Challengers
Challengers are special enemies that may appear in one of their respective floor's normal rooms, as well as in Shops as NPCs. Upon defeat, challengers will drop unique corresponding pickups or upgrades. As NPCs, their dialogue changes between first being met in the floor's shop and after being fought.
Battles
Cavalier
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| Type | Undead |
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| Found In | Excavation |
| Health | 800 |
| Scrap | 250 |
| Bestiary Entry | "Quite frankly, what other chance will I ever get to delve a dungeon?" |
Cavalier always sticks to the side of the room that is opposite to the player, aligning himself with their vertical position. He uses his sword at range to cover large portions of the room and occasionally changes which side he occupies to throw off unaware players.
Hard Mode causes him to additionally gain an Aegis which uniquely moves inversely to where the player is (i.e. it will move to the top right of Cavalier if the player is below him).
| Description | Video |
|---|---|
| Cavalier slashes a few times, sending sword waves to the other side. This attack can only occur if Cavalier is perfectly aligned with the player. | 
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| Cavalier briefly flashes, before quickly firing 4 sword waves while trying to follow the player's vertical position. As he does this, he also fires 2 sets of bullets, each consisting of 2 bullets diagonal from him and 2 bullets above and below him. | 
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Cavalier stands in place and fires 6 pairs of bullets and stationary energy spears in a clockwise fashion if he's on the left side, or counter-clockwise if he's on the right. These energy spears promptly fire lasers afterwards in the direction that each was pointed at. Looping makes him fire an increasing amount of energy spears on higher Loops.
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| Cavalier readies his sword and dashes to the other side of the room, dispersing two five-spreads of bullets in the process. This attack can occur randomly, but it will always occur if the player stays in Cavalier's part of the room for an extended period of time. | 
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Notes
- Cavalier's sword waves have a deceptively small hitbox. The only damaging part of them is the center front of each wave, making it surprisingly easy to weave between them.
Colonel
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| Type | Mech |
|---|---|
| Found In | Archives |
| Health | 1400 |
| Scrap | 500 |
| Bestiary Entry | "I'm sick and tired of this war. Glad it ends tomorrow." |
| Attack Patterns | Video |
|---|---|
| Has several bomb-themed attacks, including lobs of bombs that inch across the room, laser bombs that fire in cross and X formations, and bombs that produce flame projectiles much like a fireball. Occasionally charges up and fires a large laser, sucking in energy projectiles before rendering the laser's radius uninhabitable. Jumps between two platforms throughout the encounter.
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To be added. |
Autodoc
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| Type | Mech |
|---|---|
| Found In | Maintenance System |
| Health | 1400 |
| Scrap | 500 |
| Bestiary Entry | "Fascinating. This slime shows potential to harm, but also to heal." |
| Attack Patterns | Video |
|---|---|
| Fires slow-moving spreads of syringes, and throws canisters containing jellies or cross/X formations of toxic gas. Additionally releases a cross formation of gas upon defeat.
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To be added. |
Giant Bat
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| Type | Mech |
|---|---|
| Found In | Bellows |
| Health | 1600 |
| Scrap | 750 |
| Bestiary Entry | "A few enterprising souls realized the way to boss others around was to be bigger than them. The idea stuck." |
| Description | Video |
|---|---|
| When awakened, Giant Bat drops downward, taking flight. | 
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| Giant Bat produces wide soundwave bullets, bursting outward from its mouth. Initially, they have a high speed, but suddenly become very slow after traveling roughly half the length of the room. Hard Mode nearly doubles this attack's rate of fire.
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| Giant Bat begins producing wide soundwave bullets in evenly-spaced groups of three in a spiraling, clockwise pattern. The bullet groupings produce an interesting effect due to the three bullets having different speeds (each bullet is slower than the one above it). They start in an extended pattern, then collapse, then extend again before terminating against a surface. |
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| Giant Bat lets out a screech, summoning several small, ghastly bats from either side of the screen. In this variation of the pattern, Giant Bat summons four rows of bats in a wave-like pattern, where two of those waves extend off the top and bottom of the screen. In both variations, the bats fly straight to the left or right, without any upward or downward movement. |
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| Giant Bat lets out a screech, summoning several small, ghastly bats from either side of the screen. In this variation of the pattern, Giant Bat summons bats in spaced-out groups of three, each group moving at a random speed. In both variations, the bats fly straight to the left or right, without any upward or downward movement. |
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The Myriad
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| Type | Construct |
|---|---|
| Found In | Sanctum |
| Health | 2520 |
| Scrap | 5 |
| Bestiary Entry | "Borne of primordial magic and once countless, but time is the most patient destroyer there is." |
| Attack Patterns | Video |
|---|---|
| Is defeated by destroying the crystals that make up its rotating ring. Creates varying volleys and spreads of projectiles that can quickly smother the room, before changing position. As crystals are destroyed, more and more projectiles are released in a spread, becoming the most claustrophobic with one crystal remaining.
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To be added. |
Ascended One
Wow, that's a lot of spoilers!There are a lot of fun surprises down here... you'd hate to accidentally ruin them.
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| Type | Mage |
|---|---|
| Found In | Forbidden |
| Health | 1 |
| Scrap | 0 |
| Bestiary Entry | "In the moment I understood. I became nothing. You will too. In time." |
| Attack Patterns | Video |
|---|---|
| Spawns four Keystones in three waves that must be destroyed each time for the Ascended One to enter a vulnerable state. After all three phases, Ascended One becomes vulnerable, shooting a stream of homing purple stars and dying with one shot.
Fires large bouncy orbs that home in on the player, but can be pushed back by shooting at them (or with Bombs). When hitting a wall or each other, the bouncy orbs will fire their own projectiles at the player, and in a spread of six resembling a triangle when two collide. Each Keystone wave completed spawns an additional bouncy orb into the room. |
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Drops
Each Challenger drops a specific reward type upon their defeat.
| Challenger | Icon | Reward Description |
|---|---|---|
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Cavalier drops a 10% Damage Increase when defeated.
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Colonel drops 4 to 6 special or double bombs when defeated.
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Autodoc drops a Flan that heals for 3 HP when defeated. |
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Giant Bat drops a Map and creates several excavated shortcuts when defeated, à la an Excavation Bomb. |
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The Myriad drops a random Cartridge when defeated. |
Spoiler Warning Seen that symbol? If you haven't... I'd be careful.Wouldn't want to see any spoilers.
| Challenger | Icon | Reward Description |
|---|---|---|
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Ascended One drops a random Unique Weapon when defeated.
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Dialogue
| Challenger | Before Encounter | After Encounter |
|---|---|---|
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Another challenger? You don't look like much.
One needs all the practice they can get, I suppose. We're here for the same thing, I assume? That would make us enemies in the field. Good luck. |
Not bad. Be wary, though.
Things only ever get worse down there. I wouldn't be here if I gave up easily. Don't count on the same outcome the next time we meet. |
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You look familiar, soldier. Which side are you on?
There are only two kinds of faces I remember. Enemies and traitors. |
The battle might be over, but the war remains.
Mark my words, soldier. I will take this facility yet. Victory has never been closer. |
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You look... interesting. Mind if I run a few experiments?
We don't get many visitors down here. Heh heh, I wonder why? |
You're no fun at all. |
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zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz | zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz |
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HOMSXFEIL.Y?FTJG ZUDLQAWJQXD,PQVIZGQAUGXIR | QRHGZNQU,FN!L?Y!LAJMSZJ.VM!O,QUI?IA!WOAM I |
Wow, that's a lot of spoilers!There are a lot of fun surprises down here... you'd hate to accidentally ruin them.
| Challenger | Before Encounter | After Encounter |
|---|---|---|
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Your quest. Is futile.
Power Eternal. Exists. Outside of time. All of us. Have already perished. This is. But a cycle. Of a dream. You can't escape. Fate. |
Terminus est. |
Notes
- It is only possible to see Ascended One's dialogue by holding the Cool Sunglasses cartridge to make a shop appear on Floor 6, where Ascended One will appear like the other challengers.
Trivia
- The Myriad's dialogue is a randomly generated string of characters.
- Colonel's charge weapon shares the same name with (and functions similarly to) the Unique Weapon Genocide.
- Through dialogue, Ace of the Gauntlet directly illuminates several aspects of the challengers' characters:
- Colonel's persistent delusion of an eternal war apparently isn't too far off from the truth of the facility's timeless nature alluded to by Ascended One and others,
- Autodoc was once one of Ace's hermits before becoming obsessed with Jelly,
- Giant Bat is either regarded as an urban legend, or the bats' nature of being mechs is unknown,
- The Myriad bears a level of sentience and its origins trace back to the introduction of magic to the planet, which itself is apparently extraterrestrial,
- and Ascended One is indeed an anomaly compared to other instances of mages having been touched by the Power Eternal.
- Ascended One's use of Latin ties into a recurring use of the language throughout the game, and the phrase "Terminus Est" is itself recurring, being the filename of the track Scar Tissue.
- Giant Bat is included in an Easter egg on the Team D-13 website. On Halloween 2025, Alex posted an image on the Team D-13 Discord server as an announcement. The image depicts Giant Bat on a pile of candy with the text "flappy Halloween" in the top-left corner. The word "flappy", notably, is colored yellow. This was a clue, based on a previous ARG, which led to the discovery of a secret mini-game on the Team D-13 website on November 2nd: FLAP BAT ! The game is a direct reference to the famous viral app Flappy Bird, with both a title and gameplay that strongly resemble their inspiration.
- The game is likely also a reference to a gag in the game ZeroRanger in which the player can encounter a pinball mini-game called "FLIP BALL". Both games share similar titles (displayed with similar fonts in-game), retro aesthetics, and arcade-style gameplay. Furthermore, Team D-13 are known friends of the ZeroRanger developers (System Erasure) and have referenced their work elsewhere within Star of Providence.
- As mentioned, the gameplay strongly resembles that of Flappy Bird. The player controls Giant Bat as they flap through a seemingly infinite tunnel, collecting candy while avoiding collision with the floor, ceiling, and exposed metal beams. The player is given three lives. Losing all lives results in a game over, resetting the player's score and sending them back to the title screen.
- The highest known score of FLAP BAT is held by Team D-13 member Flan at 46700 points.
- The title screen reads "FLAP BAT" and then "RESS PACE TO TART". This is a reference to a very old build of Star of Providence (then known as Monolith) in which the internal font of the game did not include capital letters, and so it did not display them upon rendering text to the screen in-game, resulting in the same fragmented sentence.
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