The Pit: 1st Furnace: The Ascent

The Ascent
To the left from the entrance is a catwalk going up the inside of the outer wall clockwise. It is up here you must go, to re-activate the first furnace.


 * Tip: Acid spray traps guard portions of the path upward. You may cast protection and run through them, but disabling the traps is easy and recommended, because you might have to run through these same traps again. (Falling during the ascent is common.)

Soon, the catwalk ends. Jump onto the pipe there, and follow it to the center of the room.


 * Tip: That pipe extends from a masonry culvert protruding from the wall beyond the end of the catwalk. Jump onto that culvert (This is simple if the traps have been disabled.), then step off onto the narrower pipe extending from it to the room’s central column.

At the center, jump down to the left, onto another pipe heading back out to the outer wall to some more catwalks. Beware: Monster!

Turn right and continue around the room clockwise. Beware: Monster! Right away, you will come to a break in the catwalk. Skillful jumpers should be able to leap that break and land on or grab the lip of the catwalk on the far side.


 * Tip: Unskillful (or Enfeebled) jumpers can drop at the break from the catwalk to the pipe beneath, which gives an easy path in to the central columns. Another catwalk there leads back out to the catwalk on the far side of this break.

Use the ladders to continue around the catwalk until it ends. Jump onto the pipe you'll find there to reach the central columns.


 * Tip: Before you get there, a large fire elemental starts throwing fireballs at you. If you kill it, it will respawn a minute later. It only bothers you while you’re off the catwalk and on the pipes near the center columns. Since it ignores you once you get back to the catwalks, the easiest way past is just to ignore the fireballs and run as fast as you can.

At the central columns, jump left onto a double-pipe, then turn about and use the double-pipe to run back out to the catwalk.

Turn right at the catwalk and follow it until it ends once more, then take a pipe out to the central columns.


 * Tip: You have a choice of two different pipes to go from here to the same central column. Take the first (righthand) pipe because from this one, once you reach the central columns, it's easier to get into the space between the columns. From the end of this pipe, if you hug close to the column and step to the right, you can actually reach the central space without having to jump.

In the space between the four columns is a "star" where a number of pipes converge. Run or jump to there quickly, to avoid the fireballs the elemental will hurl at you. Of the pipes radiating from this star, take the only one that stretches back out to the outer wall and the catwalks. Beware: Monster!


 * Tip: When leaving the central hub of the star, this pipe immediately passes between two columns. When you're in the spot between the two columns, you’re protected from any fireballs coming from the elemental off to your right. This is a good place to buff for the monster encounters ahead.

Once you reach the catwalk, you may make an easy hop to follow the catwalk up and around until you come to another catwalk, this one running out from the wall to a central column where the switch is located which will reactivate the.


 * Tip: Inconveniently, the switch is located right where the elemental can fireball you in the back while you are try to activate it. Unless you have some protection that allows you to completely ignore this attack, do not take that easy hop onto the catwalk. Instead, take a left to the nearby end of the catwalk, where you’ll be out of range of the fireballs, yet can use your own ranged attacks until the elemental goes down. You can then run forward and throw the switch before the elemental respawns.

The first furnace is now reactivated. You can leave or, if you have at least one really good jumper in the party, you can open the door to the chest & shrine below, by continuing higher to a room in the ceiling.