Cultist Prison

The Cultist Prison is a dungeon located at the heart of the Lower Plateau, far-east of Argan Village. The entrance is partially hidden by thick trees and well-guarded by tar sproutlings, obscuring the area. It spans several maps long, armed to the teeth with cultists. At the center of the prison, lies the boss, trapped behind bars.

You may need to complete the following quests beforehand in order to enter the Prison, such as Cryptic Clues (find the Mud-covered Plans item from Cultist Chieftain in The Cultist Village and talk to Roc) > Tribal Troubles > Charming Company > Dazzling Defence > Dungeon Descent. This will cause Tyn to permanently appear outside of the Prison, allowing you to fix up any Bent Prison Key into a Master Prison Key, which is needed to gain access to the rest of the prison (opening up the locked gate to get inside). As a group, only one adventurer needs to possess the key, in order to temporarily unlock the Prison for the rest of the group members.

The recommended level for The Cultist Prison is 28-30, and adventurers above level 32 will be scaled down to that level for the dungeon. Note that scaling only occurs when you or a party member who is level 32 or under enters the dungeon, otherwise it remains unscaled upon entry. Unlike other dungeons, there are no summon stones to change the level.

Cultist Prison

Rufus Lockbash

Name	Rufus Lockbash
Epithet	Prison Key Master
Level	31
Classification	Brute
Element	Earth 2
Health	3,100
Resistances	None

Although a named monster, this cultist drops the key needed to access the rest of the prison. He is fairly easy to defeat, only having 3,100 health at most.

He can be found in the Key Keeper's Quarters west of the locked gate inside the prison. Once the key (Bent Prison Key) is obtained, speak to Tyn to restore the key to it's former state (Master Prison Key). You may need to gather additional materials in order to obtain the key (first time only), then afterwards it can be repaired for free at any time (if you happened to dispose of the key, and re-obtained one from Rufus).

Entering Inside

In order to proceed further into the prison, you need to use the Master Prison Key in your inventory while standing near the locked wooden gate.

As you go in, you come to a dead-end with a broken platform. In order to proceed onto the rest of the prison, you have to fall down (and barely survive with 1 health remaining). There will be a Glacial Water Spirit to heal you (you can also talk to it in order to leave the prison), and some unnamed spirits fending off against snakes. As you traverse through the maps, you eventually come to the West Prison Block, where you encounter the boss.

Crazed Sporebark Watcher

Name	Crazed Sporebark Watcher
Level	33+
Classification	Brute
Element	Earth 5
Health	65,000
Resistances	Immune to stun, freeze, silence, sleep and charm.

The Crazed Sporebark Watcher is the only boss in the Cultist Prison. It can be found behind bars in a jail cell in the West Prison Block. If you try to attack or pass it, it will break out of it's cage, beginning the boss fight.

It's defending element is Earth 5, making it heavily weak to Fire, Poison attacks (as well as Water and Light). As long as you have the right element equipped, you should be able to inflict enough damage to quickly defeat it.

The main abilities of the Sporebark Watcher are as follows:

• Attuned to Earth: At the start and during the battle, it will summon a mix of several mushrooms into the map, either one of two types. These mushrooms constantly emit spores when standing directly on top of them.
  • Healthy Mushrooms (with a green color) are friendly, and cannot be damaged by your attacks. While standing near it, it periodically gives you a healing buff that restores 195 health every 3 seconds for 20 seconds (can be stacked three times for a max of 595 every 3 seconds for 20 seconds). The boss can damage these mushrooms by using Stomp when near them. If you are not stacked on top of these mushrooms, it will suffer more damage from the boss's stomp.
  • Sickly Mushrooms (with a purple color) are hostile and can be damaged by your attacks. While standing near it, it periodically inflicts damage to you. The boss cannot damage these mushrooms by using Stomp when near them. Get rid of them quickly, or else the damage dealt to you adds up.
    • The trophy Green Thumb requires you to defeat 10 sickly mushrooms before finishing off the Sporebark Watcher.

• Abrasive Bark: This ability inflicts a debuff that causes you to receive 10% more damage from the boss's attacks.

• Stomp: The Sporebark Watcher will repeatedly use Stomp over the course of the fight. It is stronger against targets that are not stacked together with a player or healthy mushroom.

In order to deal with the Sporebark Watcher, you want to quickly stack on top of a healthy mushroom, while getting rid of any sickly mushrooms near it with an AoE. The healthy mushrooms are destroyed within a couple of stomps, so you should switch to the next one available when you notice that your healing buff from the mushroom is not reapplying. As long as you stick to this strategy, the boss should be over in a few minutes.

As a side note, you should not lure the boss near a healthy mushroom if you're not going to stack on it (the healthy mushrooms take more damage from Stomp when no one is stacking on top of it). In addition, you should not stay on the sickly mushrooms for long periods of time, or else the damage taken overpowers the regenerative effect from the healthy mushrooms.

Drops:

• Heavy Branch
• Cobalt Mushroom
• Lavender Mushroom
• Scarlet Mushroom
• Moonstone Necklace
• Stolen Monastery Choker

Rescuing the Spirits (optional)

After defeating the only boss of the Cultist Prison, you are still left with a few maps to the east of the West Prison Block. The cultists patrolling this corridor will drop single-use prison keys, which can be used to unlock the doors of the jail cells. When opening the jail cells of spirits, they will give thanks and immediately leave. There is no point in opening a jail cell that houses a hostile monster.

As you reach the upper part of the Lower Detention Hall, there will be stronger cultists guarding the jail cells. Cultist Elites can hit hard and smite spellcasters. Moontouched Alchemists can heal nearby cultists health back to full easily. Cultist Warlocks can deal lots of damage with their Embers-Ignite spell combo, as well as Fire Bolt. Not to mention, the monsters in the first three jail cells will cause some trouble with their abilities on top of dealing with these cultists. Make sure you get rid of the monsters in the cells, before taking on the cultists themselves.

The jail cells on the lower part of the Lower Detention Hall in order from left to right are as follows:

• Olivia (NPC spirit)
• 3x Agitated Jungle Snake (hostile enemy)
• Argan Village Guard (NPC spirit)
• Mia and Gon (NPC spirits)
• Tormented Argan (hostile enemy)

The jail cells on the upper part of the Lower Detention Hall in order from right to left are as follows:

• Lost Spirit (hostile enemy, be wary of Terrify spell)
• 3x Razorleaf Swarmer (hostile enemy, be wary of Invigorating Pollen ability that heals other monsters)
• Dark Possessor (hostile enemy, be wary of Possess spell)
• Sasha (NPC spirit)
  • Freeing Sasha from her jail cell will unlock the trophy Spirits at Large. This is one of the 13 trophies needed for the Argan Dungeon Master trophy

At the end of the upper floor on the Lower Detention Hall is a dead end with a chest. The chest may contain food items, potions and coins, as well as a silver leaf. A first time clear will reward you a CD of the Cultist Prison's BGM.