Trial of the Sekhemas — Climbing Four Floors While Protecting Honour
The Trial of the Sekhemas is an Ascension Trial. Unlike a pinnacle boss its purpose is concrete — you earn ascendancy points here, which directly affect your character’s power, so it’s a high priority.
It’s a roguelike gauntlet where the point isn’t so much the fighting as how you protect your survival resource, Honour.
For the full ascendancy-point picture across both trials, see the Ascension Trials section of Pinnacle Bosses.
Getting in
At the Trial of the Sekhemas waypoint in Act 2, insert a Djinn Barya into the Relic Altar to start.
The Djinn Barya reads:
Take me to the Trial of the Sekhemas. I will serve. Take this item to the Relic Altar in the Trial of the Sekhemas to enter.
The Djinn Barya isn’t consumed until you confirm your relics. During the campaign you also get a quest key, Balbala’s Barya, which is returned to you if you fail.
The key’s level sets the run
The most important rule. The Djinn Barya’s item level determines how many floors the run has and whether it awards ascendancy points. Hovering the key shows the area level and floor count.
Higher-level keys give better rewards and are tradeable.
Honour — the heart of this content
Honour is a survival resource that only exists inside the trial.
Starting Honour is the sum of your base maximum life, energy shield, and Runic Ward. If you run the Mind over Matter keystone, maximum mana is added too.
- Honour is lost when monsters or traps hit you. Hits taken by minions or non-party allies don’t cost Honour.
- Standing closer to monsters reduces the Honour lost per hit (up to 35% less in close range).
- Honour Resistance cuts losses by up to 75%.
- Honour persists between rooms, and hitting 0 fails the trial automatically. Failing doesn’t count as a death and doesn’t affect experience.
Honour does not regenerate on its own. You restore it by trading with the merchant or venerating certain Maraketh shrines.
The 0.5 change — Runic Ward feeds starting Honour
Stated in the official 0.5.0 patch notes:
Your maximum Runic Ward is now added to your starting Honour when beginning a Trial of the Sekhemas.
And a Reforging Bench was added at the trial entrance. Runic Ward is a new 0.5 defence layer, so speccing into it right before you enter starts you with that much more Honour. This is the key trick for the Sekhemas in 0.5.
Structure — 4 floors × 8 rooms
A run is 4 floors of 8 rooms each — 32 total. The key’s level dictates how many floors you run.
Choosing rooms works like this:
- You navigate a trial map, and by default you can see one room ahead.
- Each room shows its objective (type) and a reward icon, and rooms that inflict an Affliction have a purple border.
Objective types include Chalice (kill rares), Escape (disable death crystals before a timer), Ritual, trap Gauntlets, Hourglass (survive), and Boss rooms.
- Boons are beneficial effects; Major Boons are stronger and take priority.
- Afflictions are downsides — blocking Honour recovery, buffing traps, hiding rooms on the map, and so on.
The merchant is Balbala, the Released, who trades Boons, relics, and Honour restoration for Sacred Water. She’s guaranteed in the reward room after each floor’s boss.
The Relic system
The persistent element of the Sekhemas is Relics.
Relics only take effect if placed in the Relic Altar before the run starts. Relics held in your inventory — or picked up mid-run — do nothing for that run. The altar is inaccessible once the run begins; you have to complete, fail, or forfeit to change relics.
Normal relics carry up to 2 modifiers, can be crafted with Augmentation/Annulment, and reforged three of a base into one at the Reforging Bench. Unique relics drop from Zarokh, are limited to one active per run, and are destroyed when you complete or fail the run.
Ascendancy points — floor tiers
| Points | Requirement | Floor boss |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | Djinn Barya area level 22+ · Floor 1 | Rattlecage, the Earthbreaker |
| 4 | 45+ · Floor 2 | Hadi & Rafiq |
| 6 | 60+ · Floor 3 | Ashar, the Sand Mother |
| 8 | 75+ · Floor 4 · kill Zarokh | Zarokh, the Temporal |
There are 8 ascendancy points total, and repeating either this or the Trial of Chaos alone can supply all eight.
Zarokh — the Floor 4 boss
Zarokh, the Temporal is the Sekhemas’ final boss, reached by completing Floor 4 of an area level 75+ Djinn Barya run. Killing him grants the final two ascendancy points.
The fight has a clock phase where you must collect six hourglasses within a time limit. Since 0.3, failing to collect them no longer fails the trial outright — it only damages Honour, and Zarokh enters a slowed second phase.
Zarokh drops unique relics, which — applied back to the trial — yield powerful reward items (rings, jewels, gloves, helmets, body armour) at the cost of a heavy run penalty. Item details are on the equipment pages.
Preparation
- Honour is your clear rate. Before entering, use the Reforging Bench to stack Runic Ward and raise your starting Honour.
- Honour Resistance sharply reduces per-hit loss, which stabilises trap-heavy and multi-hit rooms.
- Not getting hit by traps is the real skill here. Dodging matters more than damage.
- For defensive fundamentals, see The Basics.