Elden Ring Nightreign has been out for about a month at this point, but players are still uncovering little interactions sprinkled throughout the game. One, apparently, lets you circumvent the downsides of dealing with a demonic merchant, for the low, low price of many, many runes.
If you've advanced far enough into Elden Ring Nightreign, you're probably familiar with Libra, the demonic Nightlord who loves to offer a bargain. These offers come with downsides, that players have found are sometimes worth tanking and sometimes not. Libra is an end-of-run Nightlord, but can also appear through a random world event in other expeditions against other Nightlords.
Much like other events, a purple fog will envelope the area and you'll get a notification, telling you a demon has cursed you. A chunk of your maximum health will also be blocked off, in the upper-left corner. Normally, to clear this, you'll need to head to the spot where the merchant has spawned and pay him, either 15,000 or 35,000 runes depending on the day, to lift the curse.
Once the curse is lifted, you also get a buff. But as one reddit user has pointed out, paying off the Libra event lets you get a free buff if you interact with him again.
"For 15k/35k runes, you can get any of the available merchant buffs by talking to Libra again without any of the downsides," they wrote. "Eventual greatness activates instantly, the flask doesn't remove levels when you drink it. Feel free to kill the demon on day 2 if you're prepared enough, but ONLY AFTER you pay off the curse and get the free buff."
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Normally, these buffs offer a trade-off. YouTuber Garden of Eyes catalogued all the possible buffs and side-effects, which range from extra flasks to stat boosts, at the price of some immediate cost to your person. Maybe a little less maximum health, or a timed stat debuff.
With this particular event, though, it looks like you can get the possible pay-off without the recursive consequences, making the Faustian bargain just a bargain. Sure, it costs either 15,000 or 35,000 runes depending on the day. But some of those buffs? They might be worth the cost, and if you're already paying to fix your health bar, why not get a little more?
It's really, really important to note that this only applies to the specific instance where Libra spawns and curses your squad. If you find Libra hanging out somewhere in the world, sans curse, you won't be able to spend the 15k or 35k runes, and thus won't get the follow-up freebie.
Also, you won't be able to pull this off if you attack and fight the merchant, obviously. So maybe hope that your teammates are on the same page as you, when it comes to dealing with the devil.
While it's a fairly specific buff, any advantage helps when facing down some of the more terrifying Nightlords of Elden Ring Nightreign. If you want to test it yourself, you could even try rolling for the right seed to spawn the Libra event, and then find out whether the power is worth the price.
We’ve got plenty of Nightreign tips and tricks to help you take down all the eight Nightlord Bosses, and if you’re wondering how to unlock the two locked Nightfarer Classes, check out How to Unlock the Revenant and How to Unlock the Duchess, plus How to Change Characters.
Eric is a freelance writer for IGN.
