Catacombs

The Bristle Woods Haunting!

Welcome to the title of Legendary! I hope you're prepared for what's to come at rank! We are going to explore the creepy Catacombs, the first location of the Bristle Woods region!

First up, head to the Bazaar Cartographer. Select the option to repair your Tattered Mousoleum Map Piece. This will cost you 160,000 gold. Once that's done, you'll see the Catacombs on your map next to the Mousoleum:

Let's go hunting for... not so fast! We'll need to make preparations before we enter the Catacombs!

Here's our checklist:

• Make sure you have at least 15 RB cheese potions. At the Legendary rank, you are able to convert 14 pieces of cheese per potion instead of 10, which is very nice! It will be good if you have more potions at hand, so that you don't have to return to the lab so frequently.
• Convert about 2-3 potions first to get some RB cheese (in case we lack gold for conversion once we buy our new trap)
• Check if you have at least 316,350 gold. If not, you'll have to grind it up somewhere!

Once you've made the following preparations, head over to the Catacombs!

Wow, this location seems even spookier than the Mousoleum! Don't expect things to be any easier here! The mice that can be found here are part of the "Forgotten Mice" group. While they are considered as forgotten type mice, they are actually weak to traps of the arcane power type.

"What?! Tactical mice are weak to tactical traps and shadow mice are weak to shadow traps but forgotten mice are weak to arcane traps? Yes, it doesn't make much sense. Move along."

Let's take a look at the only arcane type trap available in the trapsmith:

Obelisk of Slumber

2,100 power, 0% power bonus, 10% attraction, 0 luck, extremely fresh cheese effect

Cost: 316,350 gold / Point Requirement: 1,696,240 points

What? Another 0 luck trap? You've got to be kidding me! Well, this trap is actually surprisingly decent. Take into consideration that you are ultimately using a trap that is strong against the mice you are trying to catch so it will suffice, trust me. Doesn't the obelisk just look so dreamy? This will be your first (and compulsory) arcane trap when you enter the Catacombs.

Purchase the obelisk, arm it with your Fan Base (we will leave dehydration out for now because the overall set-up barely has any luck) and RB cheese and let's start hunting!

You'll notice that the mice here, similar to that in the Mousoleum, generally offer nice gold rewards! Our goal here is three-fold:

• Catch a Keeper Mouse that drops the Keeper's Candle
• Farm up about 640,000 gold (Yes, it's a lot)
• Collect at least 12 pieces of scrap metal as loot

1) Obtaining the Keeper's Candle

The Keeper Mouse may drop the Keeper's Candle as loot when caught. He's not a particularly difficult mouse to catch and eventually you'll find one. The Keeper's Candle grants access to the Forbidden Grove, but we'll steer clear of that area for now.

2) Purchase the Mysterious Blueprints

What's the mysterious blueprints for? That's why its mysterious! Well, we are going to craft a new trap with it! First, you'll have to grind up 632,700 gold for it. When you have the gold, head to the General Store and buy the blueprints!

3) Collecting Scrap Metal

Similarly, we are going to need precious scrap metal for our new trap. You may have gotten these from Hydra mice earlier on in the Lagoon. Well, we need 12 in total and some of the mice here drop scrap metal as well. The Scavenger Mouse drops more than 1 at times! When you've gotten 12 scrap metal and the mysterious blueprints, you may now craft your next arcane trap.

Note: You may have noticed, after catching your first scavenger mouse, that you are able to craft another arcane trap known as the Obelisk of Incineration:

Obelisk of Incineration

2,150 power, 10% power bonus, 0% attraction bonus, 1 luck, insanely stale cheese effect

Point Requirement: 1,696,240 points

This trap is better than the obelisk of slumber but only by a small margin. However, to craft it, you'll need the blueprints (bought from the General Store at 45,079 gold), 1 coal (dropped from scavenger and keeper mice), 2 scrap metal and 3 splintered wood. The small improvement in power over the obelisk of slumber does not justify the extra cost. In addition, it consumes 2 scrap metal as well, which should really go into crafting the next, far superior, arcane trap. Do not craft this trap under any circumstance.

Crafting the A.C.R.O.N.Y.M

When you've gotten all the necessary crafting items and have accumulated 3,393,600 points, you are now able to craft the Arcane Capturing Rod of Never Yielding Mystery (ACRONYM for short, yes, it's a long name). Remember the hard-earned onyx stone from the Master of the Dojo? You'll need that now. Also, it's time to smash your obelisk of slumber! Isn't the Hunter's Hammer just lovely?

Here's the crafting recipe:

• 1 Mysterious Blueprints
• 3 Magic Essence (You may get these by smashing SB+. You should have a little SB+ from the daily loyalty chests)
• 1 Obelisk Parts (From smashing your obelisk of slumber)
• 1 Onyx Stone
• 12 Scrap Metal

Craft them all together and....voila! You'll have your ACRONYM! The stats are insane:

Arcane Capturing Rod of Never Yielding Mystery

3,800 power, 12% power bonus, 0% attraction bonus, 18 luck, insanely stale cheese effect

Point Requirement: 3,393,600 points

This trap is a beast! This will undoubtedly be your highest luck trap yet! And it will significantly boost your catch rate in the Catacombs, making the Catacombs the BEST farming area for you now! Because of its sheer luck, you'll be able to use this trap over your other traps outside of the Catacombs as well against other mice, if the arcane power is of normal effectiveness against them. This apocalyptic machine will be your money making machine for quite a while!

Now what? You continue to farm, in the Catacombs, a lot. Use the dehydration base with the ACRONYM. If you run out of RB cheese, go back to the lab for more potions. You can put your ACRONYM's high luck to good use there for more potion drops.

By this point in the game, you must have accumulated a bunch of stale cheese in your inventory. Did you know that you can put them to use? You can craft ancient cheese from stale cheese, here's the formulae:

3 stale cheese + 6 ionized salt = 3 ancient cheese

3 stale cheese + 6 ionized salt + 3 magic essence = 6 ancient cheese

Alternatively, you can also convert brie cheese into ancient cheese using ancient potions dropped by some of the mice in the Catacombs. The conversion rate is 3 pieces per potion at the Legendary level; the cost per piece is 1,900 gold.

While you are free to craft ancient cheese at this point in time, I'd advise against using it in the Catacombs for farming. This is because ancient cheese is almost a necessity in farming runes later in the Forbidden Grove and we need as much of it as we can get. In addition, ancient cheese (especially if converted using potions) can be expensive to obtain, and will making gold farming rather inefficient as compared to the cost-effective RB cheese.

Back to farming, try to accumulate at least 2 million gold. Money should come in quickly if you are using the ACRONYM and RB cheese to farm. When you're ready, we'll head off to the Rodentia Region. "Wait, didn't we just started exploring the Bristle Woods?" Yes, while you may head over to the Forbidden Grove, and subsequently the Acolyte Realm, the ultimate goal here (that is also listed in the adventure book) is the Acolyte Mouse. The Acolyte Mouse, being an arcane type mouse, is not in the least bit weak to arcane traps but rather, is weak to forgotten traps! (yes, it's silly, I know) Hence, your bad-ass ACRONYM trap will barely scratch him, let alone catch him. (It IS still possible to do so, however, and it WAS done back when there weren't any forgotten traps released yet. Still, it is a really really bad idea)

What about the Forgotten Pressure Plate Trap? Ahh, I'd forgotten about that! (Pun intended) Well, There's a reason why I haven't mentioned that trap yet and its simply because we won't be getting it. "Why? Don't we need a forgotten type trap to catch the Acolyte Mouse?" Yes, we do, but there's a much better one that's waiting for us that's found in the Tribal Isles! But we'll first have to navigate the Rodentia Ocean. Don't worry about the Forbidden Grove and Acolyte Realm for now, we'll head back when we are better prepared.

Just for mention, here's the Forgotten Pressure Plate Trap that can be purchased in the trapsmith:

Forgotten Pressure Plate Trap

3,500 power, 10% power bonus, 10% attraction bonus, 2 luck, fresh cheese effect

Cost: 400,00 gold / Point Requirement: 2,500,000 points / Item Requirement: 12 runes

This trap is the basic forgotten type trap that hunters will have access to, for catching the Acolyte Mouse. However, there is a better trap waiting for us in the Tribal Isles known as the Ancient Box Trap which will do better in catching the Acolyte. Make no mistake, both traps will still have a hard time doing so but the choice is yours. I would recommend playing the game along the normal progression and getting the Ancient Box Trap before trying for the Acolyte.

Well, looks like we're done with the Catacombs for now. Got a good stash of gold? Great. Let's head to the S.S Huntington III!