FOREWARNED How to survive the Mejai

Intro

The Games basic loop sees you looting the tomb for treasure and finding evidence, then trying to escape with the relic once the Big Bad Mejai has assumed physical form to hunt you down. Every Mejai will kill you in one shot, unlike the minions and traps in the tomb. Some of them are more overwhelming to deal with than others.

Rathos, The Damned

The Generic Mummy of the bunch is Rathos the Damned. He's what you picture when you think of a mummy. Rathos can be a bit confusing for new players, because he looks exactly like the regular mummies who sit inside their sarcophagus' around the tomb, only Rathos is bigger, and faster.

Don't be fooled however, Rathos is hands down the most DANGEROUS of the five mejai, even if you know what you are doing. Unlike most of his Mejai brethren, Rathos's weakness is finite, meaning you can only exploit it a few times. This becomes increasingly more dangerous when you are working in larger groups, where you will burn through his weakness faster.

To get Rathos off your tail, you have to swing a torch at him to get him to back off. He will back up, and he will lose his kill hitbox (so you can run past him, do it quick if you're cornered.) Rathos will roar, putting out all lights, and there will be a slight cooldown on the defense with the torch before it can be used again to ward Rathos off.

Most dangerously, however, Rathos

Difficulty Chart

On Easy and Normal, Rathos can be warded off 3-4 times

On Hard, Rathos can be warded off 2 times

On Brutal, Rathos can be warded off once, maybe twice depending on group size.

After you use up all the 'scares', Rathos will become golden and blue skinned, looking like the royal mummys you will occasionally find. In this form he is faster, cannot be stopped, and cannot be warded away. Kiting him is your only option if you want to live, and your ability to do that relies SOLELY on the map generation being generous.

However, there is some reprieve. Once you break line of site from Rathos its fairly easy to lose him. You can go around a corner and immediately try ducking into another room, hoping Rathos returns to his regular patrol route. He's definitely a difficult mummy to deal with, especially since his weakness is more and more noticeable in larger groups. Best of luck dealing with him.

Recommended Equipment:

Torch & Lighter

Necryph, The Shadow

Necryph holds a special place in my heart for being the creepiest of all the mejai. Constantly shrouded in darkness, and always accompanied by the sound of rattling chains, he definitely has the most potential to scare or frustrate new players who are trying to get a grasp on his mechanics.

First and foremost ABSOLUTELY NO LIGHTS. This means no flashlights, no torches, no headlamp. The ONLY light source Necryph seems to ignore is the lighter, and that's not very helpful for getting around a tomb whilst evading an ever-present hunter. Your saving grace will be TABLET 2, which gives the tablet Night Vision mode and lets you see your way around in the dark without angering Necryph.

Necrpyh also has a mechanic that supposedly makes him attack if you stare for too long, but it seems wildly inconsistent in how it works, and will need to be patched up later. By this I mean, Necryph may seemingly kill you when you so much as glance at him when he's nearby or he might let you stare at him all day long. Generally, I try to avoid looking at him even if others say its totally fine. You never know when the mechanic will suddenly start working as intended.

Necryph most dangerous power is his teleportation. He does not walk around the tomb, he teleports from spot to spot. If you have ever seen the old Slenderman games, think along those lines. Necryph moves around the tomb with a vague idea of where you are, but never an exact picture. HOWEVER, through testing I have found that Necryph becomes more and more accurate the longer you stay in one spot. This means if you try to hide for too long, he will find you eventually.

Recommended Equipment:

Night Vision Tablet

Lighter

Talgor, The Perilous

People seem to struggle with Talgor the most out of the mummies, and that is precisely because Talgor is at his most dangerous when you DON'T see him.

Talgor is 100% invisible. You cannot see him at all without the help of the tablet, and you cannot use your night vision mode on the tablet either, as Talgor interrupts the night vision. On the tablet, he is incredibly hard to spot for new players, he is essentially this large, walking black cloud. It can take a moment for you to differentiate between the darkness and Talgor himself, he blends in very well with the dark fog at the edge of your lights range.

Talgors ai is simple, like Rathos and Ouphris, he will hunt around the tomb until he spots an archaeologist, then he will pursue them until he loses sight of them, OR the archeaologist exploit his weakness.

Talgors weakness is incredibly interesting: Its speech. You have to speak at him to make him stop in his track. How loud you have to be and how far away from you he will stop when you are speaking seems to be affected by difficulty, but always try to get him to stop on the edge of a hallway so you can squeeze past him.

If you don't see Talgor, here are my best tips so you don't kill yourself running around a corner:

Listen closely to the enviroment. Talgor constantly emits a strange boiling water/magma sound, and it only gets louder the closer he gets to you. When you hear this sound, check around constantly to make sure he isn't behind you.

Take corners SLOWLY. This tip technically applies to all of the Mejai, but its especially important for Mejai like Talgor and Rathos. You do not want to bump directly into Talgor.

Use your Flashlight to see and your Torch as a warning sign. Talgor puts out Torches when he is near and will keep them out. If your torch is put out suddenly, it might be high time you check around quickly.

Talgor can't see 360. If you see him walk down one hall, you can peak out to see if he has turned around. If he hasn't you can walk the way he came from. No need to worry. In fact, unless you are basically in front of him, Talgor won't catch you out of the corner of his eye. This doesn't mean you can easily hide, however.

Reccomended Equipment

Tablet (Don't use Night vision)

Flashlight (so you can see with the tablet)

Torch & Lighter (So you know when he's nearby)

A Good set of Lungs (So you can scream long enough to get away from him.

Dekan, The Lost

Ahhh Dekan, glorious Dekan. He feels by far like the most fair mummy to fight in the game. He stomps around the tomb like a giant blind bear, and just like a bear he can and will rip you limb from limb if he finds you.

Dekans whole gimmick is that he is blind, but his hearing is pinpoint. The devs were really thorough with this, so I will just give you a list of things I have found that will alert Dekan.

Things Dekan can hear

Running

Talking

Using the global chat (He'll head for the person talking through the radio, not the recipient. He won't immediately aggro however, he'll just change his patrol pattern.)

Flicking your flashlight on or off next to him

Your torch flickering (Needs more testing)

The Geiger Counter

The Metal Detector

Snapping a picture

Opening a sarcophogus (including the one where you get the relic, grab it fast or Dekan will spawn and hear you!)

The Radio

So yeah, Dekan can hear very well, and you better be sure you don't have anything in your pockets that's making noise. However, this hearing is also his greatest weakness. He'll always charge towards something when he hears the noise, making him easily distracted. When he has aggroed onto something (or someone) he will let out a bloodcurdling roar before charging towards the source.

If he's angry at you, well, sorry, that's basically it for you unless the exit is RIGHT next to you.

Everyone knows and assumes immediately they can use the radio to distract Dekan, and you're right! However, I found a second tool thats just as useful: The Geiger Counter. See, Dekan gives off a radioactive signal. Whenever he walks over a geiger counter, it will start clicking, and he will roar and attack it. This makes him stop in place for a second, AND gives you a clear idea of where he is if you can't hear his very loud footsteps.

I usually place the Geiger counter next to the radio, so after Dekan runs to the radio to destroy it, he stops for another moment to destroy the geiger counter. Or, if there is a really long narrow hallway, I will place the geiger counter near one of the ends of the hall so I know when Dekan is going down that hall.

Overall, Patience is you best friend in dealing with Dekan, if you die to him, it is most likely because you got impatient or greedy.

Recommended Equipment

Radio

Geiger Counter

Ouphris, The Forgotten

And the last on our list is poor, poor Ouphris. Conceptually he is the coolest mummy for multiplayer. A monster that mimics your friends? That sounds Awesome! In practice, however, Ouphris is rather sad. He is the only monster that cannot kill you without passing a ridiculous time requirement. You can run into him, bump him, walk right through him, he's more harmless than the snake.

Ouphris is only dangerous when he starts whistling. When that happens, whip out the Heka Amulet, turn it on, and he'll reveal his true form and waddle away. As much as I love Ouphris as a design, as a concept, he sorely needs several buffs.

The devs tried buffing him by making the Heka amulet limited use, but this doesn't answer the core problem with Ouphris: He needs to have uninterrupted line of sight on his target for a specific amount of time before he is able to attack.

This power is only helped by the fact Ouphris will never lose his target. Run around the tomb, take as many twists or turns as you want, he will find you easily. However, he cannot attack once you have broken line of sight. Break line of sight often and it'll feel like your just playing with a friendly monster who is following you around while you look for the escape lever.

Ouphris only manages to score kills on higher difficulties on bigger maps, where you MAY actually run out of heka amulet uses before you find the lever, or against new players who don't have the amulet yet. These are the only two scenarios where Ouphris can become a bit of a threat. Personally however, I have yet to die to Ouphris despite having over 110 hours in the game, and I will celebrate the day he gets the buff he sorely needs and finally manages to catch me.