The Summoner (quest)

Quest Five: The Summoner

• Quest Name: The Summoner
• Triggered By: Talking to Cain once you reach the Arcane Sanctuary, or just moving near the Summoner's location in the Arcane Sanctuary
• Given by: Deckard Cain
• Location: The Summoner is found at the tip of one of the four points of the Arcane Sanctuary
• Reward: Killing The Summoner opens a portal to the Canyon of the Magi, and reveals the true tomb of Tal Rasha.
• Quest Priority: This quest is not mandatory. You can party with someone who has done it and has the Horadric Staff, or if you have the Horadric Staff you can just explore the seven tombs at random until you find the correct one if you can get to the Canyon of the Magi.

The Arcane Sanctuary is a very weird area, with bizarre, distorted architecture inspired by the art of MC Escher. The monsters found there are always the same, Dark Lords, Specters, and Goat Men, and they are quite densely-packed. This was one of the best leveling areas in the game prior to v1.08, but it's now no good for warrior characters since the Dark Lords and Specters are nearly physical immune, especially on Nightmare and Hell, and you can't leech from the Specters at all. You want a Sorceress here with you now.

There are four distinct limbs to the Arcane, and the type of layout is the same every time, though their locations are random. One way always has teleporters, one way has a lot of triple switch backs, one way is mostly straight with little zig zag staircases, and the fourth way is always straight and flat. Characters with ranged attacks love the teleporter way, and other ways with steps or cut backs that stop the monsters from advancing, while melee characters like the more straight ahead paths.

Tips: This is a very experience-rich area for characters playing within the usual progression rate, and it's popular to level up there, though the changes to leeching and physical resistance in v1.08 have made it difficulty for warrior type characters. If you are looking for the Summoner, rather than just killing things for experience, you should move to the very tips of the four directions quickly, since he'll always be in one of those. If you can't teleport, it's faster to get to an end, portal back to town, and run to the waypoint to return to the Arcane, rather than running all the way back over the branch you just cleared out.

Look at the final area once you kill the Summoner, there are six glowing glyphs on the walls, these six mark the false tombs. The one that's not displayed is the true tomb. Initially in Diablo II you had to note which one was not shown there, and then find it in the Canyon. This proved too difficulty for players to notice, so Blizzard added the true tomb display to the Quest Window, making it idiot-proof.

The Summoner will sometimes drop the Key of Hate on Hell difficulty. This artifact is used in the Pandemonium Event, a realm-only mega-quest.