How to get this quest
Complete Rise to Intermediacy, then enter Trademond.
Speak to Sardine, then go to Draknor Fortress. You'll get greeted by Sathanas. Your goal is now to reach floor 5 of the fortress and confront him.
When entering the fortress area, Aura gets a Resistance counter. The counter starts at 10 times Aura's MDEF. If Aura's MDEF decreases while inside the fortress area, the counter will decrease accordingly. Raising Aura's MDEF inside the fortress area won't increase the counter. The counter will decrease with each step and turn in battle. Starting a new day will reset the counter.
When the counter reaches 0, Aura gets affected by the Arms of Wrath curse. If you want to avoid this, it is advised the quest progressively and set up rope shortcuts on your way.
You start on the fortress exterior. There are two entrances to the building.
- The most obvious entry point is the front entrance. However, the door can only be unlocked either from the inside (meaning the other entry point was used before) or by destroying the lock. Destroying the unlock requires either 25 bombs, 5 bombs+, or to remove Aura's collar. The door is also guarded by a demon incarnation (see below).
- The second entry point goes through the exterior's northern cliff. Climb the vine to go on the cliff and follow it to enter a cave. Once inside the cave, you'll have to progress until you reach the a destroyable point on the southern cave wall. There a two ways to reach this point: destroying a tough rock and using a rope, or pass a 16 agility check to jump. Once to the destroyable point, there a three ways to create an exit: remove Aura's collar, use 5 bombs, or use 1 bomb+. You then get on a cliff. Descend with a rope and you'll get to an outdoor second-floor area of the fortress.
- From this area there is yet another rope shortcut to the outside ground, and two entrances to the fortress. One entrance is a door which takes you to the east wing of the floor 2. The other entrance is initially blocked by a rock, and leads to a ladder to the east wing of floor 1.
- The stairs leading to floor 3 are on the west wing of floor 2, guarded by another demon incarnation. However, reaching it requires walking through a curse trap and fighting a demon incarnation.
¶ Curse traps and demon incarnations
There are three demons blocking some parts of the fortress.
- Aamon's incarnation guards the front entrance.
- Kerberos's incarnation guards the stairs to floor 3.
- Moloch's incarnation guards the stairs to floor 5.
The incarnations respawn each day as long as their associated core is not defeated.
- Aamon's core is close to the side entrance to the fortress.
- Kerberos's core is in the basement. To access the domain, you either need to destroy a tough rock to access or to use a key (found on the corpse close to Kerberos's incarnation).
- Moloch's core is on floor 4. Defeating the core also stops the tentacles on floor 4 to respawning each day.
Besides making progression over multiple days easier, defeating a demon's core gives 1 corruption, 2 max corruption and 50 exp.
Drakhnor Fortress also contains multiple curse traps. Some off them must be walked on to access Aamon's and Kerberos's domain. Furthermore, Moloch's domain is protected by a tentacles group and this fight can be avoided if you walk on a curse trap. Fortunately, the area introduces a way to walk on the traps without suffering an otherwise permanent debuff.
On floor 1's west wing, there is a group of two adventurers: Matthias and Mira. As long you are in their room, the Resistance counter doesn't decrease. In addition, up to once per day, talking to Mira and asking for her help allows you to give her a blessed energy potion+ for her to cast the Curse Trap Barrier spell. This passive skill lasts until the end of the day and negates the next curse trap Aura activates.
The stairs leading to floor 4 are guarded by Jonas, accompanied by Siegfried and two regular enemies. You can avoid this fight altogether by luring the troop and having it follow you around the staircase in the top right of the map . Siegfried is the main damage dealer of the group, and Jonas is a tank able to use Protect II. To win the fight without removing Aura's collar, two approaches are valid:
- Ambush the group and defeat Siegfried quickly. The Shadowcloak I + Tailwind I + thunder slime combination is very effective for this.
- Have good enough suvivability to defeat Siegfried without suffering too much. Rock Armor I is vital for this strategy. This strategy is pullable without ambush, but it requires more setup.
Floor 4 is pretty small. The path is straightforward, but Moloch's core is a tough boss able to summon multiple tentacles and buff them. Moloch also summons 3 poisoned hungers (fragments with poisonous attacks) mid fight after taking enough damage. Ambushing Moloch with Shadowcloak I and a slime boosted by Bloodshot Eyes drug is an advised strategy to win without removing Aura's collar. Radiance I also makes the fights pretty easy, but the skill takes time to acquire.
Sathanas can be confronted on floor 5. The encounter is divided into two parts.
- Sathanas will try to summon Aamon, Kerberos and Moloch. Any of those demons won't come if already slain. If at least one of them is still alive, all successfully summoned members of the trio will fight you at one.
- If you win, Sathanas will fight you himself. If you reached day 100, he will fight at full power (and removing Aura's collar is the only realistic option to win). Else, his attributes are reduced by 75% (but they are still pretty). Sathanas has the Heavy Armored trait. on the 10th turn of the fight, he will change to a severely weakened form and get broken defenses. To survive the 9 first turns, it is advised to start with Rock Armor I or Water Skin I on, Storm I on and the fire slime summoned. Sathanas uses Superbia on his first turn. This allows Aura to change to Water Skin (if she started with Rock Armor, else using Pacify I is advised) and the slime to use a blessed flash bomb (all attacks of Sathanas are physical). Guard with the slime and debuff Sathanas with Pacify I (unless you are in danger, in which case healing with a vitality potion is the right move). Besides his normal attack hitting two times with darkness damage, he uses in a row four physical fire skills (Furorem x1, x2, x3, x4). That's why resistance to fire is precious. Sathanas also gets temporarily exhausted after using those skills.
Beating Sathanas gives 2 corruption, 5 max corruption and 250 exp and an harvestable spot increasing Aura's max MP by 15. But victory is optional in the quest. Sathanas and his army will leave Drakhnor Fortress even if Aura is defeated. In this case, you get the Arms of Wrath curse (if Aura doesn't have this curse already) and the day ends.
Examine the castle ruin on the world map. You will obtain the Caritas Rune. After obtaining this item, reporting to the guild clerk becomes possible. You then get the reward and complete the quest.