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10-i'll make my own Sanctuary and it'll only have what I like: SCROLLING STAR BACKGROUNDS
Music-Lut Gholein
Let's get that staff made. It's as simple as opening up the cube, depositing the rod and the head, and pushing the "fix please" button.
Hey, because every mod expands cube space that means every mod makes this animation look weird in their own way. At least Resurgence expanded cube space in such a way that the light is in the boxes.
With the staff finally assembled, Cain has this to say:
Place the Staff into the receptacle you find there. That will open the secret passage into Tal Rasha's Burial Chamber.
But, be prepared for a fight - you'll likely have to kill Tal Rasha to destroy Baal.
Course, we still don't know where Tal Rasha's tomb is bu-
I've been speaking with Lord Jerhyn, and I sense that he is becoming more and more agitated by something. You should try to talk to him again.
If he still won't take you into his confidence, seek to prove yourself a bit more. I gather that his respect for you is growing.
Right. If you talk to Cain to finish Tainted Sun, he'll tell you to go poke Jerhyn now. This won't do anything though.
Instead, finishing Tainted Sun means Drognan has something to say.
The great Vizjerei Summoner, Horazon, built his Arcane Sanctuary somewhere around here. He was a powerful spellcaster and kept demons as slaves within the Sanctuary. He kept a close eye on great events, too -- such as the imprisonment of Baal within Tal Rasha's Tomb.
If you could find Horazon's Sanctuary, I'm sure that it would hold some clue as to the Tomb's location. Though I doubt Horazon is still alive, you must proceed with caution. There's no telling what could be waiting inside.
When I spoke of this with Lord Jerhyn, he asked that I send you to him. Perhaps he knows of a secret entrance or the like.
Oh, a different wizard prepared the answer for us? Okay. Lemme know if there's any other ancient wizards that have conveniently left behind what I need.
Screams echoed up the stairwells from the harem. My guards arrived to find the poor girls being slaughtered by a merciless band of hell-spawned demons. My brave guardsmen tried to push the demons back into the mysterious rift from which they came.
Ever since, my men have fought a losing battle. Demons have continued to pour through the rift into the palace. Ultimately, I hired Greiz and his mercenaries to help protect the rest of my fair city.
Drognan believes that the Arcane Sanctuary lies buried underneath this palace, since Lut Gholein occupies the site of an ancient Vizjerei fortress.
My palace is open to you now... Take care.
I have thoughts in my head about the harem guilds and, quite a few pieces of dialogue pertaining to harem guilds. It's nothing positive because it's Blizzard North trying to write about the concept of the place where a man keeps his wives, children, unmarried daughters, and so on female arab prostitutes. It's exactly as a thing to write about as you can imagine. I once tried to write about this but then realized I am guaranteed to start talking about the company instead of the game if I do, so I'm just gonna frown and move on.
Oh yeah also we're allowed in the palace now.
It means my favorite NPC has new lines now. 
Music-Harem
The palace, is an impressive feat of architecture, because it doesn't make any sense. We're not going through a palace. We're going through a series of basement floors dedicated exclusively to the harem. (Why is it just called Harem?) Also in MXL you will immediately get a superunique right in your face. Normally the first level of the Harem is fixed and empty. There's a second level and then we'll move on after that.
Anyway, since we're about to go into a Vizjerei's magical realm, it's time to talk about mages. Jane is (in some sense of the word) one of them, Chloe meanwhile hates the assholes of them, but I've mentioned there's many mage clans. The Vizjerei is one of the oldest. This is also back in the time where mage feuds were a regular occurance. Mage Council Schmage Council, mage clans would feud regularly about how to magic correctly and those feuds would turn violent. The Vizjerei, in particular, was, "Yeah summon shit that's the best use of magic. Why the fuck can Druids and Necros do it anyway?" One Vizjerei sorcerer, who had his family killed by one of those mage feuds, eventually dialed the right number to get a spirit that best synced up with his feelings on the matter: a demon.
The means was shared with the Vizjerei and they learned how to summon, what they THOUGHT was spirits but that really begs the question of what the hell do they know? But nevermind that, that demon belonged to another demon, and the Vizjerei just learned how to isekai them to Sanctuary. Eventually enough demons complained, those complaints made it all the way up to the Great Evils, and they started answering the phone.
Before this, Sanctuary was hidden from both angels and demons, which was a vital part of its creation to make sure it didn't get embroiled in the foreverwar between the two. Mortal curiosity broke that, and these mages, now able to bring forth beings of wanton and incredible destruction, kept this knowledge secret from everyone else and ruminated on what to do with their new, uhh, power.
Now, I know you've been trying to stop me this entire time and go, "They SUMMONED DEMONS?!?!" but that's a piece of a much larger puzzle I'll go talk about later.
That question started a war of apocalyptic proportions, because that was the first instance of the Prime Evils entering Sanctuary. At first they did subtle nudging, making up fake religions where, they literally just said we're the spirits of the exact opposite of what we actually are. They started bringing all of sanctuary underneath their Triune of faith, and only the highest-ranking members understood the nature of who they were devoting themselves to, what with them being offered as snackrifices.
There was wisdom in the deception. The Prime Evils wanted to unify and awaken mortal's abilities, because they're fighting a foreverwar and they just noticed a new world they never even knew existed until they fucked around in their neighborhood.
Baboon Demon | CR: **
==Flees at low health
As for the Vizjerei? I dunno they kinda just stood there gobsmacked that suddenly the rule of magic was flipflopping to the rule of faith again. You know the Vizjerei are made out to be awful powerful devil summoners but this piece just casts them as giant idiots. Must be the demons doing most of the work.
This whole debacle is known as the Sin War, and it doesn't concern the Vizjerei at all. No, really, I double-checked and they did jack shit during this time which is bizarre considering there is the possibility that they went, "Oh...we did this didn't we? ...Oh man."
(Got this new buff toy for Chloe.)
The Sin War would end and the two competing religions would dissolve, but the mage clans, now well aware of the Vizjerei's demon summoning, simply told them, "We had a world-destroying war thanks to the shit you did. Could you not do that again?"
They refused. Faith flipflopped to magic again, the Vizjerei continued to summon demons, and the mage clans were very quick to catch on and intervene. Normally when mage clans fight and murder eachother, they call them feuds. When every mage clan dogpiled on the Vizjerei, they call it the Mage Clan Wars instead. Outnumbered, the Vizjerei responded by unleashing as many demons as they can, but they would ultimately be destroyed from within.
As I'm standing between the Cellar and the Sanctuary, I'm gonna pause to get the game out of the way. The Cellar's 3 levels deep, the waypoint's on the first level, and both it and the Harem have a peculiar layout in that the staircases will always be on the opposite corners of where you enter. Once you figure this out, speeding through this dungeon is very easy.
Course, the Cellar in particular can be tricky with plenty of shoot-through walls, Horror Archers and Mages, and while it doesn't have tight passages through rooms it still has rooms full of monsters that will all start shooting you once you walk in. You've been through Sewers though, you should be fine.
Blunderbore | CR: **
==Can use Smite
These things are quick on the draw and can do the stunning thing Vanir can do. However, sometimes they won't stun, just to keep that in mind. While burly and fairly strong like a proper Wendigo, they do have issues involving being very slow and being in hitstun for very long times. Just get the first swing on them and they'll be handled.
On the last level, you'll want to make your way to the northwestern part of the floor. The door forward is always facing this side of the map.
Fire Eye | CR: ***
==Superunique
==Fire Enchanted
==Extra Fast
This fella's here as well. Does normal Sand Raider stuff, but the extra speed helps shore up their weaknesses, so watch out.
Click the portal and be whisked to a faraway land. Res and PD2 keep things vanilla, so what of Chloe?
Music-Arcane Sanctuary
The Sanctuary, Horazon's obsession.
Well it's about this point that Median XL stops playing around and starts sending credible threats at you. I missed several opportunities to talk about this before, but here and now, where there's lightning ghosts a plenty, I can talk about their uniques.
Or rather, their lack of uniques. Gone are the days of random monster mods. Instead, we'll have yellow monsters, elites, that while fairly uncommon, are on average considerably dangerous. I didn't notice any of the Act I elites because most of them were Fallen or ineffective Rogues. Here, though, where the elites are either coldlocking me with projectiles or shooting damaging lightning on me and going invisible, I'm starting to dread elites. The Arcane Sanctuary has its usual mix, but I dread these, specifically, because they're doing high lightning damage in a world where I can't cap resistances yet.
As for the Arcane Sanctuary itself, the Waypoint is free, because there's four paths from the entrance, and our destination could be at the end of either of them. Each of them can take a bit, but at least share the same relative layout. Go forward and hope the end has the thing. If not, time to portal back!
Map reveal helps cut down a lot of travel time because you'll eventually see the end of your branch and you'll tell if it's the correct path. But Resurgence is even better, and this is the one time I turn on lines to points of interest. It completely removes the luck factor of getting it right on the first try.
The map has plenty of Goatmen and Wraiths, your favorite. But of note the next tier of Vampire is here, and he can cast Firewall.
Lightning Spire | CR: ***
==Casts Nova.
These things exist to be sturdy and hate you for fighting near them. The Nova they cast is a ring of lightning that deals, ehh, around 100 damage. Don't stand near these or try to melee monsters near them. They're great at hurting you.
But for now, let's join Chloe as I resume storytime.
So Horazon had a brother, named Bartuc, who is also an asshole wizard who summons demons to keep as slaves. The only difference is Horazon summoned and broke in his demons to have controllable slaves. Bartuc...did not, and just summoned them willy-nilly. I am paraphrasing this, sitting here, and realizing holy shit I hate this plot point, because Horazon heel-face turned, not because he realized he was a demon slaver and an absolute monster, but because he went, "The way you're doing this is going to kill all of us. I at least try to put humans first."
The Vizjerei was winning with the demonic aid, but then Horazon decided nah. Now splintered, Bartuc's side of the Vizjerei was no longer the favored winner. Horazon would eventually kill his brother, win the war, and be universally hated by all of Sanctuary and the Burning Hells.
That's why the Arcane Sanctuary, you see. Horazon spent the rest of his days in a magical bunker trying to stay well away from every single person and demon who wanted him dead for being a piece of shit. And you may think this is Horazon we're facing right now.
This isn't Horazon.
Horazon, your decoy is dead.
The Summoner | CR: ****
==Superunique
==Casts Glacial Spike, Frost Nova, Fireball, Firewall, and Weaken
==Does not melee attack.
This is actually the Sorcerer from the first game, one of the player classes you could pick. Fun fact, called Summoner, is Vizjerei, doesn't summon anything normally. The difficulty of this fight is mainly due to the part that the Summoner is very likely to have random Goatmen and other monsters to act as fodder as he'll throw spells at you from afar that do some good damage. The projectiles aren't fast, but because they're spells you will need to watch your health if you plan to melee him.
So, do you remember the origins of the Dark Wanderer? Well if you saw the ending of Diablo I you would instantly put two-and-two together: that guy is the Warrior from Tristram retconned to be Prince Aidan, one of King Leoric's sons and commander of his army. Either or, he killed Diablo and was left with his soulstone. He didn't have many bright ideas at the time, nor did the Sorcerer and the Rogue there, who by the way the Rogue was Blood Raven and we murdered the shit out of her who was already dead by the time of Diablo II. Keeping the One Ring Soulstone secret the best he can is what started this game up. And I'm trying to figure out if this was good writing. I can't, really. With evil banished, Cain right there, and the Warrior well aware of how dangerous this salt lick is, how the fact that this shit corrupts people and should be immediately dealt with being completely lost on all present is beyond me.
Anyway, the Vizjerei still exists today, but honestly just in name only. Gone are their demon summoning days, those who still claim they are Vizjerei (who isn't Jane, who is part of the Zann Esu clan) just do normal mage stuff. The Khral-Harzhek order of Assassins (that's Chloe) being formed to help make sure we don't have another repeat of this shit has ensured, at least for now, mages won't doom Sanctuary, again. Magic flipflopped to faith, YET again. That would be the Zakarum faith, and well, we'll get to them very soon.
If you're Arty, though, when you kill the Summoner he drops this thing.
The Horadric Catalyst in Resurgence does what it says on the tin: it'll covert unwanted uniques, set items, runes, and gems into various essences. The gem and rune essence can then be combined with these Extractors to get a gem or a rune of your choosing. (Though higher-tiered runes require greater rune essence and additional ingredinets.) As you can see, the extractors cost a pretty penny, but thankfully we need only buy one of each type to be good for gem and rune converting. Do keep in mind however that there's diminshing returns on the stuff we put in, so we can't 1:1 convert gems, for example.
Uniques and sets meanwhile turn into radiant essence, which is used for charm crafting. Since we have no charms yet, that'll be covered later.
...Hey a book. I've been reading a lot of those lately.
Seekers of the Tomb of Tal Rasha will find it through the Portal. But know that the glowing glyphs recorded here in my Arcane Sanctuary are the signs of the six False Tombs.
The missing Seventh Sign marks the Tomb of Tal Rasha... Of the Horadrim he might be called the foremost.
It was a shining - but brief - moment for the Mage Clans when they set aside their differences and worked together against the common enemy.
The Horadrim relentlessly pursued the Three across the desolate Empires of the East, and even into the uncharted lands of the West, leaving the Archangel Tyrael's hands unblemished.
Presuming the Three to be vanquished, the Horadrim's unstable fellowship began to dissipate. Abandoning their sacred charge to safeguard the three Soulstones, the disparate Mage Clans began to squabble amongst each other over petty differences.
Their conflicts not only dissolved their brotherhood, but strengthened the Evils which they had buried beneath the cold earth.
Well Horazon just left a complete account of something I...already covered. Also he just has a backdoor to Tal Rasha's Tomb because reasons. Smart. Very smart.
...Oh, the Sorcerer we just killed? Probably ducked in here to escape demon debt colleters. Debts of blood. Demon blood. He was a Vizjerei so it's not too out there to say he knew of this place. Hell, he showed up a year ago, which might actually be before Diablo I, and Jerhyn was just all like, "Sure, I'll let you investigate my cellar and also tinker with some seals on a weird arch we have down there." Also, this sanctuary has long since been broken into by demons and they decided to just go in through the front door, find a bunch of women, and got their murder on. Extremely smart, Horazon.
Next time: We enter Tal Rasha's tomb.