Overview
The elven heroes Elleon and Fraya have tracked the treacherous Akasha to Ostgarath and learned the location of the stolen Core.
The Story so Far…
While the dungeon proper is accessible to any character level 48 or higher, to get the full experience you’ll want to continue the Allemantheia plotline (started at level 38 and featured in the
Necromancer Tomb).
After the spirit of Kaidun related the dark deeds of Thulsa, Fraya sent you to Val Palrada in search of answers, which in turn led you to the caverns of Arachnaea.
Fraya herself took the field with you against the commander of the so-called “Legion of Thulsa.” Together you uncovered a dreadful secret: the sorcerer Malachai, an expert on the Core whom you thought was a friend, has stolen the living artifact, which is central to the elves' power.
Back in Allemantheia, you stormed into Malachai's lab and learned another disturbing fact—Malachai is the god Thulsa in disguise! Worse yet, he’s in league with the goddess Akasha, who is determined to steal the power of the Core for evil purposes.
Fraya vowed to see this fight to its end, so she followed Elleon and Jelena to Castanica to oversee the search personally. Joining them, you faced down the forces of Akasha and rescued the Core—in the person of the Archmage Serion.
How to Enter the Dungeon
This section will walk you through the quests and encounters leading up to and inside the Golden Labyrinth. The tactics presented are suggested by players like you and draw on extensive play experience, but are not absolute guarantees of success. As with all things TERA, player skill and a healthy amount of common sense are what you'll need to win—but we've compiled a few tips to help you.
| Quest Title | Min Level | Starting NPC |
|---|
| Fraya's Faith | 48 | Elleon (must have finished Rescue the Core) |
1. A Walk in the Caverns
Akasha's plan to seize the power of the Core has destabilized its energies to the point where Serion can no longer contain them. Fraya has offered herself up as a vessel, but Elleon is not so sure.
Reasoning that Akasha must have constructed some sort of device to transfer the Core's power from Serion to herself, the pair decide to find that device and use it as soon as possible. Elleon heads out to do some scouting, and Fraya sends you after him.
2. A Leap of Faith
On the second level of the Hungry Caverns (appropriately named the Cavern of Hunger), Elleon waits with an update. The advance team has deactivated traps on a teleportal and moved inside.
3. Jelena to the rescue!
Elleon's adjutant has done her usual job of infiltrating and mapping enemy territory.
Obelisks control doors throughout the dungeon, and Jelena caught a glimpse of a few bosses while she was scouting your path. Gulas, Shurians, and slavers all roam the halls between you and the first boss, so get ready for some action!
4. Berylheart
The first obelisk unlocks the way to Berylheart, a lithikumas of considerable power. While it does use some “standard” kumas attacks, its attack power and defense are much higher than the norm.
Assuming your tank is up to snuff, the first part of this battle will go as planned. But the small size of the room works far more to the boss's advantage, and if you're not paying attention it's easy to “cleverly position” yourself against a wall with several tons of enraged demon filling your screen.
When Berylheart is enraged, there's not much in the game that can block all of its attacks, though you'll be tempted to try. Keep the boss moving around the edges of the room while it's glowing, stunning it as much as you can.
When Berylheart's health drops below 70 percent, it buffs its endurance and attempts to move to the center. This is not something you want to happen, so use any interrupts you have to slow or stall it. A Mystic can also cancel the buff with Regression.
Once in the center, Berylheart sits and summons two waves of imps from the sides of the room. Now is the time for your dps to really shine. If any imps get to the center, the boss will heal for each one it “eats.”
Tanks need to occupy as many of these as possible, but your party needs to split into two teams ASAP and take them down. And don't leave your healer alone; these imps can do some damage in their own right.
Assuming the boss has not healed significantly, keep up your tactics and it will fall. Return to Jelena, and then press on to meet Elleon further in the dungeon.
5. A word about rewards
In this dungeon, you need to pay particular attention to a couple items: oxbow badges and holy potions of protection.
Oxbow badges can be collected and traded to buy some impressive equipment back in Castanica. While you won't have enough from a single trip through the Golden Labyrinth for a full set of gear, you can get more on subsequent runs or through the kindness of strangers and friends.
Holy potions of protection are another matter. You don't want to trade these—in fact, you'll want as many as possible to combat a nasty debuff in Akasha's Hideout. While oxbow badges can drop from any opponent, the potions are far more likely to drop when fighting bosses.
6. Khuljarak
Speaking of which, behind the next obelisk is another passage, leading past more gulas, caimans, and slavers until you reach a very powerful fangspawn.
Like Berylheart, this boss has upgraded attack and defense values and routines. In fact, a single hit from Khuljarak can reduce an unprepared character in heavy armor to critically low HP levels, so stay on your toes!
Also like Berylheart, when Khuljarak gets below 75 percent HP, it uses a hefty endurance buff, moves to the center of the room, and summons minions (corrupted caprin imps this time). While these minions do not heal the boss, they move in concert with it around the room and can overcome an unwary caster.
Luckily for you, Khuljarak isn't going to win any “boss of the year” awards where its minions are concerned. Its area-of-effect (AoE) attacks are indiscriminate, which will wipe out the minions as well as you. Stay away from the boss until all the minions are dead. Better yet, stun, debuff, or interrupt their summoning altogether.
Rinse and repeat and you'll be ready to move on.
7. The Guardian of the Maze
Follow the main path and you'll come to the dungeon's second required boss: an upgraded, mottled vulcan similar to those found in Azarel's Temple.
The party leader should put a mark on this boss as soon as possible, preferably before combat starts. Like the other bosses you've faced in this dungeon, the vulcan will summon help and complicate the fight if left to its own devices. But this time, it animates its own shadow.
The shadow does not attack—it's merely a ruse to distract you as the vulcan leaps and strikes around the room. Designate someone before the fight to act as an “off-tank” to pull the shadow away from the marked boss. It will disappear after a bit, and will block or absorb attacks better used to kill the true boss. Like before, any stuns or interrupts you have can cancel the summon altogether.
8. Them Bones, Them Bones, They Walk Around
Continuing into the dungeon, you'll come to a chamber flanked by two rooms of bone imps. Under no circumstances should you engage them, even if they chase you as you run through. While they can be defeated, these undead are notoriously persistent and will respawn in their original locations.
9. That Darned Elf!
True to form, Elleon has found a bit of trouble on the way to your ultimate goal. He has “tactically retreated” to a somewhat defensible position, but he's been poisoned and needs a bit of help.
When you're ready, talk to Elleon and prepare for a few minutes of tense combat. Waves of enemies will pour in and make a hard line straight for the federation's greatest hero.
While it’s anybody's guess what Akasha had planned for this room, Elleon picked a nearly perfect place for a “next-to-last” stand. The golem in the corner is the key to his plan—any attack (preferably ranged) will trigger the spikes and deal damage to anyone or anything standing on them.
When you've dealt with the waves, speak to Elleon again to advance Fraya's Faith.
10. Valgmore and Varcerbus
| Quest Title | Type | Task |
|---|
| Fraya's Faith | Story | Fight your way to the Chamber of the Wild. |
Elleon's not where he said he'd be, but he was right about the chamber's guardians.
After the bosses you've fought up to this point, these two aren't particularly troublesome, but they can take out an unprepared or disorganized party fairly quickly.
If possible, remove Valgmore from the fight before it starts with one of the following skills:
- Sonorous Dreams (Mystic)
- Ishara's Lullaby (Priest)
- Mindblast (Sorcerer)
If not possible, your tank should move him away from Varcerbus while damage dealers take it out. You'll want this boss down before you start working on Valgmore's HP (if it drops too much, Valgmore will summon a pack of cromoses to complicate things).
Take them out, take the boss out, and then wait for Elleon's arrival. He'll use a token to summon Fraya and Serion for the Core transfer.
11. But wait, there's more!
You may have noticed both an obelisk, and a teleportal in this chamber. One will take you back to the Hungry Caverns, and the other to…
12. Baracos
After defeating some slavers, caimans, and bone imps (these you should fight), you'll come upon the final challenge of the Golden Labyrinth.
Baracos is suffused with the same strengthening energy as the rest of the bosses in this dungeon, but this one is far and away the most powerful. For starters, Baracos is a giant, and can attack just about every spot in the chamber with brutal weapon attacks and charges.
If you can get out of the way, do it. It's not at all uncommon for the giant's sweep attack to outright kill lightly armed combatants. But Baracos also has a strong ranged attack that can take out a character, so don't be there when it hits.
And if fighting a giant in a small room wasn't problematic enough, when its HP falls below 70 percent, Baracos will summon golems around the room.
These are a bit of a tricky situation. Your best bet (as always) is not to let Baracos summon them in the first place. Barring that, keep the boss as far away from the golems as possible. If Baracos strays near them, the giant will receive a huge strength boost for 60 seconds and also enrage.
While enraged, Baracos can use its charge attack consecutively. This attack covers most of the room at once, and with all that added strength behind it, this attack is incredibly dangerous. And if an enraged, charging, fortified, strength-enhanced giant wasn't bad enough, the golems themselves will respond if attacked—with both a bleed and a slowing effect.
However, you do have a couple options here. If you have a mystic, Regression will remove the strength boost and “calm” Baracos down. If you have a lancer, Infuriate will focus the golem's powers for good, granting a significant defense increase to the party and denying Baracos access to them for a brief time.
13. A few parting gifts
Back in Castanica, Fraya and Elleon are dealing with the consequences of transferring the Core's power using Akasha's machinery. Elleon is too weak from his ordeal to pursue the fight against the god himself, and Fraya is far too important to Allemanthia to take the field again. So they need volunteers for another mission, whenever you feel up to it.
Meanwhile, back at the Hungry Caverns, your efforts have allowed the strike team to more thoroughly scout the dungeon, and their reports have also initiated some more tasks that need doing. Not only are they offering to pay for another trip (or three) into the Golden Labyrinth, but those forays will also give you more opportunities for oxbow badges and holy potions of protection!
| Quest Title | NPC | Task |
|---|
| Greedy Eyes | Krudo | Kill Sihran mutilators and brutal slavers. |
| Sacrifices for Science | Krudo | Collect blood crystals. |
| Konika’s Favorite Food | Kurak | Collect caiman tails. |
| Kurak's Lament | Kurak | Collect gula hearts. |
| Grandpa's Stories | Avil | Open Baracos's treasure chests. |
| Slave to Ration (repeatable) | Krudo | Kill Sihran mutilators, drowned gulas, and brutal slavers (must have finished Greedy Eyes). |
| Caimans in the Maze (repeatable) | Kurak | Kill caimans (must have finished Konika’s Favorite Food). |
| Gulas in the Maze (repeatable) | Kurak | Kill gulas (must have finished Kurak’s Lament). |
After the spirit of Kaidun related the dark deeds of Thulsa, Fraya sent you to Val Palrada in search of answers, which in turn led you to the caverns of Arachnaea.
Fraya herself took the field with you against the commander of the so-called “Legion of Thulsa.” Together you uncovered a dreadful secret: the sorcerer Malachai, an expert on the Core whom you thought was a friend, has stolen the living artifact, which is central to the elves' power.
Back in Allemantheia, you stormed into Malachai's lab and learned another disturbing fact—Malachai is the god Thulsa in disguise! Worse yet, he’s in league with the goddess Akasha, who is determined to steal the power of the Core for evil purposes.
Fraya vowed to see this fight to its end, so she followed Elleon and Jelena to Castanica to oversee the search personally. Joining them, you faced down the forces of Akasha and rescued the Core—in the person of the Archmage Serion.
Reasoning that Akasha must have constructed some sort of device to transfer the Core's power from Serion to herself, the pair decide to find that device and use it as soon as possible. Elleon heads out to do some scouting, and Fraya sends you after him.
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