Aspect of The Silence
| U aspect of The Silence (No tile) | |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | 38 |
| Attacks |
Tentacle 1d4 vampiric, Tentacle 3d4 desiccation, Tentacle 1d4 disintegration, Tentacle 1d4 disease, Passive 2d8 cold |
| Base level | 33 |
| Base experience | 1667 |
| Speed | 12 |
| Base AC | -3 |
| Base MR | 99 |
| Alignment | -5 (chaotic) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | 0 (Not randomly generated) |
| Genocidable | No |
| Weight | 0 |
| Nutritional value | 0 |
| Size | huge |
| Resistances | disintegration, petrification |
| Resistances conveyed | cold, poison |
|
An aspect of The Silence:
| |
The Aspects of The Silence are the end-boss of the Mithardir Quest.
Generation
Unlike most quest end-bosses, the Aspects are not unique monsters, but can spawn as part of normal monster generation on the final level only. One is also spawned as soon as the character knows 2 Words of Creation while on the final level. Since the second slab is also located on the final level, this spawn may trigger as soon as the character finishes reading the slab (if they do so on-level) or it may trigger as soon as they re-visit the level after reading the slab elsewhere.
Passive Powers
Aspects are permanently invisible, can walk through walls, and can always sense your location. Each Aspect on the level further drains 3 energy per turn. Finally, Aspects in close proximity to the character cause greatly elevated spell failure.
Treasure
The first Aspect you kill (not necessarily the first to spawn!) will drop the third (and final) slab. Try to avoid killing it over water or with the Nurturing Word, since that makes the slab harder to access. In addition, the first Aspect to spawn will also cause the Third Key of Chaos to spawn somewhere on the level.
Strategies
Aspects are extremely lethal in melee, especially for the unprepared. They drain levels via their vampiric tentacles (bypassing magic cancellation), inflict deadly illnesses, and disintegrate first your gear and then you. In addition, they take only 1/4 damage from physical attacks. Additionally, they're classified as demons, so they can gate more Aspects of The Silence.
Aspects can be warded off with any ward versus U (elder sign, gorg, hexa?, hepta?). Since they do not recover HP, you can gradually wear them down while safe on your ward.
A sufficiently powerful melee combatant can also defeat them in close combat. It's a good idea to have well-enchanted armor before fighting them, since their disintegrating tentacles will need to disenchant armor pieces before finally disintegrating them. While it might be tempting to wear junk armor, if all your armor is destroyed the next hit will disintegrate you! It's also borderline required to have some sort of means to cure illnesses. Both of these things can be superseded with a reliable ward, but it's not recommended. Be very wary of their ability to gate in more Aspects if you try this strategy!
Spellcasters can use a Naen syllable to bypass both the power drain and the elevated spell failure chance. Since you will likely lose a lot of energy while the Aspect makes its way to you across the level, you may need to use multiple Naen syllables to finish the fight.
A wand-using character will find their wands to be a reliable means of dealing damage, particularly fire and lightning (they resist cold and death).
The First Word and the Nurturing Word are Words of Creation that are both highly effective against Aspects. You will often have learned one of these before needing to fight an Aspect, and may have learned both. Try not to finish the first Aspect off with the Nurturing Word, since that will mean that you need to dig the slab out of the ground under the resultant tree!
Half-dragons may find the Aspects easiest of all, since their breath weapon may bypass the damage resistances Aspects have.
