I've done all three mini-games and got two curses along with the three blessings. I avoided the Portal Pursuer (still haven't even caught him, and I want to bronze him at some point, which sort of defeats the purpose ), but I'm out of luck other than charms and LGS (ouch indeed), and one of my four portals is frozen. I need to look for those last chambers to lift the curses.

But mainly I need to farm more Ancient and Runic cheeses.

Ok, this is cool. I didn't know it would save your spot in the Acolyte Chamber if you left and came back. I figured it'd be like Z's Tower or the Iceburg where if you Retreated, you reset the area. Well, I've got the Acolyte in the bag now.

ETA: You know, I'm kind of surprised. This IS a Grand Duke level area so I'd think they'd make it hard, you know?

Well, I was actually planning on trying my luck early with the minimum supplies, but I actually haven't been able to find an Acolyte door yet. So I'm just hunting around slowly building up supplies.

I've purposefully avoided any of the buff/debuff chambers...I didn't want to waste time and effort on them until I'm a bit better equipped to beat them. Plus I didn't want to spend the resources on them.

We'll see if this strategy pays off...lol.

ETA: Just after complaining, I got my Acolyte Chamber. Let's see how this goes!

Good luck Gymmie!

I just caught my first Absolute Acolyte. Yay! All of the mice in the new area have been caught

And I see the trade off for being able to return to the same spot you left at in the Acolyte Chamber.

I am also now the proud owner of the Riftwalker Codex.

I am so confused and over my head in this area. . . . Probably because early on I got struck with a curse that takes away all of my trap's luck.

I'm by no means an expert on this area, but if you need specific advice DiGs, I'd be happy to try to help. I had that same curse but just went through a security portal to get rid of it.
The Standard portals seem to go
Gearworks -> Ancient -> Runic -> Timewarp -> Acolyte
The curses are totally worth risking for the blessings. Especially get rid of the Portal Paladins before collecting sand.
If you need to get through a hallway quickly, Rift Vacuum charms' loot counts.
If you don't get a portal you want, it seems to be a lot cheaper to do something like a Gearworks and then catch a portal opening mouse when he becomes available instead of buying a portal shuffler.

I don't quite understand how you get a "blessing" rather than a curse. . . I have the one that seals away Portal Paladins, but I don't even know how I got it.

You get it from completing the Guard Barracks portal. You still get the blessings even if you get the curses too. Hover over the blessings and curses on the HUD and it will show which hallway goes with which blessing /curse combo.

Just as an FYI, you can buy and sell Ancient String Cheese on the marketplace. . . It's selling for about 30K a piece.

So If you need some cash, it's a nice little side-gig

That's a handy tip, DiGs! I'm already seeing a profit just with hunting through the area, but that might be a good way to make it more profitable.

I caught my first Absolute Acolyte overnight. I'm going to take a break to help work on a map and then dive back into the BWRift. I don't mind the area taking a while to do a run as it's a fairly good area for passive play, which is mostly what I'm able to do right now.

I'm sitting pretty at 73mil gold so... maybe I should consider buying some? LOL I didn't realize they had it on the marketplace.

Going for my second Acolyte right now. Starting off with 124 Runic Cheese, 69 Sand, and 33 Quartz. We'll see how that does.

I need to remember in the future to get in and out of the Guard Barracks as soon as possible and avoid Timewarp portals until then. I can't believe how much of a difference it made not having those Paladins around to steal my sand!

What are the good "gold farming" areas right now? In the good-ole-days one could pull in 100K a day in the Catacombs. Are there any places where one can make double that?

I am sitting around 10 million gold, and have been for a while

Furoma Rift is pretty good once you're using crafted cheeses...I dunno what the gold rate is but it's pretty good. People also say that the Burroughs Rift is good for gold but I've never spent enough time there myself to find out.

Well, I finished my first AA run. Had to retreat and go back for more Time Sand; I thought I way overdid it the second time but I actually caught the AA with only 6 sand left so what do I know. Still feeling like I must have had quite a bit of DHU on that run but time will tell. I also went in with no blessings or curses so this run I'm trying for blessings.

Got my Riftstalker Codex so that's nice; it's a very good boost! Glad to see the Rift set get an upgrade.

ETA: I'm sitting on about 90mil (not counting the 30mil I have saved for Ronza) but I'm still lowkey saving up for the Temporal Plates so I'm loath to really go and buy cheese on the Marketplace. I've been crafting MSC with my loads of SB+ instead, lol. So far I'm doing okay on cheese.

Unfortunately I lost track and had to go offline when I caught the Acolyte. So I don't actually know how much sand I used, but it wasn't much. I think I got the time thingy to 100% with 17 sand or so? And then... maybe 20-25 after that?
I still have 25 Quartz and 77 Runic Cheese leftover, not to mention the potions I had drop.
So hopefully all of the remaining runs go this well.

I got my Acolyte and the Codex. At the moment I'm doing another of those "catch something you should avoid because if you avoid it, you can't bronze it" (like the Battering Ram). I have got the Pursued Curse, and have started catching Portal Pursuer mice. As soon as I bronze her, I'll start looking for the chamber where I can get rid of the curse - and then I'll start working on the actual next Acolyte run ...