For clearing the final room :

Exp gained: 12

Coins gained: 13

Card(s) gained: Common card pack > Uncommon card pack (flawless bonus)

Additional reward(s): Venom gland > Exomedia venom gland (flawless bonus)

Claim and continue

I wasn’t even going to try and parse the experience and coin rewards. I had gained them and that was good enough. I was more interested in the actual rewards I had gained from the fight. An upgraded card pack and since it was listed as an additional reward the gland should be an equipment card. As soon as I claimed my rewards the final reward screen vanished and was replaced my a floating card pack and a single card. I decided to take a closer look at the single card first.

Exomedia venom gland Equipment – Insect An insect equipped with this card gains the Venomous(2) ability.

If it already has Venomous increase its value by (2).

While the equipment was undeniably great it wouldn’t be of any use for me currently. My entire deck was skeletons apart from a mole and a zombie and at least the zombie had an undead synergy. Maybe I could find some kind of undead or skeletal insect and equip it to that. But then I remembered that insects had exoskeletons so that seemed unlikely. The tutorial fairy had said something about a shop so maybe I could sell it for something I could make better use of. Well, there was always a chance the card pack contained an insect.

After storing the equipment card in the deck box I picked the card pack from the air. I had a muted green colour with survival stamped on it in golden letters. I turned it over in my hand to see if there was anything on the back and was surprised to find a gacha-like percentage table. The pack contained four cards. The first card had a one per cent chance of being uncommon, the second card had a five per cent chance, the third card had a twenty-five per cent chance, and the fourth card was a guaranteed uncommon card. For a moment I wondered how that would even work with an actual card pack but the contents were probably generated when the pack was created for me. I took a deep breath and ripped the top of the pack open. I carefully took the cards out with their details facing me. Not getting my hopes up, I inspected the first card in the stack. It was a common (1/1) squirrel card. I slipped it to the back of the stack and was greeted by another common card. The second card was also a (1/1) and it was the same wolf card I had used in the tutorial. The third card had a decent one-in-four chance of being uncommon so I quickly slipped the second card to the back of the stack and took a look at it. Unfortunately, it was another common card. But unlike the other two cards, this one looked a lot more interesting to me.

Goblin archer 1

Greenskins – Goblin

Rearguard

Attack 1 Health 1

While it had no synergy with my deck the fact that it was an archer would make it viable. I lacked rearguard units for now so it was an easy addition to my deck. For a moment I wondered why it only cost one crystal to play but I was fairly certain that cost was determined by rarity and total stat points. It also seemed that abilities were only present on uncommon cards. Rearguard not being an ability but more of a restriction. My heart started to beat a bit faster with anticipation for the final card in the pack. I pulled the archer card away to reveal my uncommon card and a smile spread across my face.

Tomb Guardian 2

Undead – Skeleton, Jah’kali

Block (1)

Attack 1 Health 3

While none of the common cards got upgraded, this skeletal card made up for it. I had a lot of similarities to the Bloater I had picked from the second room rewards. A cost of two, three health, and in theory one attack. A stack of block was a nice bonus for what was basically a tank unit. It would also work well with front lining for the archer. The card depicted a skeleton with a large rectangular kite shield and a kind of bladed spear. The skeleton itself had an odd look about it. Instead of human or elf feet and lower legs, it looked more like those of an animal. The head of the skeleton also had an animalistic look to it. The fact that it was listed as a Jah’kali would probably explain its appearance. I gave all five cards a second look over before putting the gland, wolf, and squirrel in the storage part of my deck box while the archer and tomb guardian went into my deck.

I gave the boss room a last once over but there wasn’t anything of interest to be found. I shouldered my backpack, picked up my torch, and made my way back through the dungeon entrance. In less than ten minutes I found myself back in the dark tunnel I had chosen to explore. I tried to walk back into the dungeon but found my way blocked by some kind of invisible wall. With it now being a dead end I made my way back towards the split in the tunnel. I found the split just as I had left it with my mark still visible. Without access to a way to tell time it was hard to tell how long I had been inside the dungeon. I didn’t think it had been more than two hours so I should still have enough time to further explore the rest of the tunnel. On the other hand, the dungeon had left me somewhat mentally fatigued. After some consideration, I decided to continue exploring the rest of the tunnel.

Roughly fifteen minutes later I was beginning to regret my choice. The tunnel seemed to be endless and was also boring to the extreme. No side passages to tunnel splits had popped up and any cracks in the wall were only big enough for small critters to get through if anything even came down into the tunnel at all. It took another equally boring fifteen minutes before I noticed a change. Instead of the boring smell of dirt, something else started to mix in. The further on I went the stronger the smell became and ten minutes later I could start to see light at the end of the tunnel. The smell of trees was now clearly present in the air and combined with the light I hoped to have found the exit. A few minutes later I found myself back in the forest.

The sun had moved overhead in the time I was inside the tunnel and I estimated it to be past midday already. It had also started to become more cloudy overhead. There was nothing not worthy around the exit apart from it being on the side of a small elevation compared to the flat hole in the ground I had entered. I stuck the torch in the side of the tunnel and had a look at my compass. I also took out the hatchet from my backpack and set out into the forest. I used the hatchet to mark the trees I passed to easily find my way back to the tunnel.

Ten minutes later I thought I heard the sound of water so I adjusted my course and made my way over to it. A few minutes later I spotted a small creak flowing through the forest. The water was somewhat clear but not clean enough to drink without filtering it first. While it looked passable I wasn’t interested in getting my feet wet to cross it. I decided to follow the stream up for a minute to see if I could spot a crossing. When I didn’t come across anything I repeated the same action downstream, unfortunately with the same result. More clouds had seemed to be gathering so I decided to start my trip back home. Fifteen minutes later I was back at the cave and on my way back to the keep.

By the time I had made it back to the entrance, it had become dark outside. A quick glance at the sky told me all I needed to know with dark clouds hanging overhead. I was only a third of the way back when the pitter-patter of raindrops could be heard from the canopy above. Not wanting to be caught out in the rain I increased my speed. I saw some smaller critters shoot away into the underbrush at my noisy approach.

With my focus mostly on my feet and dodging scrubs, roots, and trees I completely missed one of the goblin patrols. The frequency of the rain was steadily picking up and my shirt and pants started to get soaked. Since they had already spotted me there was no other option the to fight them. Since they took the initiative to charge me, I positioned myself under the biggest tree I could find to negate some of the rain.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Combat initiated and two goblins stood on the battlefield. Unfortunately, entering a battle did absolutely nothing to shield me from the rain. I barely looked at my hand and blindly played one of my skeletons opposite one of the goblins. The skeleton pierced the goblin’s heart but got its skull bashed in for its efforts. Before I had even thought to activate my new ring, the tip of a spear tapped my chest. I quickly finished off the second goblin and claimed my experience and coins.

I was pretty much soaked at that point and resumed my dash through the forest to my nice dry keep. Despite my beliefs I was even more soaked through by the time I made it back. I quickly made my way over to the kitchen to get a fire going to warm me up and dry my clothes. I quickly got my pot of water over the fire to warm myself up from the cold rain. Using my shirt as a makeshift cloth I got myself cleaned with the warm water before hanging up my clothes near the fire. Hopefully, I wouldn’t catch a cold because of the rain and I was sitting naked next to a fireplace. I used my backpack as a seat since sitting on the cold stone floor seemed like an even worse idea.

With nothing to do but heat up and stare into the fire, I pulled out my deck box. I had gained a decent amount of experience during the dungeon run and now was a good time to invest it in my newly gained uncommon cards. A quick look told me I currently had seventy-one points of experience. With seventeen cards in my main deck that wasn’t enough to upgrade all my cards once but upgrading the common cards already seemed like a bad investment from the start.

I picked the uncommon cards from my main deck and also pulled out the spider egg card from my storage. With four uncommon cards, I could upgrade all of them twice and have thirty-six left over since I had already upgraded the commander once. I was still a bit on the fence but it started to look that attack power would be a better investment than health. If easy dungeon bosses did two or three damage it would probably only get higher for more difficult ones. High health only really worked if you could block lower-cost creatures with it.

Picking up my trust commander, I upgraded it to four attack power. I applied one attack and health to the horse. It would transition into a mount somewhere down the line, and having even stats just seemed like the better choice. The bloated zombie had me pause when I opened up its upgrade tree. Instead of an expanding pyramid, there was only one option for the first upgrade. With no other option, I upgraded its health from three to four. The second upgrade was a lot more interesting. I had three branches to choose from. On the left was a one-point upgrade for its poison ability, the centre option was a two-point increase to health, and the right option was to give it one stack of glass armour.

I instantly discarded the armour option. It would do less than the two points of health. While it could block two damage I was confident it would be only one point in ninety-five per cent of the cases. That left the choice between offence and more defence. Looking at it from a cost angle, it would be pitted against the other two cost cards. My commons started at two health points so in order to avoid getting hit twice the upgrade to its damage output seemed a lot better. I could also equip it with the shield to up it to five health points. Which is exactly what I did.

The tomb guardian had the normal inverted pyramid tree again. The first two options were an increase to either attack or health. I’d almost picked the attack option when something caught my eye. Where the commander and horse had a flat increase in health on their second upgrade, the guardian had an additional stack of block. Now the question became if I wanted two points of attack and one stack of block or one attack and two stacks of block. While it would survive longer it would also not be able to effectively kill its opponent. With access to only two archers of which one needed me to have five dead skeletons first, it was currently a bad choice. I increased the guardian’s attack by two points.

Speaking of the archer, I also upgraded it to two points of attack. While upgrading commons wasn’t the best option I had a feeling the archer would stay around for a while.

The final uncommon card I had was the spider egg. Perhaps the upgrades would make it worthwhile but I was sceptical. The upgrade screen only had one line of upgrades. I could upgrade either attack of health with the first two options. The third option was to increase it to two spiders. But the last upgrade might be the best option. It would give the card Innate. The innate buff would make it so that it was always in my opening hand. A free (1/1) on turn three wasn’t the best but also not the worst option. The fact I drew five cards due to my gloves also had a sort of synergy. I picked the innate upgrade and slotted it into my deck. I’d try it out for a while to see if I liked it enough to keep it around.

Since it was a spider card and it had an equipment slot I tried to attach the gland equipment card but an error told me that equipment could not be combined with field effect cards. Now left with only twenty-six experience points I put away all my cards. Hopefully, it would be better weather tomorrow so I could explore again. I was also running low on food so I would need to go out and hunt another animal.

----------------------------------------

Yesterday, at deck selection.

Un’Gol stood before the selection display and without hesitation picked up the Green meanies deck. As a goblin of the Purple Eye tribe, he had to represent his species. Greenskin decks had a decent track record for the tournament. Plenty of mounts and equipment could be used by goblins. They also had plenty of support later in the tournament with effects buffing all goblins on the field. He still remembered when Goreclaw the Red won the tournament with a goblin deck. Many felt it was a gamble deck back then. He stacked a lot of buff on a named card with Overpower. That was his sole victory condition and it was blood thrilling. He hoped to live up to his idol.

Box of the horde

Effect 1: For every four greenskin cards you play create an Enrage token.

Effect 2:You can use this token to enrage a creature you control.

Deck size: 12 / 24

Sideboard: 0 / 8

Experience: 0

Coins: 0

He trekked through the forest for a short while before his arm started to burn. Un’Gol grit his teeth and endured the feeling. This was a secret technique of the Purple Eye tribe. It had taken their elders several iterations to get the application right. It would allow them to send a very short but undetected message. The words would burn themselves into his arm. Kill human go west.

Un’Gol didn’t really know what a human would look like but he would find it. The fact his elders had given him this objective was all he needed to know. He pulled the compass from his backpack and set out to the west. He wanted to complete his quest as quickly as possible and please his elders. He also knew that if he did well a grand prize would await him when he returned home as winner.

He thought about running the entire way but he didn’t know how far he would need to travel so he chose to spare his strength for now. If the tournament followed the regular pattern there would be nine sections. If he was going west he’d only need to cross a maximum of two zones to find this human. He had never heard of it before. Perhaps that´s why the elders wanted it dead now instead of later. A special prize his for the taking. Maybe It was one of those weak and frail elf types.

The day quickly passed as he travelled through the forest. He avoided most larger groups of enemies but he didn’t always have that luxury. At the end of the first day, he had managed to gain twenty-one experience points but he had lost seven life points. He used all his experience to upgrade the attack power for his uncommon brute and his two enforcers. He would overpower his opponent and claim the spoils for his own. As night fell over the forest Un´gol got restless. The forest was a lot bigger than he had anticipated. Should he take the risk of travelling through the night or find a spot to hole up? Since the human´s location was uncertain he decided to get some sleep. He looked for some sort of burrow but nothing in his area seemed suitable. In the end, he decided to just spend a night in the trees. He settled as best as he could but sleep didn´t come easy with the adrenalin of the hunt still flowing through his veins.

Welcome to a new day.

You recovered (15%) of your life points from an uncomfortable rest.

There are no updates to the tournament today.

Un´gol woke up grumpy and annoyed. Sleeping in the tree had done him no favours and he was feeling stiffness in some of his joints. He ate his remaining rations and set off on his given quest again. It was just past noon when his arm started to burn even more intensely than yesterday. He dropped to his knees and let out a guttural roar. The secret message system should not have been used that quickly again since it took time for the enchantment to cool down and excruciating pain was the price he´d pay for it. There was also the option of it burning out completely. Only two words were drawn this time around, most likely to save the message system. Keep NW. With a clear goal ahead he set out again. Not long after the message was received it started to rain lightly. Un´gol was used to harsher weather than some rain and kept trudging through the forest.

Hunter became prey as a big brown suddenly barred his path. He was pulled into the battlefield formation and lost a card draw for being caught unaware. The brown wolf was a (2/2) creature and he played one of his dire wolfs against it. His wolf charged and bit the brown wolf in the upper part of the front leg. Almost unimpressed the brown wolf opened its maw and chomped down on its smaller cousin. Two black shadows dashed from the surrounding bushes. The left one bit him on his leg and he blocked the right one with his forearm to protect his head. Now facing three opponents he had to do better. Luckily he had two of his regular goblins in hand and used one to fight the brown wolf and one to block another wolf. The first goblin swiped its dagger across the wolf’s snout and was clawed to death. The second one managed to stab the brown wolf in the chest but lost his head in another bite attack before it could retreat. The last wolf took another nibble on his leg dropping him to thirteen life points. He drew another dire wolf for round three and together with the enforcer he drew last round the fight concluded.

VICTORY!

Exp gained: 5

Coins gained: 10

Cards gained: 0

Additional rewards: Wolf’s fang

Claim

Un’gol was furious. He hated this forest, the rain, and most of all the cowardly ambush wolves. The flash of a thunderstrike illuminated something through the trees. Thunder roared in tandem with him as he had finally found what he had been searching for. The mentioned keep was barely visible through the trees and he quickly made his way over. The main entrance was locked and he started to circle the outer wall. Halfway in he found the wall with a giant hole and made his way inside the walls. He spotted a trail of smoke from a chimney and a large smile spread across his face. He had finally found his prey.