actually does:

AKA game 1.5 starts here.

This is going to require a lot of explaining, so bear with me on this.

First off, those goblins and orcs that chase you across the map are gone. They are replaced with shadowy clones of players that will hunt you down and attack you on sight. They pack quite a punch and are much more clever and cunning than the average enemy.

CAUTION: Shadow enemies currently will take items lying on the floor, but will no longer drop them on death, making them the worst thieves so keep an eye on your stuff when upgrading :)
(Thanks @Abusfad for pointing this out. Completely forgot to add it here heh.)

They will hunt you and they will kill you but the offset is the following new additions:

SHADOW STATIONS.

These things now spawn once per map, and always once per map.

Their main function is converting arms to shadow arms. To do this, approach the altar and proceed to drop 2 of either melee or ranged weaponry on it. It will merge these items (much like a regular altar) into a shadow version of a melee or ranged weapon.

This process can be repeated infinitely so long as you add 2 melee or 2 ranged weaponry, thus giving more shadow swords and shadow bows.

The main reason you would want to do this is because it always converts into the exact identical sword and bow, and their stats are vast improvements over some of the weapons.

But that's not all.
Using 2 separate shadow weapons, you can upgrade these into a superior shadow weapon at a regular altar.

This process is also repeatable infitinitely as long as you have shadow items, but must be 2 melee or 2 shadow weapons of the same type (as with everything else.)

These shadow weapons come with a very specific status enchantment:

"Increases the power of all other equipped shadow items by XX%"


This means that a tier 1 shadow sword and a tier 1 shadow bow will be increased by 10% each. That's 10% more damage just for converting items to shadow items, and on top of being superior versions of their normal counterparts, are only ever increasing in power.

Here's an example:



Look at those stats.
LOOK AT THEM !

That stuff's crazy, and that's just the sword. There's a bow that's as insane as that also, and it is my belief that both also affect the shadow counterparts of usable / passive magical items.

Oh right. The game now also gives shadow versions of existing items. Shadow book for example is a supremely better version of book of eidolan.

There's a shadow cleric orb, shadow beetles, a shadow version of the king's necklace, and so on!

This relic adds much more than it impedes, and it breathes a whole new game mode into itself. I strongly reccomend you have this relic enabled at all times just for the sheer diversity it adds :)

I got them all. What do i do now?

Well first and foremost go pat yourself on the back. You did a tremendously challenging thing here getting them all and short of enjoying their individual benefits.... How about maybe get all of them with you and see what happens.

JUST MAYBE SOMETHING GOOD MIGHT HAPPEN
Or you might end up cursing yourself.

Anything could happen....

Anything :)

Credits and thank you's.

Well, that is everything i can show you regarding relics in Caveblazers :D

I truly hope you liked this guide and found it helpful. If you didn't or have input, by all means, feel free to tell me and i'll see what i can do to change it :)

CREDITS:

Absolutely everyone in this thread.for coming up with the solutions to all the hard puzzles and locations of the entrances :)

And everyone in this one for figuring out the problem with the cobwebs.

(if you were part of the group of people that helped create the foundation for this guide and would like to be named specifically, contact me ;) )

Will (the developer) for making this genius game as good as it is :)
My cat for causing me to die because walking across the keyboard is so much fun when you're at 3 hp left... thanks cat....
My waifu for being tolerant with me during my getting of blackjack relic :P

And you for having read this whole thing and memorized every word of it no seriously there's going to be a quiz about it someday.

Feel free to quote me on anything here, and if anything is wrong or needs adjusting, or just feedback in general, let me know :)

Thanks for reading !
~Cyriel.



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