This one took a while to find and I’m quite disappointed by it. It’s a worse base reward-wise than you would expected from Burial Chambers. All creatures are just increased difficulty and there is a mini-boss to defeat for a chest turn-in.
If it was not for the torches at the entrance of this one it would have been quite easy to overlook. Sure Hugin was waiting for me to find this place to alert me to the dangers below. Not even the mini-boss gave me any kind of thrill in the form of a challenge. It is not that shocking my gear has grown by a lot since the early days when you would expect to run into this place.
This one was quite a beast to find as far as dungeons go in Valheim. I searched far too many Black Forests looking for any hint they could be hiding away the Smouldering Tomb. Thankfully I finally came across one and I get to check it off my list of things I don’t care to do again.
The biggest difference I noticed in Smouldering Tomb over Burial Chambers is the lack of reward in how dark it is. Any chest I came across seemed rather barren. You would think a more challenging place would have had some kind of multiplier for chest rewards. This was not the only thing I noticed was lacking either.
In Burial Chambers you often find yellow mushrooms scattered everywhere giving off lots of light. Here I only found a couple the place was otherwise dark.
Yellow mushrooms were not the only thing lacking from the place. After doing a full clear in a rather short period I realized there were zero Surtling Cores to be had. I was at least hoping this place would be a small treasure trove of things. Thankfully I have other methods these days of getting a few if and when I feel like it.
As far as clearing the dungeon itself. I killed a couple of skeletons as soon as I got in that were wandering through an open door down the middle path. I however after doing so went right for the right door in the entryway. I did not see any further need to explore the middle path when I have my rather predictable pattern in how I prefer to clear these places out.
Each one-star skeleton I ran into collapsed from one mightily blow of my sword. Unlike the other new or newer dungeons I’ve run, I noticed this place was not a maze. It was quite simple. I was at least expecting to find lots of stairways going down and other things to try to trip me up. Perhaps I just rolled a simple dungeon.
Once I had the right side of the dungeon cleared I quickly ran back and set my sights on the middle path that had an open door. At this point I wanted to not waste much of the torch I was using to give my screenshots some lighting. Otherwise, I was in no rush outside of wanting to be too lazy to craft another torch for a while.
Eventually, I ran into a chamber that was quite different. I instantly spotted the mini-boss Brenna. With the gear I had on at the time it could barely do any damage to me whatsoever. At least I ran into something in this dungeon that did not collapse at the sight of me rolling into a chamber room.
I made quick work of Brenna and was rewarded with a Hildir’s Brass chest and a Brenna trophy. I still have no idea if there is anything extra you can do with these mini-boss trophies this one hardly seems worth the effort of hanging on a wall.
As far as the Brass chest it would be an item I need to trade into the shopkeeper Hildir who I have a portal not far away from. Before doing so, however, I wanted to at least finish off this dungeon.
I was shocked I had to go this far into the dungeon before finding my first stairway down and it was a dead end down below. I was hoping there be some kind of rewarding treasure room or something. I guess that was expecting way too much.
The bottom was just this empty-looking cave area. Nothing more to explore. I now had the middle route of the dungeon cleared. I made my way back to the entryway and went for the final left side.
The final side was just more of the same. Other than the chest at this point I did not care for anything else I looted. I suppose the gems and gold were somewhat nice if I cared for anything off the shop but I don’t.
Final Thoughts
With everything now all wrapped up, I went to my portal over to Hildir and turned in the brass chest. Like before it added more items to the shop inventory and some clothing to an empty table. Nothing that looked interesting or worthwhile to me.
I did end up buying a simple tunic just to see how it was. It looked ugly. I guess if I cared for my lower stamina used for long-distance runs this might be worthwhile. However, the real lack of armor makes wearing this in any place I’d like to explore quite a deadly proposition. I declined to spend any further gold before calling it a night.
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Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Valheim.
