Now you stand just a hair's breadth from D'Sparil himself. This is, finally, his keep. Not that it looks like much, truth to be told. Most of the level looks like underwater or dunno what (OTOH the courtyard itself is cool).

Your first task is to peer down over the edges of the platform and find where the crossbow is. Jump down in that direction so when the gargoyles start attacking, you won't be too defenseless. Dispatch them and grab the Shadowsphere and the Wings.

Activate the Shadowsphere, fly up and enter the teleport. Grab the Dragon's Claw and send the Disciple to its creator. Exit the teleport and you'll be in the start hall, where another teleport was made accessible. Enter as well, kill everything that moves and when you get back to the start room there'll be a 3rd teleport. Throw 2 switches there, crush the metal head, grab the Hellstaff and enter the teleport.

You're in the start room for the last time. The 4th and last teleport is now open. Before you enter, notice the small bars at the bottom of a wall section on the right. Open a secret door and get some goodies.

Time to enter the teleport to the keep's courtyard and face the arch evil, D'Sparil himself.

Before you get down from the raised part of the courtyard you arrived to, edge along and grab all the good things up there. Hop down and ready your Phoenix Rod for some roast serpent.

Before you shoot the beast, grab the Wings in a corner of the black building. Fly up and open a door on both sides to get cool stuff like a Ring of Invulnerability and a Mystic Urn.

Once you've shot it enough, it'll get angry and move faster and shoot 3 fireballs at once. Still no real threat. It's just like pigeon shooting (OK, not really).

The real thing begins first when you suppose you're already finished. Instead of dying like he should, D'Sparil will rise and attack you again. The moment the beast collapses, activate a Tome of Power and a Ring of Invulnerability. Ready the Phoenix Rod (or if it's empty, the Hellstaff).

Shoot him from as small a distance as you can manage. Though one of his shots would be enough to kill you, the ring will save you. And though normally he'd just teleport away at once when hit from this close quarters, when hit with the powered up version of the 2 weapons specified above, he's got a significantly lower chance to do it.

Of course you won't finish him off before the Ring wears out. Once it does, you should run around the courtyard, and shoot him at every opportunity you can see at all where he's teleported to before he teleports away again (it's much like you can see it in the Heretic II intro movie). What the movie didn't tell you though are the Disciples D'Sparil can summon all the time. Especially on the highest skill level, they make your task virtually impossible (if not fully).

Sooner or later, you should be able to hit D'Sparil hard and often enough to finish him off. Watch him suffer and die, he deserved it. He'll roar something a moment before his bones collapse (according to the Heretic II intro movie, it's a curse laid upon you for defeating him. ).

Anyway, once he's dead, a new room will be revealed at one end of the courtyard. You'll find a wall switch in there. Pushing it will cause stairs to raise on the other side. Now you can walk up the stairs and get into that big portal. Wave goodbye to D'Sparil's remnants --- and suffer his curse. According to the "Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders" expansion pack story, you entered the teleport in D'Sparil's keep but instead of getting home you arrived into another plane conquered by D'Sparil's armies. This is slightly different from what the Heretic II intro movie tells, but what the hell... I dislike both modifications of the original glorious ending Heretic had back when it was released in 1994, when you simply defeated all evil, stepped into the portal and went home (the "Shadow of the Serpent Riders" expansion pack was released 2 years later and Heretic II another 2 years afterwards).

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