Introducing a new T3 boss, The Conscious! This will be the first in a set of 2 (possibly 3) new bosses, which was inspired by my other thread, which you can find here.

The Conscious is an undead boss monster that deals shadow damage and primarily stun and curse status. This would make him the only boss in the game to deal curse, besides Darkfire Vanaduke which is only Shadow Lair. He has 4 phases and 2 forms: tentacle form and eye form. In his tentacle form, he looks like a giant cloud of dark mist hovering in the air with tentacles sticking out at certain points. In this form his tentacles have a slight resistance to piercing damage. In his eye form, his tentacles retract into his main body and a giant eyeball opens up in the front. In both forms his main body (not including his eye in eye from) is immune to all forms of special damage and highly resistance to normal damage. His main body has it's own health, and the phases advance when it receives enough damage. He takes tentacle form for phases 1 & 3, and eye form for phases 2 & 4. In phase one he has 3 tentacles, and 6 in phase three. Tentacles are objects of the main body, and cannot be walked through. His only weak points are his eye and tentacles; when any of his tentacles receive enough damage he will retract them all into his main body and shift to his eye form, and when his eye takes enough damage he will shift back to his tentacle form. Note that each of his tentacles has their own health, but players only need to destroy one of them for the phase to advance. In his tentacle form, he hovers about slowly making large circles and loops. In his eye form he dashes around the field very quickly making jagged turns. His total health among all phases would likely add up to 70,000. This is counting 1 tentacle per phase and counts the eye twice, once for each phase.

Attacks
~Tentacle Form~
Tentacle Smash: When a knight comes too close to one of his tentacles, he will ready an attack with a 2 second delay then slam his tentacle into the ground directly under where it was hovering. Any knights in the area of the smash will receive split shadow/pierce damage and become stunned. Each of his tentacles acts on its own and can attack independently of the main body, meaning that multiple tentacles can smash at one time if knights are spread out enough. The tentacle that performed the smash cannot attack again for a short duration.

Decaying Earth: The boss's Void Body lingers for a few seconds after he moves away from a particular point. Note that this only occurs during the tentacle phase, not the eye phase.

Summon Undead: The Conscious summons a Lich Sorcerer and a Dust Zombie to fight by his side. Summons 2 of each in phase 3, and 2 Lich Sorcerers spawn automatically when phase 3 starts. Only 2 Lich Sorcerers can be spawned at a time similar to the deadnoughts in the Vanaduke fight, but there can be an unlimited number of spawned Zombies.

~Eye Form~
Void Laser: The Conscious stops dashing about and opts to stand still, charging up a laser to shoot out of the pupil of his gigantic eye. The laser deals pure shadow damage and minor curse to all knights hit by it. It is noteworthy to say that the laser is only emitted from the pupil of his eye, meaning that the whites of the corner of his eye do not shoot out allowing for sword users to get up close and attack him on the side. The charge up for this attack is shortened in phase 4.

Void Orbs: Orbs of energy randomly spawn and float around in the arena, dealing a moderate amount of pure shadow damage to any player that comes in contact with them. Comparable to the fire orbs in Vanaduke's mask phase, but these deal no status damage and move in a different pattern. This attack only occurs during phase 4.

~Both Forms~
Void Body: When a knight approaches the main body, they will receive a small amount of pure shadow damage and be stunned for a short duration.

Erratic Void Body: The body of the boss randomly bulges out in straight lines, dealing pure shadow damage and stun to any knight hit by it. The bulge is clearly telegraphed and can be dodged if the player pays attention to the main body. This ability only occurs on phases 3 and 4.

Obviously, he would have an entire stratum to himself but this thread isn't really about the stratum, so much as the boss himself. All I can tell you is that it would be undead/fiend themed with lots of monsters that deal stun. There would also be Carnavons found sparingly in certain arenas, as well as one floor that has spawning Phantoms in it. Lich Sorcerers would also be present in all floors. Also note that no Almirian monsters will appear in this stratum, as their cursed undead souls are bound to Vanaduke alone and cannot be controlled by any other (not exactly, but that's my reasoning for not putting them in here).

Being a tier boss, The Conscious also has a Shadow Lair form. His SL form replaces all stun attacks with ice attacks instead. Void Orbs can now add ice status, Void Body now deals minor curse in addition to ice, Erratic Void Body now starts on phase 1, and he also moves slowly while performing Void Laser. Dust Zombies are replaced by Frozen Shamblers. Special Lich Sorcerer variants also spawn instead, called Lich Void Sorcerers. These Void Sorcerers turn any resurrected zombies into a Carnavon. Lich Void Sorcerers can only be found in the SL fight of this boss.

Lore: No one knows how the undead are raising from their graves, or for what purpose. But it has recently come to the attention of Spiral HQ that the souls of the unrested souls are being fed to a being called The Conscious. This being is an in corporal existence from another dimension, who's origins are currently unknown. The sinister fiends in the area have come to worship this being as a god, and have begun to feed it extra souls of the lost, causing it to grow immensely. Although information about it are scarce, it has been discovered that it can control the bodies of the undead that it consumes. It has recently been spotted residing in a path to the core, blocking any further attempts at knights to venture forth. Spiral HQ has asked you to invade it's dark realm and forge a path for the Order and re-establish a link with the Core research team previously sent down.

Rewards
This boss will drop Void Particle tokens when defeated at the same rate as all other tier bosses.
When trading tokens with Brinks in the Haven Bazaar, possible items include:

• Simvol~30 tokens- 4* sword
• Abyssal Vortex~40 tokens- 5* bomb
• Daemon Crown~35 tokens- 5* helmet
• Daemon Mail~35 tokens- 5* armor
• Void Wraith Shield~40 tokens- 4* shield
• Souls of the Dead~22 tokens- Crafting material for Guild Hall boss decorations

The Shadow Lair sets to be crafted from this boss with Heart of Tartarus would be:
* Abyssal Wraith Hood
* Abyssal Wraith Cloak