Upon arriving at Sagus Cliffs after completing character creation and making it through the opening Reef Of Worlds section, there are a ton of different areas to explore in Tides Of Numenera.
The most bang for your buck comes from the Fifth Eye tavern for psychics, located just to the east of the main Sagus Cliffs map in the area labeled Cliff’s Edge.
Inside the Fifth Eye you have the opportunity to bump up your max Intellect by two points, snag two achievements, get a nifty item, and earn a whole lot of experience — all before leaving the bar!
Below we cover the best order to tackle all those challenges and complete the Eyes Of The Adversary quest line. For more Torment help, be sure to also check out our other walkthroughs here:
- Tides of Numenera achievement list
- Torment character creation guide
- Beginner’s guide to understanding Numenera
Before Traveling To The Fifth Eye
To tackle The Eyes Of The Adversary your party should be least level two, so spend some time talking to people in Sagus Cliffs or your party members to earn some extra experience, otherwise the psychic battle in the tavern will be nearly impossible.
When you receive party XP awards, everyone gets the same amount at the same time, so you lose out on experience if you don’t recruit party members before getting these awards. To maximize your leveling potential, be sure to at the very least recruit Erritis before entering the tavern.
When you enter Cliff’s Edge, head south first and you will see Erritis standing next to his broken airship. It doesn’t take much convincing to get him to join you.
Recruiting Companion Erritis
Meeting The Locals
As soon as you enter the Fifth Eye, talk to the NPC named O just off to the right by the railing. Fans of Planescape: Torment will recognize him immediately, as he’s literally the exact same character from the Smoldering Corpse Bar.
Ask O about himself and follow each dialog option to permanently raise your health and gain 1 extra point of Intellect.
Gaining Bonus Intellect From O
If you aren’t familiar with the Numenera setting, go talk to Sir Arthour at the top-center area of the tavern. While not offering any quests or experience yet, he can give you a run down of the world’s geography and explain how cyphers work.
Don’t bother talking to Clarion (the NPC in the middle walking back and forth) just yet. Clarion’s quest A Call To War appears to be bugged and you’ll just have to talk to him again after finishing The Eyes Of The Adversary to get it started again.
Head over to the Ghostly Woman in the lower-right corner and allow her to strangle you to death to earn some cheap, easy XP and start the Ashen Imitation quest. Travel through the Calm back to the Tavern after dying and now go talk to the bartender Fariok.
Pay 10 shins to buy the experimental pink sludge, which will immediately kill you and unlock the A New Beginning achievement. If you try the grease cutter experimental drink instead, you’ll get the dazed fettle and earn a little bit of Blue Tide.
That’s twice now you’ve died and you haven’t even fought anyone yet! When you get teleported to the Calm after dying, hit Tab and you’ll see a new cypher waiting for you in the broken shards of glass to the left.
Picking Up A New Cypher
After leaving the Calm, talk to Theboros (the guy at the table with the grey cloak and red hat). Tell him the truth of who you are, then ask him about the Words of Qra. With a high enough Intellect and Persuasion, you can convince him to grant you the Words, which will make a task easier later.
Next, talk to Ziobe (the blue guy at the top of the table) and have him bestow the task of discovering who in the room is a psychic projection. Talk to Dhama of the Bloom next (the NPC in brown on the left side of the table) and allow him to probe your mind to gain a further additional 1 Intellect point.
Talk to everyone in the bar again and ask if they are projections, then return to Ziobe and say the projection is Fariok to earn 4 XP for all party members.
More Free Intellect!
Now we’re getting ready for a big battle: go talk to Malaise (the whispy orange apparition in the top-left corner) then return to Dhama of the Bloom and accuse Malaise of being an agent of the Adversary. Tell Dhama you are ready to face the Adversary with his help to be teleported to a psychic battlefield.
Fighting The Adversary
There’s no doubt about it, this is a tough fight, as you are greatly outnumbered and Dhama’s team starts the battle paralyzed, with one member being unlocked on each subsequent turn.
Certain cyphers make the psychic battle segment easier. Most notably, you will want Image Blocker equipped on The Last Castoff for easy hiding. If The Last Castoff dies you have to start the battle over with fewer resources, so its a better idea to have the protagonist run to the corner and use the Hide skill than keep fighting with low health.
Area effect cyphers like Unstable Detonation are incredibly useful since you will be surrounded by copies of Malaise. Most of these copies have 18 HP, so you can kill one outright with the Cryophorous Dart cypher.
Targeting Multiple Malaise Copies
Malaise’s copies will hit your party members with strikes that drain Intellect, so give the Shimmering Glass cypher to any character who utilizes Intellect attacks as a method of refilling your Pools while still dealing damage.
Here’s where the battle gets tricky: for every copy you kill, every other copy gains bonuses to defense and attack and becomes more powerful. To succeed, you will need to utilize flanking with your other party members, and be sure to have Erritis activate Opportunist on the first turn for free attacks as the copies rush you.
From there, make use of your best abilities and cyphers, and don’t be afraid to use as many points from your Stat Pools as you need to stay alive.
Killing Malaise completes The Eyes Of The Adversary, unlocking the Free Minds achievement and netting you a bonded item called the Shadowstep that increases Speed but decreases Might.
Completing The Quest
A Call To War
That was a ton of experience and achievements already, but we’re not done yet! Go talk to Clarion and agree to help recruit the five veterans in the bar to return to war.
Dhama of the Bloom will automatically agree to join the battle since you aided in defeating the Adversary.
Theboros will agree to join the fight if you took the Words of Qra from him and succeed at an Intimidate check.
Leto will agree to join if you succeed at a Persuasion check. Fariok and Ziobe will refuse to join no matter what.
Return to Clarion and report your success and failures in reporting to wrap up the last quest.
Extra Shins Always Come In Handy!
That’s all we’ve discovered in the Fifth Eye so far – let us know if you’ve found any other secrets hiding in the psychic tavern in the comments section below!
