Purgatory

Purgatory is a very special location.

New players should probably ignore that Purgatory exists until they have won the game a few times. More advanced players go here to get a specific unique item at a big cost, or to unlock the hidden inferno Difficulty setting.

### Getting in:

#### Demonic attunement:

To reach Purgatory you have to enter the Callisto Mines branch, which will guaranteely spawn on level 2 or 3 of the first moon (Callisto).
While in the mines you must become attuned to demons. You do this by rushing to the dark purple dots on your mini map on the mine levels.
If you make it to summoning pentagram in time (before the demon spawns) you will see attunement on your character sheet. Actual summoning timer equals shortest number of steps from entrance to portal with 1.6 multiplier.

You need to get at least 2 successful attunements to be eligible for opening the Purgatory entrance.

Then you must enter the Callisto Anomaly location which spawns on level 2 or 3 of the mines.

#### Pillar Order:

Once you are in the anomaly you must bump the 5 central pillars in a specific star-pattern order. They will light up if you are sufficiently attuned to Demons when you bump them. But there is no "reset" button if you make a mistake, so be careful!

1. Bottom center
2. Top left
3. Bottom right
4. Bottom left
5. Top right

A portal to Purgatory will then open in the center of the pillars.

Once you are in purgatory you pay a permanent price. Each portal you enter (including the first portal into Purgatory) reduces your max Health and your experience gained by a small amount dependent on your difficulty setting.

Purgatory is a non-Euclidean space, meaning up + left is not the same as left + up. You can, however, back track (at the same cost as entering a new room). The below map shows directions to guaranteed spawns of various unique items and portals to other moons of the game. U = up, L = left, etc.

After you have gathered the unique item you wanted, you have to carefully backtrack to the start to leave. Backtracking costs just as much health per portal. There are a few other exits on the map, such as beating the special boss at the bottom and winning the game, and unlocking Inferno! difficulty.

### **More Detailed Info:**

* You cannot enter Purgatory when playing on easy difficulty.
* You lose Max HP each time you take a portal (2 on medium, 3 on hard, 5 on UV, 7 on N! and so on)
* You get an percent exp penalty equal to twice the max HP loss. (max 90%)
* Catharsis respects the floor max HP value and will not drop your max hp below 20.
* Health penalty keeps getting tallied even if it cannot affect you due to reaching floor max hp already. Eventually it also "maxes out" and stops getting inflicted even if you manage to raise your max hp again.
* There are two paths leading straight to final boss in order to unlock the Inferno difficulty. One is very long, but static, same on all games. The other is short, but personalized, different on each copy of game. To find your personalized path, you need to clear the Dark Cathedral while affected by catharsis. Severity of catharsis doesn't matter, only its presence is. Runes that lead to your personal Inferno shortcut will light up on gray circles in front of main altar, read them from top to bottom of map.

### **Enemies:**

#### Shallow depth

If you just taking a peek at first couple of the rooms, you will likely see these enemies:

* lesser hellish formers (grunts, sergeants, soldiers, grenadiers)
* fire fiends
* common reavers
* archreavers
* common kerberi
* common ravagers

#### Moderate depth

If you actually intend to snatch an unique, you should be prepared to possibility of also encountering these:

* tougher hellish formers (commandoes, heavies)
* toxic fiends
* toxic reavers
* cyberi
* toxiberi
* armored ravagers
* siege ravagers
* plasma ravagers
* common medusae

#### Deeps

If you gone way past the unique depth, it means one of two: you either lucked into finding a medusa fang at the Callisto Anomaly or otherwise prepared to consistently defeating high-end enemies without getting hit in return. Or you just don't care about your character well-being and want to delve as deep as possible before his unevitable demise. Anyway, by going sufficiently deep you may encounter:

* archmedusae
* warlocks
* common fiends (only as possible warlock entourage)
* archwarlocks
* sentinels
* guardians

No exalted enemies spawn in Purgatory naturally, though on respawning difficulties monsters will still resurrect as usual. No level events happen in Purgatory either.

### **Trivia:**

Purgatory bears a lot of resemblance to the somewhat famous "Backrooms" creepypasta, and may be actually inspired by it.

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-backrooms