The Tower of Knowledge is the third major area of Queen's Domain and it is a vertical maze built around one huge spiral staircase. The staircase has a lever on each side, but only one of those levers does anything at any given moment, and getting that wrong is the single most common reason people think they are soft-locked here.

Climbing the spiral staircase

The centrepiece is the giant spiral staircase with a lever on each side. Only the lever on the side opposite to wherever the bottom of the staircase currently connects does anything — the other lever is stuck. So the loop is:

  1. Climb to the top of the staircase.
  2. See which way the bottom of the staircase currently connects.
  3. Drop back down to the area below and pull the lever on the opposite side.
  4. Climb again.

The boss is up above. Players most often report getting stuck on geometry in this tower, so the practical advice is to pull both levers before assuming a route is broken. The map and navigation guide explains why a lot of dead ends here are traversal gates rather than unfinished content.

The Tower of Knowledge seen from the mossy ruins below: a tall stack of round stone platforms tapering to a small spire, framed between rock walls and trees.
The tower is built around one huge spiral staircase, and this is what it looks like from the ruins below.

The rooms on the way up

From the bottom save point, the route up runs through four rooms in order:

  1. The stairs.
  2. The first room.
  3. The second room with the oozes.
  4. The third room with the trap door, a candle crawler and stairs up.

Just above that trap door, on the second or third floor, there is a ledge with a secret wall. It opens into a room with a skeleton mini-boss — the Archivist Inha — and a way down, and that room is what gives you access to the far side of the basement. It is also where Sipeha's book is.

The Storm Gem is up the big staircase beyond that. Where it is and what it unlocks is in the Storm Gem guide.

The Library below

The Library sits below the tower and is entered next to a trap that drops you down. Three things to know before you go in:

  • It is pitch dark, so bring a light.
  • Its mobs account for 140 or more bestiary entries, which makes it the single densest source of bestiary progress in the game.
  • It holds the Necronomicon, which is one of the named bosses in the run.

The Library boss is fought entirely with throwables — bring all of them maxed, and the homing one is the strongest. Which ones to bring is in the throwing weapons guide.

The Library under the tower: the Knowledge Keeper Nourha sits in a golden crown and red robe in front of walls of books, with a dialogue box open and the player's dagger and green-bladed sword in frame.
The Library below the tower, where the Knowledge Keeper waits in front of the book-lined wall.

Queen's Domain Tower of Knowledge: the five flesh walls

Five sections of flesh wall with a screaming face block the tower. Three are in the basement and the rest are on the top floor.

  • To locate them, turn the music off, turn the game audio up, kill the nearby monsters and listen for the screaming.
  • The cultic and occult throwing daggers home in on the faces without killing them, which makes them an easy way to spot all five.
  • You cannot cut the flesh open until you have beaten the boss at the top of the tower, because the toxin-coated throwing daggers are what break them.
  • One of the three basement walls is only reachable through the hidden wall room visible from the staircase teleporter through the grates.

That last rule is the reason the tower boss comes before the Library. The throwing weapon details are in the throwing weapons guide.

The books, the golden doors and the bell

The tower holds two separate book puzzles:

  • The six-slot room where the dying guard gives you the golden key. A note in that room tells you which books it wants.
  • Three extra slots at the very top — two near the two golden doors and one at the end of the top floor near the statue with the gem. Any book will do in those, and you can pull it back out afterwards.

The key for the large golden doors comes from Budaen, who is easy to miss: look behind the cage in the room where you slot the books, by some candles next to a wall of flesh, next to the bookshelves, a skeleton with a love letter and a chest.

The giant bell at the very top is not rung — you reach it with an endgame item, and it needs four lenses, five Trident Emblems and access to the Petrified Garden. The hint for the Petrified Garden is written in a book next to the top save crystal.

Which book goes in which slot is in the book puzzle guide.