Domain of Arbaces

The Domain of Arbaces is a place where only 240s may go, it is composed of several levels, each different in strategy and difficulty. Of course, the way this goes wsill completely depend on your classes and the skills you've practiced, but I'll give you a bases and idea of what you're going to need to do this area.

The Domain of Arbaces is randomly placed at the bottom of the Proving Grounds each reboot. The entrances to each level (except the first one) are also randomly placed each reboot, as are all the rooms in the area. Boss rooms are also random.

Several helpful tips before you start:

1. The Domain of Arbaces contains many dizzy rooms. There's two choices when you come to these, you can either carry orbs of negatation or just flee without a direction if you get attacked in them. An added issue is the fact a decent amount of them are no-magic. For this reason, rooms that are nomagic with mobs which can para should almost always be avoided.
2. You'll need at least one healing spell, cure blindess and cure poison are stongly recommended.
3. If possible, try take a paladin with you as sanctify can really help on the bigger mobs since the whole Domain is slow-regen. A bard is also a good idea to bring (if possible a paladin/bard).
4. Collect around 30 extra roots before you go down, if you die this will let you go straight back down through the levels.
5. Alternating on the bigger mobs will also make it alot easier, and should one of you die, the other can still finish it off.
6. Saving up a couple of keys before you go down will help alot, and storing a few of them on the isle when you go down will allow you to get back down quickly.
7. Make sure you have plenty of time if you want to attempt this!
8. Restock on reagents, as many as you possibly can. Especially if you're not a Psionic/Druid.
9. Bring a nodecay weapon. This isn't really required, but if you don't, make sure you have alot of whatever weapon you are using. A spear and sword are what I recommend. Cavaliers should note that Arbaces is no-mount, even if you bring a mount into PG.
10. All the main mobs and exits will be in rooms with only a north exit (south entrance).
11. Roots can no longer be eaten to drop levels, and will instead kill you. This means that often the most time-consuming aspect of DoA is finding the downs. If you do find a down while performing the task, try to remember or mark where it is, as this will save you time. If you absolutely cannot find the down, you can die and come back down and you'll be transported to the next level.
12. Doing DoA will be much easier if you have moons which won't hinder your regeneration any more than the area and mobs already do. Avoid new moons if possible.

Entrance Floor

Once you enter the first part of the domain, you'll be on a level with adventurer shades. These sometimes pick up manuals, so if you have a bit of time and peek practiced, it's a good idea to walk around and check them all before proceeding into the levels. There are also 7 tablets in this area that give you clues on the weaknesses of each mob. These aren't really that great and I never used them, but if you want to read them all go ahead. Once you're done on this level head to the far north part of the level and you'll meet a mob that greets you. If you've already done a level he will transfer you straight down, if not you can go down and begin your descent into the domain.

LEVEL 1

The mobs on this level are quite easy, but finding the Queen of Tides to return the items to can become rather annoying at times. First you need to find a fish with a fin, kill it and hide it somewhere you can easily get back to, such as the far southwest corner or one of the other corners. Then find a leopard, you need a obsidan claw from him, repeat same process as fish. Finally find a snake with a fang and hide it as well. Once you find the Queen of Tides, remember the way to her and retrieve the items you hid. Then return them to the Queen. Now that you have a seashell bracelet, you can return to the domain without a key, as long as no one else has within 45mins of when you get there. After you leave her room, find the down and proceed.

LEVEL 2

This level gets a lot more difficult, and I personally found it the hardest of all the levels. There are leeches that paralyze you through bites, so set your defense to dodge if you have it up high, else just hope you can flee fast. Before you move into a room I recommend you use "look " to make sure it's not dizzy and filled with leeches as you will die. Your objective is to find the giant slug. As said in the hints, he will be through a south exit. You can try scan for him if you cast sense life. Once you find him make sure you remember where he is incase you die. Fighting the slug, he's apparently vulnerable to pierce, so use a spear if you have one handy. Cast as many affecting spells on him and sanctify north of his room if you can. If there are doors near the entrance to the slug, I suggest keeping the magic locked if possible. Psionic plague is also a great thing to have here, if not, try poison him. Ice and slow also cause regeneration to greatly slow down. The slug casts web on you after he slings mud at you, so after the first time you see him do it, making a trigger to flee north when he does it is a great idea. The slug has also been improved to occasionally instaweb with an emote, which means that extra caution should be used here. If you do get webbed, calming and healing over and over could allow you last the duration of it. Or you could calm, dispel yourself if you're not a psionic. Just attack/flee/heal over and over and he will eventually die. Once he does die, loot the antenna from his corpse and the key.

LEVEL 3

Easiest level in the domain, by far. However, the trees now perform the dust kick special attack, which blinds and can be irritating, so be wary. First just run around and find the tree spirit. Once you find it, remember where it is, walk around the rooms near it and search. Pick up 3 truffles and return them to the tree spirit. It will give you the heart of the forest and the next key.

LEVEL 4

Back to the hard stuff, this level is filled with fire mobs. If you're a druid, invoke water and keep that on you the entire time. If not, probably best to set your defenses to auto or shield block to prevent breathes hitting you. You need to find the fire wyrm, same deal as the slug. Once you find him, prepare the room north just like the slug and cast up on him. Once you're ready just attack him. If you're a mino, he will hurt you -a lot- so you'll need to flee more, otherwise, he's not really much trouble. Just take it slow and steady. He has a regen script as you damage him, but he will die eventually. Once you beat him, you'll get a ring of fire from his corpse. Find the down and continue onwards! level.

LEVEL 5

Much like the first level, you need to kill 3 mobs and collect gems from them this time. This level is also filled with crystals that randomly blind you when you walk into the rooms. These can be disarmed with disarm trap, but it rarely works and mostly just blinds you. This level will obviously be more tedious for faeries. Be sure to have lots of cure blindness reagents or potions. Each of the three different mobs will randomly drop different colors gems when you kill them. This will usually need to be done multiple times. Fireflies drop orange gems, warriors drop white gems and blue salamanders drop blue gems. Each time you get a gem, make sure you hide it incase you die. Repeat the process of finding the queen, only for the crystal dragon this time. Give it the three gems and you'll receive a prismatic gem. Leave his room and look for the down.

LEVEL 6

Now you're on a level filled with jetstreams and mobs like that, this level isn't really much of a threat. Just find the mist and beat into it. It has now has alot of hp, and does alot of damage, it also breathes out alot of frost and poison. On top of that it appears it has a script to rapidly regen it, much like the fire wyrm, so this could take quite a while. So if you're a dracon, equip shield block and flee lots. It also frags alot of eq, so try stick to stuff insulated. Flee, heal, attack, rinse and repeat. Remember to cure the poison when ever it lands on you. It will die slowly, but surely. Take the shroud of mist from its corpse, leave the room and begin searching for the down.

LEVEL 7

Probably the hardest level in the dungeon, at least for most people. This level is filled with owls which can scream paralyze you. Lots of traps that will put you to sleep and many dizzies. Use look before you move to make sure you aren't heading into an owl, find the cyclone and do the normal around and to it. It will breathe lightning (which stuns you) and poison at you and it also disarms to make it extra annoying. Dwarves should beware the breaths, obviously. The cyclone has also been upgraded so it now casts high-explosive, web and enervation. So flee if you see it casting! If you have a pheonix feather, use it to prevent disarming. It has alot of hp, so it will take alot of hitting. Once you finally beat it, you'll get a vacuum helm from it. Leave the room and find the down, and you'll be on the 3rd last level!

LEVEL 8

This is the last level you'll need to collect an artifact from. You'll need to collect three tablets on this level, much like the other "collect" levels, however the tablets repop completely randomly on the three different types of mobs down here. They're also peekable, so don't kill empty mobs unless things become desperate, and you want to wait for repop. The vampires paralyze, so try stay away from them. The dust clouds have -alot- of hp, but aren't too hard. I recommend going for the dirt devils, just web and blind them and they're easy. Hide the tablets in an easy to access place and once you have one of each (bronze, silver, gold), you need to look for the old man. Once you find him, grab your three tablets and goto him. You need to give them to him in the order of silver, bronze then gold. He'll give you the dusty jacket, and the final art. This will take you to the second last level of the domain.

LEVEL 9

The newest level of the Dungeon of Arbaces, it is much easier than you would expect... And this guide will make it even easier! You may not eat roots to get off this level. Okay, that out of the way, once you enter the level you'll be met by a mob that talks about an apprentice and a curse etc on the doll. Your goal is to get it to the other side. First off find the apprentice first. Once it's found, make sure you know the way back to the starting point. Assuming you didn't already make it start moving, go back to the room and say go. If it is already moving, you'll need to find where it's wandered to. To control the doll you need to get plates of food from the halfing chefs. Kill them 1 at a time and loot the food from their corpse. You must avoid zombies at all costs once you have food in your inventory, if they attack they'll remove it from you. Zombies do not eat food on the ground.
Once you've found the doll again, place the food in a location to block his path, then one to make him change direction. You just need to keep repeating this process until it gets to the end. Fairly simple. From how it seems, food will make him turn left from his current path, and he'll normally turn right.

LEVEL 10

Just spam down until you hit a hallway, and go all north. Here is where you will decide which "type" of archon you become. Northeast will make you W colored archon on who, northwest will make you a D colored archon on who. These will also decide the mark you get from becoming an archon. Northwest is shadow, northeast is light. Completely upto you. Just go all the way to the end of whichever passage you pick and you'll get a vial. Enter the rift and you'll be back at the top of the domain. Now just make your way to a quest master type "class newclass archon" and you'll join the elite ranks (not so elite now) of Archons!