Map19 - Place Afoul

Place Afoul is the ninth level of Hedon Bloodrite, connecting to Paradise Lost and Blood and Salt as part of Act 2's level cluster. It contains the central-western area of the island which is broadly referred to as 'Yzbeth's Domain', after the Blue Baron offered it to Matron Yzbeth for keeping.

Located nearby the island's western port, Yzbeth's Domain stands out thanks to the eerie vegetation mutated by crystalized souls chained to the ground. The grounds are split between multiple gardens surrounding one of the largest cathedrals in the Core of Hell, with a significant chunk of the domain being occupied by Yzbeth's Palace, a strange and twisted place that reflects the Matron's demeanor.

After Nithriel and the Baron captured Abhaoth, the Icon gave the three soul keys to her prison to Yzbeth for keeping, and the succubus Matron hid them inside physical manifestations of her mind. Zan ends up accessing these eerie locations with the help of Yzbeth Gardener's memories being enchanted into a pendant of true sight.

## Yzbeth's Domain

### Gazebo Garden

A visitor arriving at the gates of Yzbeth Domain from the west would first have to pass through the Gazebo Garden - an uncanny place that reflects the succubus matron's landscaping sensibilities. Puncturing the lush vegetation (which is deeply corrupted by the crystalized souls), columns and statues dating from the times of the ancient humans mark the sides of the serpentine path. At the heart of the garden's composition, the Gazebo overlooks a long dried-out pond which once again suggests that the Core of Hell was a paradise of nature during ancient times.

### Western Courtyard

Continuing down the path from the Gazebo Garden, the Western Courtyard contrasts with the previous landscape's organic appearance by using strong geometric shapes, with checkered pavement bordered by trimmed hedgerows marking the pathway. The eclectic style of the landscape once again reflects Yzbeth's whims and chaotic demeanor. Etched into the dark cavernous stone, one of the side facades of the Cathedral overlooks the giant game board at the centre of the Courtyard, with the main path leading further south towards the Laboratory and the Central Courtyard.

### Central Courtyard

Following a set of iron gates, the Central Courtyard continues the landscape style of the Western Courtyard, fitting a set of paved paths bordered by hedgerows inside the ample opening of the cavernous terrain. The western end of the yard has a path zig-zagging towards the entrance to the Laboratory, while the eastern one opens up to a large square with a shallow labyrinth in the middle. The square connects the entrance to Yzbeth's Palace (to the south) with the one to the Cathedral (to the north).

### Cathedral

The Cathedral inside Yzbeth's Domain is one of the largest on the island, easily rivalling the ones inside the Baron's Citadel. It is uncertain whether the building existed during ancient times or if the Demons built it from ground up, as it is comprised of multiple architectural styles.

The Cathedral's plan follows a symmetric cross shape, with a secondary level comprised of an overhang that wraps around the edges and overlooks the central water basins. Above the middle basin, a large stained glass cupola serves as the main source of light, aided by multiple large stained glass windows shrouding light emitting crystals. The far end of the main nave contains the altar of Primarch Adur, to whom the Cathedral seems to have been dedicated to.

Although the Cathedral appears to be a pristine and serene place of worship, in reality it looks entirely different, with Yzbeth concealing the true nature of the place with illusory magic. After dispeling the illusions, one will find out that the white marble walls are made from obsidian, the angelic statues show tormented figures bound in rusting iron and the water basins are, in fact, filled with blood. The fading magic will also reveal a chamber located behind Adur's altar, which Yzbeth uses to connect the Cathedral to the physical manifestations of her mind.

### Eastern Courtyard & Graveyard

The Eastern Courtyard stretches between a rock wall and the western edge of the haunted forest covering the central part of the island. Unlike the other yards, this one is the least landscaped one, with only a few Genius collumns bordering the southern end of the path that leads inside Yzbeth's Palace. At the northern end of the yard, right before the entrance to the Cathedral, an old graveyard appears to serve as a resting place for Yzbeth's cultist servants.

At the eastern end of the Graveyard, a massive stone door protects a crypt dedicated to the higher cultists. The crypt's main chamber is connected to five others, which can only be opened by triggering a series of concealed switches in succession. The south-eastern chamber appears to be partially destroyed, with a broken wall revealing a tunnel leading to the dirt crypts below.

## Yzbeth's Palace

### Hall of the Windriders

Built by the ancient Windrider family who arrived at the Core of Hell as part of the traveller guilds exploring new lands, the Hall presents an astonishing visual, with the large central opening showered in crystal light by a giant rosary cupola. It is quite likely that Yzbeth has conserved the original design integrally, having the rest of her palace built around the pre-existing buildings at the time.

The Hall follows an symmetric cross pattern, with the north and east sides marking the entrances to the Palace, while the other sides lead further within, connecting to the Ballroom to the south and the Art Gallery to the west. The center of the Hall is decorated by four crystal obelisk stubs, which are connected further down to the lower burial chamber of the Windriders' crypt, accessible from the entrance found inside the haunted forest, to the east.

### Ballroom

Although it fits the same architectural style as the Hall of the Windriders, it is uncertain whether the large room was originally intended to serve its current purpose, but Yzbeth uses it to entertain her guests, or teach dancing lessons to her succubi.

Unlike the Hall, which was mostly preserved intact, the Ballroom had a set of doorways carved on the southern side. The doors lead to a set of nonsensical chambers designed by Yzbeth, including a short passage with a golden toilet, a room with a chair looking at a wall (which reveals a secret room when the illusion is dispelled), a perspective-distorted corridor that has a flame shooting trap at the end meant to fend off unwanted visitors and the Dining Room.

### Dining Room

At a first glance, the Dining Room may look just like any other, but the sharp angle of the eastern end and the few steps that reflect in the large table's shape are yet another reflection of Yzbeth's design sensibilities. The uncomfortable details of the room are often employed by the matron to keep her guests on edge, using the position and hierarchy of the chairs to pitch them into her social games.

### Kitchen

The Kitchen is one of the stranger parts of Yzbeth's Palace, being comprised of three different segments - a greenhouse, a frigid ice chamber and a magma pit which constitutes the kitchen proper. The three areas connect with each other via portals, allowing the staff to travel between the Stairway and the Dining Room without interfering with any of the main areas of the Palace.

### Sitting Room

Located next to the Dining Room, to the west, the Sitting Room shifts the visual tone, with dim purple lights, potted plants and elegant furniture adding up to a more intimate and relaxed atmosphere. Three large mirrors cover the northern wall, although one may notice that the middle one will not create any reflection. That's because it is actually a doorway into a perfect copy of the Sitting Room located on the other side and meticulously arranged by Yzbeth's servants to the point where even the plants or the silverware laying on the tables are placed in a perfectly mirrored position. The mirrored Sitting Room also contains the real entrance to Yzbeth's Boudoir.

### Yzbeth's Boudoir

Designed from monochrome stone and purple furnishings, Yzbeth's Boudoir perfectly reflects her tastes in design, as well as her desire to coax her victims with a lavish display of elegance before feeding upon them. The lower half of the Boudoir contains a lounge and a pool, with the upper one holding the matron's study and bed, which occupies the middle of the large chamber with it's ample round size. The musical instruments by the fireplace and the paints and brushes sitting on the table also allude to Yzbeth's passion for art.

### Guest Rooms

A strange upside-down corridor connects the northern Sitting Room with the Art Gallery west of the main Hall. On the sides, doors of various shapes and sizes allow Yzbeth's guests into their Rooms, each of which has its own design and oddities to it. Some of the rooms even contain lethal traps, like a mirror that creates a deadly apparition of the visitor. The Guest Rooms also benefit from a common bath with a sauna, located at the northern end of the corridor and connecting to the Water Fountain through its water tub (which strangely enough is the intended way for the guests to enter the Fountain's pool).

### Art Gallery

Located in the passage between the Hall of the Windriders and the Water Fountain, the Art Gallery holds Yzbeth's most prized works of art. Although it is quite small in size, it contains an eclectic variety of artifacts, including crystals, plates, paintings or statues.

The most recent art collection involves weapons and objects belonging to the Iron Division, taken after their campaign's failure to break through the Demons' frontier. A few captured orcs have been magically petrified into exhibition statues by the matron, with the last one being cursed to live inside a painting. Although it may look like a regular painting, it is actually a magic window inside of a physical place which can be accessed from the Laboratory.

### Water Fountain

Located just west of the Gallery, the Water Fountain is a priceless art piece in its own right, presenting an unique architectural style featuring curves suggesting the motion of water waves. Judging by the shiny golden mosaic, the opulent chamber was likely built as a part of the Golden Primarch's shrine. A trio of elevated fountain dishes fill the main pool with water, a very rare and precious resource inside the Core of Hell. The chamber's wavy walls also hold six side pools, which are part of a complex switch puzzle operating the Water Fountain's access doors.

### Gold Primarch Shrine

Located further west, by the the Water Fountain, the Gold Primarch's Shrine follows the plan of a three-naved chapel, with the center being reserved to the Primarch's offering altar. The outer chamber of the Shrine looks vastly different from the inner one, being used as a decorative garden by Yzbeth. The outer side also serves as a connection between the primary areas of the Palace and the servant Stairway to the south or the Library to the north. The most peculiar detail of the Gold Primarch Shrine is the pool of gold coins above the central offering altar, which constitutes a one-way portal to the Gold Vault.

### Gold Vault

Mentioned only in legends, the massive Gold Vault is the dream of every thief in the Underworld. Rumors claim that the Vault is sealed away from the physical world, and one could only get inside with the will of the Golden Primarch, although that would mean being trapped there forever. The Gold Vault is laid out in a snowflake-like shape, with a set of round corridors surrounding the lower half and connecting two side vaults and a lower sacrificial altar. The main chamber is constantly flooded by an ever pouring sea of gold coins that often times clog the side chambers and corridors. The vault also contains a set of hidden plaques and offering bowls that operate the inner doors once the correct amount of gold coin is placed in each, as the plaque riddle suggests.

### Library

Although the Library is well rooted in the physical world, right between the Gold Primarch's Shrine and the Laboratory, it certainly defies reality - and gravity - with the bookshelves and furniture arranged eratically over the floor, walls and ceiling. As a purveyor of arts, Yzbeth holds a vast amount of books in her Library, many which contain old and forbidden knowledge. After the matron conjured the fragments of her mind into reality, a part of the Library was merged with them, opening up to the dark expanse of her Curiosity.

### Laboratory

The swirly mixture of style and color fits the function of the Laboratory, a place from where Yzbeth and her minions conduct alchemical research and other magical experiments. After Nithriel returned from Valc, the matron lended the lab to her minions to conduct research on the newly captured weapons and potions from the Iron Division orcs.

The Laboratory's interior is comprised of a central area designated for the alchemy and a circular staircase which connects to the cursed painting in the Art Gallery, the Library and the Experiment Chamber.

### Experiment Chamber

The padded walls allude to the twisted horrors happening within the Experiment Chamber, just to the north of the Laboratory. The premises are equipped with a central tank used by Nithriel's minions to perform research on the corruption and six other smaller ones, some of which are occupied with the victims of Yzbeth's experiments. The tanks are also surrounded by surgery tables and shelves filled with vials and potions. Much like the Library, the Experiment Chamber peers into the physical manifestation of Yzbeth's (morbid) Curiosity through a padded cell to the west.

### Stairway

The south-eastern part of Yzbeth's Palace is designated to the servants, who can only leave their Quarters via a giant flight of stairs that contain a portal to the Kitchen's premises at the very top. With a balcony connected to Yzbeth's Boudoir overlooking it from above, the massive stairway was designed to keep the succubus' servants in shape, although a few lines inside her intimate diary suggest that it was also intended to induce and quicken the onset of heart failure in the aging ones.

### Servant Quarters

The Servant Quarters are built inside a cave on the lower eastern edge of Yzbeth's Palace. The premises contain a number of decrepit stone buildings inhabited by the matron's cultists, including the gardener's house and farm plot towards the northern end of the premises.

Thanks to her gardener's bold and often bloody experiments, the Servant Quarters are overrun with vegetation, with the small cave to the north even being used to create water from the blood of the sacrificed. The pond cave also serves as a source for the Water Fountain, to which it connects through a long set of water tunnels.

## Yzbeth's Mind

### Yzbeth's Presence

Yzbeth's Presence is one of the areas spawned as a physical manifestation of her Mind. It can only be accessed from the illusory walled-off chamber inside the Cathedral by using a pendant of true sight enchanted with the mind of someone who knows her secrets (in this case - her gardener). The Presence consists of seemingly random objects woven together by a magical psionic fabric. However, the nature of the objects is not at all random, as they reflect the matron's current state of mind and pressing interests. The padded cells, giant pot and alchemy vials suggest Yzbeth's concern for the corruption discovered by Nithriel and partially studied inside her Laboratory, as well as the implications it has regarding the Elf's alliance with the Blue Baron. The trail of beds and the side path lead on to her other mind fragments.

Yzbeth's Presence also contains one of the three soul key fragments needed to open the Baron's secret vault.

### Yzbeth's Curiosity

Unlike the Presence, the Curiosity is bound by an endless void. Mirroring her aspirations for the future, the palpable fragments of the area are mostly comprised from bookcases, some of which open up to the western side of the Library. The void is also overlooked by one of the padded cells from the Experimental Chamber, which also contains the second fragment of the soul key.

### Yzbeth's Beds

If the other areas of Yzbeth's Mind reflect her present and future, the Beds reflect her past as well as her nature as a succubus. Blending in with her Mind, the Beds form a trail that becomes compact and continuous, leading all the way back to the succubus' Boudoir via one of her secret drawer entrances, where the last fragment can be found inside the final bed - her own.