Lyonspyre Survivor¶
A solo arena run. You go in alone, foes pour in for eight minutes, and every level you earn hands you a card that makes you stronger. Nothing you own comes in with you and nothing you earn in there is lost when you come out.
Open it from a Survivor stone, or type [vigil.
Getting in¶
The lobby asks you one thing before the doors open.
Your companion. A cat or a dog. It is an appearance, not a real pet: it cannot be harmed, it cannot be lost, and it flees to safety the moment the run ends. If you have a tame cat or dog of your own, it will look like yours.
Every run opens with Arcane Bolt, the dart that aims itself. Everything else, the Thrown Spear included, is picked up through the cards.
There are three arenas. If all three are busy you go on the queue and get told where you sit; you are pulled in automatically the moment one frees up.
The run¶
Eight minutes. Three hearts. A foe that reaches you takes one heart, and losing your last one ends the run.
Foes drop essence. Essence fills the bar at the top of your screen, and a full bar is a level. Every level stops the clock and offers you three cards. You have thirty seconds to choose; if you run the clock out, one of the three is taken for you at random.
The arena gets harder on a fixed schedule, not on how well you are doing:
- 0 to 2 minutes. Up to thirty foes at once. Health climbs gently.
- 2 minutes on. The crowd starts thickening, climbing past eighty by the late run, and they come from every direction: the swarm arrives in front of you as well as behind. From 3 minutes health starts climbing faster and faster; by the eight minute mark a small foe has roughly double the health it had at three.
- Champions. Bigger, named foes turn up as the run goes on. One of them arrives around four minutes.
Champions and their chests¶
A champion that dies leaves a chest on the tile it fell on. Walk onto it. It waits there for you; it does not pay itself out and vanish while you are fighting your way over.
Opening one grants a full rank in an ability, immediately, wherever you sit on the essence bar. It is the only reward in the run that ignores your level.
Cards¶
Every level offers three. Weapons max at rank 5, passives at rank 2 or 3.
Weapons¶
| Weapon | What ranks buy |
|---|---|
| Arcane Bolt | Fires itself at the nearest foe. +2 damage a rank, a second bolt at rank 3. |
| Thrown Spear | A huge spear flies far down the lane you face and skewers all it meets. Hits far harder than anything else, because you aim it with your feet. +2 damage a rank; a second spear at rank 3, a third at rank 5. |
| Ember Orb | Blasts an area. +2 damage a rank, bigger blast at rank 3, a second orb at rank 4. |
| Chain Lightning | Jumps from foe to foe. +2 damage and one more jump every rank. |
| Frost Bell | Freezes everything it catches, then leaves them crawling. +2 damage and a longer freeze a rank; ranks 2 and 4 widen it. |
| Whirling Axes | Blades scythe out around you. +2 damage and a faster throw a rank; rank 4 widens the ring by a tile. |
| Caltrops | Lays a trap behind you that bites whatever stands on it. +2 damage and +0.6s of linger a rank. |
Passives¶
| Passive | Ranks | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Swift Cast | 3 | Ability speed: everything fires 8% faster a rank. |
| Wide Arc | 3 | Area: blasts, novas, rings and spikes cover more ground each rank, to each weapon's own limit. |
| Keen Edge | 2 | Damage to all abilities: 2 more a rank. |
| Split Count | 2 | One more of everything, each rank: an extra bolt, jump, spear, orb and spike patch, and a wider bell and axe ring. |
| Magnet Ward | 3 | Essence flies to you from a tile further each rank: 5 tiles bare, 8 at rank 3. |
| Essence Bloom | 3 | Every mote of essence is worth 10% more, each rank. |
| Heart Mend | 2 | Restores one lost heart. |
| Aegis Veil | 3 | A hit leaves you untouchable for 3 seconds, and half a second longer each rank. |
| Ward Aegis | 2 | A visible bubble absorbs one hit, then re-forms after 30 seconds (20 at rank 2). |
Evolutions¶
Take a weapon to rank 5 and then take the passive that matches it, and the weapon becomes something else. Swift Cast rank 2 awakens a maxed Whirling Axes or Frost Bell; Wide Arc rank 2 awakens a maxed Ember Orb or Caltrops; Split Count rank 2 awakens a maxed Arcane Bolt, Chain Lightning or Thrown Spear.
What you bring, and what you leave with¶
Nothing follows you in. Pets, summons, hired help and escorts all stay in the world on the exact tile you left them on, and pick up following again the moment you are returned. You dismount at the door and are put straight back on your mount when the run ends. You cannot mount up inside.
Your companion never gets in the way. You walk straight through your cat or dog with no push and no stamina cost, and so does everything else: it can never block a doorway or wall you in.
Nothing of yours is at risk. The arena is swept clean between runs, and the sweep can only ever touch things the arena itself created.
Standings¶
When your run ends and you close the results card, the standings open on their own so you can see where you landed. Every run is recorded, not just your best. Each row on the board shows how long that run lasted, the level it reached, the foes it felled, the pet that came along and the score.