Hub 3: Griffin Chapel

In the temple dedicated to the winged lion, an act of faith is required of all who would span the boundaries of life and death.

Key puzzle switch
As usual, you appear in an alcove with a set of tripartite portals. The only way forward is to the northwest, where you will pass a barred room full of chaos serpents. Around the bend is the central area of the chapel. It is currently full of ettins, which you will have to mow down. If you break the pottery on or near the platform to your left, you will unleash afrits (except for one, see: Secrets). To the south, there is a chaos serpent encaged between the staircases — you should quickly dispatch this enemy, since it can shoot through the grating. If the twin staircases are unbarred, the chaos serpents on the floor below will be able to take shots at you as well, although they cannot climb up. You may wish to take them out, preferably from a distance (if you head down below, see: Post Wolf Chapel). You may also want to deal with the hidden afrits now so that they cannot cause problems later.

Once the monsters are dealt with, you should take a look around. There are twin staircases to the south, and a ledge overlooking a chasm to the north. If this is your first visit, both of these passages will be barred. There are platforms in the southern corners, barred rooms full of chaos serpents in the northern corners, and a central pillar. There are a number of icons depicting paired griffins throughout the chamber — only one of these has an amethyst set it in it, which is found on the western wall. To proceed, approach the amethyst-bearing griffin icon to the west and activate it. This will cause the wall to slide open, unveiling a hidden chamber guarded by chaos serpents, along with blue mana; most importantly, the key puzzle switch is inside. Pulling this will “solve one ninth of the puzzle on the monastery”, and open up the other two chapels.

The key puzzle switch also made changes on this level. Back in the central chamber, the two griffin walls on either side of the northern chasm have opened to reveal alcoves, each with an item and a pulley switch. To the east is a quartz flask; to the west is a torch. Each pulley switch will open the bars of the room it is adjacent to, unleashing the chaos serpents to the east and west respectively. You may wish to do this in order to gather the items in the rooms (there is also the risk of the chaos serpents shooting through the bars, although this is uncommon). After you pull each switch, you should quickly move out of the alcove to fight them in the open. If you did not dispatch the afrits hiding in the pottery, they might be released by an errant projectile. The western room contains discs of repulsion; the eastern room contains a chaos device and fléchettes.

If the northern and southern passages are barred, you should make your way back to the tripartite portals in the east. If you are following the conventional order, then both passages should be unbarred, allowing you to proceed onwards.

After Wolf Chapel
From the central area, take the stairs down (there are two flights on the south, divided by a Chaos Serpents behind bars). Kill all the monsters down there and take the stairs up on your right (west). They lead you to a platform, stepping upon which counts as the fifth part of the puzzle. If you break the glass-window east of you, a wall behind you lowers allowing you to access the area behind the bars to the west of the platform (you’ll have to lower another wall on your way).

Now if you go back down where you came from, two walls will have opened there, releasing some slaughtaurs. When you’ll get rid of them, go into the newly-opened southern room with a small pond and pick up the Falcon Shield in it. This opens the wall on the northern side, beyond which there is a lift that takes you to the small room you could see through the bars from the main room (where the Chaos Serpent was).

After Dragon Chapel
Enter the central northern way out of the main room, the one that leads into the open. You’ll notice a bright arrow on the ground. Step on it and move really close to the edge and an "invisible" bridge will appear. This is also going to wake up some afrits sleeping at the bottom of the pit so get ready for their attack.

On the invisible bridge, first take the road to the left. There you’ll find a switch that lifts the bars on the right end of the road. Now go there and step into the teleporter.

From the place where you appeared, jump across the pit and follow the corridor into a room with moving walls. This room is quite fun but also wuite dangerous so I recommend saving often. There is a griffin-wall in each one of the four corners of this room that can be opened and behind it is a switch that has to be pulled. Only if all four switches are pulled the ceiling won’t crush on you in the western end of the room, where you want to get. Sometimes a moving wall gets stuck with some ettin, thus blocking the access to the griffin-wall. In that case, just kill the ettin to get the wall moving again. But be careful so that the wall doesn’t crush you as it starts moving again!

Now as I said, when all the four switches are pulled, you can go to the western end of the room and the ceiling of the final corridor won’t fall down on you. At the end is a switch, part of the main hub puzzle.

Secrets
On the southeastern platform in the main chamber, the pot closest to the torch in the corner contains a combined mana container. All the others release afrits.

Things
This level contains the following numbers of things per skill level: