GreenerThanGreen

As I said before, I am tired of writing about the dungeon, so Jessica becomes serious about leaving.

When I wake up on the hard floor of the teleportation room I immediately check my Tokens and I have 311 of them. I think I can have enough for a Holster after clearing this floor. So I take my backpack, call the goblin knight guarding the room and then summon Puppeteer, Doll, Trap Master and Stern Old Magician, and since 3 days have past, I remove Seal Swords from the play mat and place them in the deck. I feel the influx of HP and when I check it I have 2780/1280 HP. I open the door to the 1st room on the 7th floor and walk inside. 

The room is the same as on the previous floor, wasteland as far as my eyes can see. As soon as we enter, Old Magician looks around and then telepathically starts to project images to me. I see 5 groups of goblins, each having 2 warriors, 2 archers, 1 shaman, 1 knight, 2 hobgoblin and 1 rogue hobgoblin. Then I see 5 little camps, each tended to by 4 ordinary goblins. So that is where the goblins went, or I just haven’t explored enough to find the camps, but there were always extra goblins in each room. Something else is also  projected to me by Old Magician. 2 of the camps have booby-trapped treasure chests. Looks like Trap Master is going to earn his keep. 

We head straight to the closest group of goblins and attack them. Trap Master hangs with me, while the rest start annihilating the goblins. Old Magician deals ranged damage to the archers and shaman, then cast a spell and the knight falls dead, the armor being no obstacle at all. Meanwhile Puppeteer is dealing with the melee goblins and Doll is flinging magic at the rogue, which has become invisible. It looks like all Spellcasters indeed have Magic Sight. I don’t exactly have anything to do, so when I see an opening I use my sling to take down some of the weaker goblins. We soon finish the last enemy and I extract the cores, then we immediately go to the first camp, since it is closer than the next group of goblins. I already have the most efficient route though this floor, thanks to the information from Old Magician. 

The goblins in the camp take less than a minute to kill and while Trap Master disarms the treasure chest I extract the cores. When I open the disarmed chest I actually find something nice inside, a Illusion Magic Spell Book. I wonder if this is what the rogue uses in order to become invisible? Disappointingly, there is no food to be found in the camp. 

We proceed to follow this optimized route through the room and visit the next 4 camps in between groups of goblins. The second chest we found contained a Knife Arts Skill Book, which is also a nice find. Before exiting the room I feed the cores to the shop and receive 620 Tokens from them. The Total is 976. I guess I will have to correct my estimates about when I will have enough for the Holster. 

In fact, right after I finish the next room and feed the cores to the store, I have 1641 Tokens. I buy the Holster and it is a hard leather box with a crystal embedded in it and the gold enchantments inscribed in the leather. Before putting my deck inside, I add Feather Blade to the deck. Now I have 40 cards in there, well 38 and 2 on the field. 

We finish the other 2 rooms just as fast, but apart from the 2 chests in the first room, we don’t find any more on this floor. After feeding the cores from the 2 rooms to the shop I have 1971 Tokens. 

I don’t stop in the safe room, other than to refill on water and Equip Holy Doll with 2 Book of Secret Arts cards. 

I enter the boss room with my summons and the knight I keep forgetting that I have, and we steamroll the hobgoblin magician inside. By rough estimates the goblin mage inside was equivalent on a weak 5 star card, so it’s ATK is probably 1 800 to 2 100. My Holy Doll had 1 600, plus the world energy bonus of 200, plus 2 Books of 300. That is 2 500 ATK and it also wasn’t alone. My other summons also continued to attack  and the fight took only seconds. I would say extracting the core and gathering the loot took longer than the fight itself. And the loot wasn’t very impressive either, the blue potion, pouch, robe and  a reddish rock. I know it isn’t just an ordinary rock and is probably an ore or something magical, but I doubt it is something great like mithril or another fantasy element. I feed the core to the shop, receive 40 Tokens from it, making my Total 2011, and then I proceed to the next floor. 

I skip the teleportation room and directly enter the 1sth room of he 8th floor. The same wasteland was waiting for us on this floor, but I was already familiar with the terrain and didn’t have any problems moving around. Old Magician projected the position of every group of goblins and again there are 5 groups, 2 warriors, 2 archers, 1 shaman, 1 knight, 2 hobgoblin, 1 rogue and 1 hobgoblin mage in each. There were also the 5 camps, but since there isn’t a chest in any of them I decide to skip them entirely to save on time. To save even more time I take 2 Reinforcements cards and apply them to Holy Doll and Stern Old Magician. Holy Doll now has the ATK of an 8 star Blue-Eyes White Dragon, might as well give it 2 Castle Walls to up its DEF to 2 600 as well. 

Now ready, I go to the closest group and have Holy Doll kill the ranged attackers with the help of Old Magician, while the rest of us deal with the melee goblins and hobgoblin. The addition of the hobgoblin mage didn’t do much, when he is the first target of Holy Doll. The fight was honestly a lot faster than before, each of our attacks killing 2 or 3 goblins with splash damage. The core extraction was also fast, the bodies of most goblins almost liquefied from the magic attacks didn’t offer any obstacles I had to cut through. 

Once we finished the first group and found no problems with the strategy employed, the other 4 quickly followed. When I fed the cores to the store I had 2841 Tokens. 

I employed the same strategy for the next 3 rooms, with the optional visit to 2 camps in which Old Magician saw treasure chests. The chests didn’t contain very good loot, just 2 coin pouches, so I decided to skip any we find on the next floor. When I fed the cores to the store in the safe room I was amazed to see how much Tokens I had accumulated. The Total was 6154. I could buy 3 Starter Decks with that much Tokens, but for now I didn’t need any cards to finish the race to the 10th floor, so I will save them for later. 

The Boss room on the 8th floor was a little different than what I expected. After the hoblin mage I was expecting another knight, or maybe some kind of attacker class. Sure the one before the mage was a stealth attacker and could be counted as the melee to its ranged, but still I expected some bulky wall. What it actually was waiting for us was a hobgoblin summoner or warlock or something, because as soon as we entered the room the hoblin called 5 wolf like creatures around 2 meters tall and 3-4 meters in length. Now that, that is a proper dungeon boss. Summoning minions to keep you at bay while it casts spells to deal damage from the back. 

The wolves launch at us and my summons and the goblin knight move forward to intercept them. After the first exchange Puppeteer receives a big wound and vanishes into the Graveyard, which means the wolves have at least 1 500 ATK. Luckily there are no more casualties on my side , as Holy Doll manages to kill 3 wolves in quick succession, Old Magician deals with one and the goblin knight manages to stall the last one enough for Old Magician to finish and take care of the last one. While the fight was going on I learned something very important; when your ATK is not high enough, you can’t even scratch the opponent. I thought it was strange when Giant Soldier didn’t receive any damage from the arrows shot at him, but now I think it makes sense. His DEF was high enough to render the enemy attacks completely harmless. I just don’t know what the difference must be to apply this principle. Another thing I was doing while my summons were fighting was dodging spells thrown at me by the hobgoblin warlock. But now it is time for him to suffer our retaliation. I take Fissure and Large Fire and play them on the mat. They don’t immediately drop him to the floor, but he is badly hurt and my summons finish the job for me. 

The light illuminates the room, the chest appears and I dissect the corpse of the warlock. The wolves disappeared as soon as they were defeated, so there were no cores to be extracted from them. I feed the core to the shop for 80 Tokens and look at the Total of 6249. The rewards aren’t much, one blue potion, pouch of coins, one nicer leather belt, and a staff, a touch nicer looking than the hobgoblin mage was using. I have no idea about it’s performance, because I don’t have an appraisal skill. Should look into that when I leave the dungeon. 

I skip the teleportation room and enter the first room of the 9th floor. I am almost at my goal. To replace the Mysterious Puppeteer I summon Neo and notice something interesting. His Summoning takes 4 seconds instead of 5. It is possible other cards also took that long, but his is the first time I noticed it. I take a quick look at my Creature Summoning level and see it is 4, the highest of all my Summoning skills so far. I guess the level ups did decrease the time for Summoning. 

Old Magician observes the room and projects the enemy locations to me. There are again 5 groups, but their composition is a little different. 1 shaman, 1 knight, 2 hobgoblin and 1 rogue, 1 mage and 1 warlock. The rest of the goblins are at the camps, but since we are skipping them, it doesn’t matter. We go to the first group and attack it as soon as we arrive. Holy Doll sends her magic toward the warlock, eliminating it before it could summon the wolves. Old Magician deals with the hobgoblin mage and then the rogue. Neo takes on the 2 hobgoblin and by now Holy Doll is free and deals with the knight and shaman with a big attack that almost liquefies the bodies. I extract the cores and we move on to the next group. 

The 5th group manages to slow us down, because the warlock had enough time to summon his wolves, but after witnessing their strength previously, I have Holy Doll, Old Magician and Neo deal with them first, while the rest of s dodge spells from the warlock and the mage. After that the battle proceeded as the previous 4. When I feed the cores to the store my Total is 7194. 

The next 3 room don’t go much differently, only one warlock managing to summon his wolves. When I enter the same room before the boss and feed the cores to the store, I have a Total of 10907. That is a staggering amount of Tokens. I am tempted to spend a few on a deck or pack, but quickly discard the thought and enter the boss room. 

Immediately after entering, a light in the center of the room attracts my attention and I see a knight in full plate armor holding a long sword that is on fire. My mind immediately goes to magic knight or some kind of a paladin. In either case this fight will be easier than the warlock, because even if it’s DEF is higher, we don’t have to deal with individual opponents and can just pile on the damage from Holy Doll, Stern Old Magician and Neo the Magic Swordsman. The armor of the knight is quickly scrapped and the rest of the attacks from my summons finish up its HP fairly quickly. The reward chest appears and I absentmindedly toss the contents in the backpack and continue towards the next floor. I don’t even bother to extract the core from the knights corpse. 

The 10th floor, hopefully the last one is different from the previous ones. There isn’t a wasteland or a grassland or anything like that. Instead we are in the hallways of what looks like a fortress or a castle. Old Magician quickly transmits the location of the enemies and this floor is very different. There are no rooms to separate sections and it is just an entire floor. There are 32 groups roaming around, but not all are the same composition as the other floors. 20 magic knights patrol the hallways in groups of 2, 20 warlocks and their summoned wolves guard certain rooms on the way. 20 rogues in groups of 4 skulk corridors different from the knights and the 20 mages are distributed with the warlocks in their rooms. Then there are 40 hobgoblin roaming around in a random pattern I can’t distinguish. 

I plan the shortest route to the boss room and by my estimates I will encounter 4 knights, 1 mage and 1 warlock when we pass through one of the rooms they guard, 4 rogues and some hobgoblin if I don’t distinguish their pattern and avoid them. 

The knight fights don’t take long with our firepower, but the notice attracts groups of hobgoblin and we have to deal with 4 of them. The next room we have to cross is the one with the mage and warlock and it goes as well as can be expected. The goblin knight dies holding back one of the wolves, while Holy Doll kills 3, Old Magician 1 and Neo deals with the mage. After Old Magician killed the wolf that finished the goblin knight, they finish the warlock with overwhelming firepower and we move onto the next hallway, where we deal with another 2 magic knights. We attract another 4 hobgoblin and have to deal with them, but he extra cores are always welcome. 

In the next hallways we move through we spot the 4 rogues sneaking around with our Magic Sight and my summons use their magic to kill them before they can even approach us. We are on the home stretch, when we attract the attention of another 7 hobgoblin we have to deal with. 

When we enter the safe room before the boss, I feed all the cores to the store and my Total is 11867. I hope this is the last room in this dungeon and once I beat the boss I can exit and find my way to civilization. I sit on the floor close to the door for the boss and take a moment to rest. The way I moved through all those rooms and floors all at once in short succession depleted my stamina by a lot and I don’t think I have a lot of energy to replenish it with. I really need to find a meal to replenish energy. 

Finished with my short break I stand up and open magnificently decorated door to the 10th floor boss room. Inside the room sitting on a throne is a larger than normal hobgoblin, dressed in nice robes, selectively wearing armor on its arms, legs and chest and sporting an accessory like a crown. It also hold a heavy looking mace with many sharp spikes. 

The goblin lord, because that was the name of the dungeon, stands and steps towards our group, while dragging the mace on the floor. I don’t think it is too heavy for it and it is doing it for dramatic effect. If this was some fictional book and this wasn’t a dungeon I would expect there to be a monologue or a backstory going on, but since I don’t have time for such bullshit I order my summons to attack and destroy my enemy. It is the only thing standing between me and freedom from this blasted, fucking dungeon full of monsters, and rooms without food, bath or anything useful, other than the fucking cores, I have to get my hands dirty, to extract from fucking, stinking, goblin corpses. So I pour all my anger and hatred on this enemy and have all the might of my 3 000 ATK, 2 200 ATK and 1 900 ATK Spellcasters crash on its body and burn it to a crisp. 

The goblin lord is swift on its feet ad manages to dodge a few attacks while approaching me, but soon one attack from Old Magician hits and makes it stop in its tracks, which allows the attacks of my other summons to also hit and ultimately reduce its HP to nothing. 

There is a light illuminating the room and a chest bigger than the previous rooms materialists to signify my victory. Next a door at the end of the room opens up and I relax just a tiny bit, as large amounts of tension leave my body. Every time I beat a boss there was a staircase on the floor that opened up, to lead me to the next floor. The fact a door at the back of the room and not on the floor opened, means there is something different with this floor, meaning it could be the way out as I suspected. I collect the core from the goblin lord, followed by his crown and the surviving armor from its arms and legs. I then open the chest and inside is a pouch I open up to see 10 gold looking coins. I toss the pouch in my backpack and look at the next thing inside the chest. An inscribed bracelet that looks like it could cover my forearm. The inscriptions don’t look like random swirls and other decorations, so my guess is it might be enchanted. I carefully place it in an empty pocket with nothing else inside and look at the next thing in the chest. At first it looks like a folded cloth, but when I unfold it, in front of me is dark blue long coat with a hood. The back is cut down the middle from the waist down, probably to not hinder riding. The front looks like a duster coat, as the bottom is wide and very open until the waist. I don’t believe I will have trouble accessing my deck or weapons hanging on a belt. The chest area closes up with 3 belts at the stomach, chest and neck height. The hood looks deep and can probably hide my face fairly well if I keep it up. The most interesting part is the gold looking embroidery around the edges and other selective parts of the cloth. The forms resemble what is on the bracelet, my Holster and Binder. 

“This is with 80% certainty enchanted. The only questions are with what and if there is something harmful like a curse.” Folding the coat again I place it in my backpack that is starting to look bloated and move to the last item in the chest, another new potion. This one looks yellow-y or maybe even gold colored, but right now isn’t the time to find out what it does, so I store it with the other potions. Then the last thing in the chest is a spherical object with gold symbols, that I would bet 10 cards is the sphere needed for the teleportation room. This one I stash in one of my pockets and approach the open door at the back of the room. 

Beyond the door is a room with elaborately decorated walls and statues of different goblins and at the center of the room, on top of a pedestal rests a round object. The dungeon core is my first and only guess. 

We cautiously approach the dungeon core, but no enemies jump out or materialize from thin air to attack us. I look around for something that looks like teleportation circle or a platform for leaving, but find nothing. As a last hope I place a hand on the core and a window appears in front of me.

I select [Yes] and a new window shows up with a long list of possible items that can be created. A few of them I already have plenty of, like potions, coins and various weapons and armor. Others are a little more interesting like a few Skill Books or Spell Books. What stops me for a while is the addition of energy bar, sleeve, cardboard, paper and plastic. All items I believe I fed to the Dungeon at one point. I am tempted to create a few energy bars for the road, but the notification did say 1 item, so I don’t see any advantage in wasting the perk like that. Something else that attracts my attention are 2 particular items. Enchanted hooded long coat and Weapon master bracelet. I select the bracelet and a description of the item shows up.

That is an interesting item and it gives me several ideas as to how I can improve my fighting style. I select [No] and pick the coat, to see what is its description.

Again I select [No] and go back to the Weapon master bracelet. This time I choose [Yes], the window disappears and a second Weapon Master Bracelet appears before me. Then in the back of the room a magic circle is illuminated by lights that activate just now. I guess there re certain theatrics that have to play out in this kind of situations. 

We stand on the circle and I feel like I am falling for a second and then find myself under a dark sky. I am finally out of the dungeon and can at long last find civilization and something tasty to eat.

GreenerThanGreen