Hub 3: Heresiarch's Seminary (map)

This hub is basically divided into three main parts. After exploring this level, you need to fill in the missing gems into the astrological chart (they are scattered through the levels, the Orchard of Lamentations and the Silent Reflectory. When the map is completed, the way opens to the second puzzle, the puzzle of the three chapels: wolf, dragon and griffin. There you have a total of nine switches to pull in order to get to the final part of this hub, that is defeating the Heresiarch.

First part
As at the beginning of every HeXen episode, you appear in a room, where Korax has a little speech with you. Then the wall with his face on it disappears, allowing you to enter the hub... so go out and take the lift down into the big open area. Clear it out of monsters (beware especially of all the Chaos serpents on all the high ledges all around (n.b. I haven’t figured a way to access those ledges, exept, of course, the use of Wings of wrath...). When you’re done with that, proceed into the big cathedral north of you. Be careful, as it is dark and full of Dark disciples. When you go further into the room, a small earthwuake will welcome you and the torches will lit, so you’ll be able to see your enemies. Explore this huge room, kill all the monsters. Notice that on the other side of the wall that’s standing in your way as you enter the cathedral, there is what seems to be an astrological map. There is one gem in it, one planet. Finding the remaining five of them is your first quest. Now, if you want to, you can go throuch each of the doors that are on either side, east and west, of the entrance. They will take you to a small balcony overwatching the main open area, with some goodies there and a switch that takes down a ledge with some more goodies. Then, go to the far end of the cathedral, there the room shapes into a sort of cross. Two of its branches (the eastern and western one) contain each three painted glasses that can be broken, revealing a switch. Pull all six of them. If you want to, you may use the magic platform in the very northern end of the cathedral (see Tricks, below). Anyway, pulling all those switches revealed two corridors in the eastern wall of the central part of the cathedral. One on its northern side, one on its southern side. Each of them eventually leads to a portal and it doesn’t matter which you take first. I will first take care of the one closer to the entrance (the southern one). Go down the stairs all the way to a small open area. Clear it of monsters (don’t forget the slaughtaurs on the ledge in front of you and the Chaos serpents on the ledges on each side of the corridor you came from. When this area is clear of monsters (so that they don’t bother you), destroy the dead trees in the southern end of this area, revealing and then pulling the switch behind them. This switch causes the dragon-head-walls in the niches in the corridor you came from to pivot. Wait for the right time (careful not to be crushed) and go through each of them. The first two of them lead to the ledges where the Chaos serpents were. Of the other two, the southern one leads to a small room with some monsters but with a huge lot of mana and a segment of the fourth weapon! Maybe you can complete it sooner than that but this was the time I completed mine. Now as you kill the monsters, be careful, there is a lot of vases in this room and while some contain some more mana, others contain monsters. Now you can either go back the way you came, or stairs should have risen, leading back to the open area before the cathedral. The northern pivoting wall leads to a corridor with some ettins. Using the griffin-walls on either of the corridor’s ends causes parts of the wall to lower down, allowing you into the big room with a pool that you could see through the bars in the eastern wall of the cathedral. This room is quite full of monsters, so it’s a good time to try out your newly acquired powerful weapon. The reward for the battle is an Icon of the defender. There is a switch in the eastern wall of this room that causes the niches that took you there to lower down so you can get back to the griffin corridor but since doors leading back to the main cathedral room opened as well, you don’t really need it. Now go back to the original corridor (the one with the pivoting dragon-walls) and pull the switch you left there (as you go, it should be on your left). It lowers the stairs leading to the cathedral, thus revealing another corridor heading south. It will take you to a room leading back to the area outside the cathedral. Kill all the monsters there and go to the other side of the cathedral entrance, where a similar room has been revealed. A corridor goes out of this room, twisting and turning, and eventually leading you to the ledge where the slaughtaurs used to be (n.b. for some reason the map shifts you from its western end to its eastern end - like going round a very, very small globe...). There there is a switch that opens a wall in the open area below you, finally revealing the portal that will take you to the Orchard of Lamentations...

When you’re back from the Orchard of Lamentations, opening the other portal is much easier. Just go to the northern corridor in the eastern cathedral wall, pull the switch there and run onto the lowering platform (really RUN, as it is going down very quickly and taking your time will make you fall from high enough to hurt you). Down there, there is only one more monster and the portal that leads to the Silent Reflectory...

Back from the Silent Reflectory and the Orchard of Lamentations you should have a total of five planets (two sapphire, two emerald and one ruby - the other being already on the map...). Now go to the astrological map (it is on the wall at the southern end of the cathedral) and put all the planets you found there. Each of them has its specific place so just keep trying placing each of them into each of the holes until they’re all there. In the northern end of the cathedral, now three dragon-walls slid open. The ones on the east and west only revealed Dark Disciples and some goodies, but the northern one also revealed three portals to the Wolf, Dragon and Griffin chapels that form the second puzzle of this hub.

Second Part
If you turn your back to the portals, you will see on the wall nine dark windows. They represent the nine parts of the puzzle to be solved, three in each chapel. Recognizing the portals won’t be a problem as the animals are depicted on them. Now I guess it is possible to go through them in any order you want but you still are going to have to go more than once into most of them. I tried to figure out the order that makes you walk around as few as possible but there may be a more simple sollution. Any way, here it is.

Start with the Wolf Chapel.

Third Part
When you come back with all parts of the puzzle solved, the Heresiarch will appear. He is quite tough and I don’t really have a strategy on how to kill him easily. Just keep running around as much as possible (to avoid being hit) and when he’s vulnerable, attack him with the strongest things you’ve got. This might be the right moment for summoning your Dark Servant, too. Regarding his vulnerability - in case you don’t find out yourself. One of his spells is summoning three or four dark purple balls that keep flying around him. When these balls are summoned, the Heresiarch is invulnerable so there is no use in trying to kill him. That is pretty much the only piece of advice I can give you. When the Heresiarch is dead, it is best to run away from the cathedral, as there is going to be a big earthquake, some things will fall and I think the Heresiarch summons some balls that look like mana but that explode when you touch them. So better get out and wait before everything is over. If you want to get to the secret level of this hub, go into the northern part of the cathedral. There are some pillars there (a bit more south than the lowering swuare that summons monsters and goodies). These pillars lower after the Heresiarch’s death. However, they lower only once, so seize your only chance and jump through them. There, a part of the floor lowers to get you to the portal to the Deathwind Chapel...

Fourth visit
Back from the Deathwind Chapel (or without having visited it, if you don’t want to), just get into the central room of the big cathedral. There, in the western wall, all the bars that blocked your way to the rooms behind are now gone. When you get to the western end of the small corridors there, just jump through the window heading back east to the cathedral and pick up the wings of wrath there. When you step on the platform they’re on, the wall behind you (i.e. to the west) will open, releasing some monsters and revealing the portal to the next hub, the Castle of Grief. (But maybe you’ll want to use the wings of wrath before going in there...)

Tricks

 * There is a roughly square-shaped platform at the northern end of the cathedral. Walking close to it causes it to lower down, summoning a couple of (sometimes more powerful) monsters and some goodies (sometimes quite powerful as well). But be sure to step on it quickly, because when it rises, the goodies are lost (although the monsters remain) and it won’t lower down again until some time passes...