Runes in Dead Cells are one of the most important and useful items in the game, as they give the main character unique abilities, allowing him to get to previously inaccessible areas and locations. To pass the game completely, you need to collect all the runes.
Unfortunately, you can’t just find and pick them up – you can only get runes by killing special elite opponents (bosses) that appear near some elite obelisks. Once you get a new rune you can explore it in the pause box, look for it in the right corner of the screen.
Rune of the Vine
Givable skill: gives a character the ability to create strong vines of green droplets, thereby opening up access to new areas of the game world.
How to get it:
Head to the location called Prominade of The Condemned.
- It’s quite easy to get to the Path – leave the starting area and you’ll immediately find yourself in the right level.
- In this area you have to defeat an elite enemy, the Wicked Archer.
- Once you’ve defeated the enemy, take away his rune, which will open the way to the Toxic Sewers and the Ramparts.
Rune of teleportation
Givable skill: gives a character the ability to move to special totems, thereby opening up new locations.
How to get it:
- The first thing to do is head to the Poison Gutters.
- To get to the right location, go to the prisoners’ cells and then use the vine rune near the entrance to the gutters (looks like a pile of slime).
- Next, start looking for the door with the switch next to it. Go through it and fight Rubaka.
- After destroying the enemy, take his rune, which will open the way to the Ossuary and the Forgotten Sepulcher.
Challenger Rune
Giving skill: gives a character the ability to open a door located in the prisoners’ cells and leading to an area with daily challenges.
How to get:
- Get to the Black Bridge.
- Find and deal with the boss named Gatekeeper (Concierge).
- After destroying the enemy, take his rune, which will open the way to the Daily Challenge.
The ram rune
Granted skill: gives the character the ability to destroy fragile floor areas, which are marked by a special yellow icon.
How to get it:
- First you have to go to the Crematorium.
- You can get to this location from the Path of the Doomed. Find a special coffin on this level and interact with it using the teleportation rune.
- Once in the right area, find the door that opens by collapsing the weak floor.
- There you will find the elite Rubaka. Kill the monster and get the rune, which will give you access to the Ancient Sewers.
Spider Rune
Givable skill: gives the character the ability to climb walls like the most prodigious Spider-Man. I wish they’d let me shoot spider webs.
How to Get:
- First you’ll need to get to the Slumbering Sanctuary, and to do that you’ll have to go through the Insufferable Crypt.
- To get to the Insufferable Crypt you can do the following: first go to the Poison Gutters, then go down to the Ancient Gutters and look for a place where you can destroy the floor, and then just go forward.
- In the Unbearable Tomb you will have to fight Conjuctivus (the Watcher) and defeat him. It’s not easy to do, so we will describe the battle below.
- Once you’ve defeated him, head to the Dormant Temple and eliminate the elite Sphere Thrower there. You’ll
- get a rune that gives you access to the Graveyard and the Prison Depths.
How to defeat Conjunctivius
This boss is a spherical monster with a huge eye in the middle. When the color of his eye changes, he uses different abilities, for example, when it’s green he shoots acid in different directions, and when it’s purple he makes a sharp leap forward and releases spikes.
Don’t stand near the Watcher for too long, as he can create a small electric field around himself. When all the platforms are down, you can not even try to hurt him, as he becomes invulnerable – instead, start destroying his tentacles.
In general, this enemy can be trapped or frozen. Also, bows, electric whip, and torch work well against him. Tentacles can also be caught by traps, plus their blows are parried.
By the way, even when underground, the Watcher’s tentacles can get negative statuses like bleeding, burning, and poisoning, so don’t forget to keep applying them.
Homunculus Rune
Givable skill: gives a character the ability to leave his body and thus end the game.
How to get:
- You will need to get to the final location of the game called the Throne Room.
- You can get to this level through the High Peak Castle.
- Once in the right area, deal with the Hand of the King and get the last rune at your disposal.
Special Rune
Granted skill: unlocks a special game mode, which is similar to the normal game mode, but has deeper customization of the parameters.
Note: there is no special mode on the Android platform, so it is impossible to get this rune.
How to get it
For this, you will need to go to the location Prison Towers (Ramparts) and deal with the elite zombie (Elitist) in the room shown in the screenshot above. After that pick up the special rune.
