Forbidden Grove and Acolyte Realm

Road to the Acolyte!

Give yourself a pat on the back for getting all the way here! From here on, things aren't going to be so simple. Exciting, isn't it?

Now that you've conquered the dreaded jungle mice, your next goal is to hunt for the Acolyte mouse, which resides in the Acolyte Realm (duh). But first, we'll have to make some preparations in the Forbidden Grove. To the Forbidden Grove!

Rune Farming

Welcome to the Forbidden Grove! You'll need ancient cheese here. Refer to the crafting recipe here if you've forgotten about it. Build a good supply of ancient cheese. I'd recommend about 200 first. For your trap set-up, you should equip your ACRONYM along with your aqua base.

If you've been here on a staling run before, you'd have notice that the Forbidden Grove location works differently from other locations. It runs on a 16-hour open, 4-hour closed cycle: meaning to say that it stays open for 16 hours, closes for 4 hours then reopens for 16 hours again and so on. This means that you can only enter the Forbidden Grove in that 16 hour window period.

Here's an example of the Heads-Up Display (HUD) on your game:

(Ignore the trap set-up and bait in this picture)

Our goal here is straightforward: arm ancient cheese and catch mice that drop runes as loot. Why? The Acolyte is only attracted to runic cheese that is made from runes and the grove is the best place for rune farming. You'll find the mice here slightly tougher than those in the Catacombs. However, some of the mice, such as the Gate Guardian and Scavenger, can drop up to 7 or 8 runes at a time! 

So what happens when the Forbidden Grove closes while you are still hunting here? Well, when the grove closes, realm ripper mice are released. In fact, they are the only mice that can be attracted when the grove is closed. These mice drop runes and stale cheese too. However, upon catching a realm ripper mouse, you'll be transported to the Acolyte Realm! When this happens, you can either hunt at the Acolyte Realm (I'd advise against wasting your ancient cheese here) then return to the Forbidden Grove when it opens or you can leave the Acolyte Realm to hunt somewhere else first before return to the grove. Either way, when you leave the realm, the only way to get back is through the realm ripper via the grove again. Also, do take note that while on a staling run using standard cheese, realm rippers can be attracted and you'll be transported to the Acolyte Realm.

Focus on rune farming, I'd say go for at least 120 runes before attempt to go for the Acolyte. If you're low on ancient, go back to the Bazaar for ionized salt and craft more ancient cheese. Why 120 runes? Well, first of all, we'll need 60 runes for a new trap that's coming up. That leaves us with the other 60 runes. With 60 runes, you'll have only 60 runic cheese (120 if you're willing to use SB+ for conversion). If you have some runic potions from the jungle and don't mind spending the gold to convert it, go ahead, the conversion rate is decent though expensive. This will reduce the number of runes you have to farm, which is great seeing how runes are not exactly the easiest thing to farm up.

Once you're done, let's craft some runic cheese! Follow the recipe(s):

1 Rune + 1 Stale Cheese + 1 Ionized Salt = 1 Runic Cheese

1 Rune + 1 Stale Cheese + 1 Ionized Salt + 1 Magic Essence = 2 Runic Cheese

As you can see, the runic crafting rate isn't spectacular. That's why it's important to have enough runes. Seeing how the acolyte attraction rate is about 7%, you may even go through 50 pieces of runic without even encountering it. Build up your supply of runic cheese and we'll move on to the Acolyte Realm!

Enter... the Acolyte!

Enter the Acolyte Realm via the realm ripper mouse. The recommended trap set-up here depends on your goal. You see, most of the mice here are weak to arcane traps (i.e. ACRONYM). As such, using a forgotten trap such as the Ancient Box Trap here will result in mediocre catch rates. However, our first and foremost objective is the acolyte and hence we will equip our Ancient Box Trap, along with our aqua base. This will give us the best chances against the acolyte (and the chronos mouse).

Arm your Ancient Box Trap, Aqua Base and runic. Start hunting. The catch rate for the forgotten mice will not be great. Keep plugging away at it. Hopefully you'll catch the acolyte within your first few encounters. If not, head back to the grove to farm more runes for runic. Otherwise, congratulations on catching the acolyte with a box and a stick! This will complete "Capture the Acolyte Mouse" in the adventure book. He drops the mysterious box, which holds the Frozen Scroll and one of the following items:

Acolyte Relic (125,000 points), Ancient Potion, Fire Salt, Magic Essence, Rumble, Runes, Runic, Satchel of Gold (50,000 gold), Stale Cheese.

Well done! At this point, you may switch to ACRONYM to continue hunting the rest of the mice in the realm. The wight and lich are particularly tough. Happy hunting.

Now what? Well, if you haven't reached the rank of Knight yet, you can continue hunting in the Acolyte Realm or return to the Tribal Isles to rack up some points. Also, now that you have the Ancient Box Trap, there's a side quest known as the King's Gauntlet that you may try out! Once you've reached the rank of Knight, it's time to head to Dracano!