Not long after selecting to continue the dungeon challenge a part of the webbing started to part like someone was pulling open the curtains. The webbing neatly parted in the middle to show the same wide opening as before. Somewhere on my right, I heard some sort of creaking sound, like that of a door or cabinet with rusty hinges. I slowly made my way over to the right side of the cavern wall to see if I could spot the source of the sound. It took me a little while to find what I was looking for. Another part of the webbing on this side had also moved but on a smaller scale. The opening looked like the mixture between a corridor and a natural crack in the rocks. While it was around seven feet high, I had to take my backpack off and slide through the opening sideways. I could see a faint green light coming from the other end of the crack. After sliding through the cramped crack for around fifteen feet I stepped into a small cavern roughly eight by eight feet. The green glow came from bioluminescent mushrooms that cast the small cave in an eery light. A small pool of water had formed in a corner and didn’t look remotely safe to drink. Mostly due to the skeleton that lay just beside, and partially inside, the small pool of water. Next to the skeleton's hand stood a small wooden chest the size of a shoebox. The open lid seemed to be the source of the initial creak that drew my attention. Slowly I made my way over to the open chest while keeping a weary eye on the skeleton. I nudged the skeletal hand with my foot. When it didn’t move I kicked it away from the chest. I got down on my knees and looked into the shoebox-sized chest. Inside the box was a pair of gloves.

Having seen way too many games with trapped chests I stepped back from the chest. Since it was already open I could rule out the kind of traps that opening the chest would trigger. That left only one option and that was a pressure plate either under the chest or under its content. Not wanting to risk anything I picked up the skeleton's humerus from the ground and used it to displace the chest from its current spot. Surprisingly enough, nothing happened. Next, I got behind the chest and used the bone to flip the chest over by propping it under the lid. With a light thud, the chest flipped over and the gloves popped out. Again no trap was triggered. Finally, I used the bone to flip the gloves further from the chest and only then was I convinced that it wasn’t trapped. I picked the gloves up, put them in my back pocket, and made my way back through the crack into the spiderwebbed cavern. I walked over to the nearest ray of light and pulled the gloves from my pocket so I could have a better look at them. They were made from dark leather and had no special characteristics. The back of the gloves felt smooth while the palms felt rough. As I was admiring the gloves a menu similar to my cards popped up.

Sleight of gloves Player equipment – Hands When equipped you’ll draw (1) additional card at the start of a duel.

Great, another thing the stupid tutorial totally didn’t cover. Not one to pass up an opportunity I slipped the gloves onto my hands. The inside was nice and soft and they fit me surprisingly well. When I flexed my hand in and out of a fist the leather was surprisingly supple. I walked back to pick up my backpack and made my way back to the centre of the room. I briefly stopped by the mummies remains to see if I could loot anything but it had turned into dust. What remained of its card looked like ancient papyrus and when touched it also turned into dust. I took a minute or two to locate the discarded deck box but I assumed it had also turned to dust since I couldn’t find it. With nothing left to do in this cavern, I made my way through the big corridor into the next cavern.

Another short walk later I stood in another cavern draped in spider silk. The path straight ahead was blocked off by very thick silk and given the size of the exit was the next goal to reach. Oddly enough this cavern didn’t have an area for a battlefield. As I walked closer to the exit I saw similar but smaller exits at two and ten o’clock. As I got even closer to the main exit I spotted two stone spider statues. The statue on the left had red eyes and the one on the right had green eyes. Both statues were missing an eye. The dungeon information screen said that it had five rooms. So if I discarded the small hidden room with the treasure chest and the room I was currently standing in that left a room on each side with the final boss room behind the spider silk curtains. By gamer logic, the presence of the statues also indicated I’d have to fight both side rooms to get both of the missing eyes. Keeping the tradition of going the right way round I stepped into the right side cavern.

The corridor connecting the main room to this side room was roughly sixty feet long. Most of the ceiling and walls were overhung with spider silk. Luckily the floor was clear of the stuff so I wasn’t at risk of getting caught in it. The connected room had a low ceiling compared to the others. Somehow it seems more artificial compared to the other three rooms. Almost like the first three were part of an actual cave system and this one was created by someone or something. The spider silk was unusually thick in this room. I covered every inch of the walls and the ceiling. At the far end of the room I a circular opening in the web. I felt something give way under my foot and instinctively looked down. My weight had broken a strand of spider silk when I had put my full weight on it. Almost instantly I could hear a thumping sound. Spider detected prey in their webs by vibration and I had just vibrated the web.

The light from my torches reflected back at me from green eyes in the darkness of the spider nest. I took a step back on reflex but there was no way for me to avoid the fight ahead. Perspective is a funny thing. While the nest hadn’t looked that big from a distance the actual spider sure looked big enough. Standing at the size of a car the spider sent shivers down my spine and was quickly advancing. I tried to initiate the duel by the spider's speed caught me off guard and it initiated before me and I got dragged into position.

I had expected the spider boss to be another player like the mummy but it stood on the field instead. The thought made me picture a spider holding cards with its front legs but I quickly discarded it from my mind. I needed to focus on this fight. I stuck the torch into the floor beside me before I took off the backpack and set it down behind me. The major thing I noticed was that the spider took up both the vanguard and rearguard slots on the field. The back of the spider was covered with webbing and eggs marking it as a female spider. A quick check told me there were no field effects in play so I turned my eyes on the spider.

Krixis, juvenile queen

Dungeon Guardian, Insect - Spider

Long (takes up both the vanguard and rearguard slots).

Venomous: Will inflict (1) stack(s) of poison when attacking.

Queen of the swarm: At the end of each round an egg will hatch to spawn a random (common) spider.

Attack 2 Health 10

That was a lot to take in. The large explained why she took up both spaces. I would also explain her ten health points since she was a bigger creature. The venomous wouldn’t be an issue since with two points of attack she could kill anything in my deck apart from the commander. Depending on my draws it would at least be a five-round fight. And that’s where the danger was hiding, Five round mend five random spiders would spawn. Luckily they would only be of a common rarity so their attack wouldn’t be very high but If they spawned with a lot of health I’d be overrun eventually. The chance of me getting out of this unharmed were low but I still had my eighteen points of life.

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My opening hand consisted of three Skeletons (1/1), the Horse (1/1), and the Mole (2/2). With only Krixis on the field, I played one of the three skeletons. As a good undead, it fearlessly charged the spider and slashed one of the front legs with its sword. A return swipe by the other leg completely destroyed the skeleton into bones chips and dust. With combat concluded one of the eggs on her back started vibrating. I could hear it crack from across the field and a small smoke black spider popped out into the slot on her left. A quick inspection showed it to be a simple (1/1) spider.

Drawing another (1/1) for turn I quickly played two of them facing both of the spiders. My skeleton gripped its axe in a 2 handed grip and charged at the same time the spider skittered forward. It bit down on the skeleton's spine but before it completely severed it the axe came down in an overhead chop and split the abdomen in two. The skeletal wolf took a few steps before it lunged forward mouth spread wide open. It clamped down on the spider's right leg. Kirixis shook her leg to dislodge the wolf but it held firm. She moved the leg under her and bit down on the skeletal wolf shattering the entire midsection. Another egg started to vibrate and popped out another spider but this time on the right. Since it looked slightly different from the first one I gave it a better look and saw it was tougher than the first spider with (1/2) stats.

For the turn, I drew my Skeletal commander (3/4). Looking at my hand I had to make a decision. With three crystals to spend, I could ignore the small spider and play the commander in this round but take a point of damage in return. The second option was to play a Skeleton and the Mole. Krixis still had eight points of health remaining. Playing the commander now would be worse than playing two cards. The mole’s two damage and my commander’s six would end the fight no matter which order I played them in. With my decision made, I played my mole opposite Krixis and my horse opposite the spider spawn. Krixis lashed out with her left front leg but missed the mole as it dug underground. It popped out just below her face with its cross-slash claw attack. She lost two of her eyes and before the mole could retreat her pedipalps grabbed it around the middle and she sank her fangs deep into the mole’s belly. It squealed out in terror as black streaks spread across its body and it died quickly after.

The horse reared on its hind legs but the spider shot forward and tackled it. The added weight from the spider caused the horse to lose balance and they crashed down. In desperation, the horse opened its mouth and bit off the left front leg of the spider. Stabs from the remaining leg and bites made short work of the horse before the spider scampered back to its side of the field.

With a crack, another spider popped out of the egg cluster on Krixis’s back. This time it was another of the (1/1) variants and filled the slot to the left of her. I didn’t know how many common spiders there were but I was thankful to see the weak repeat.

Two cards materialised in my hand when I drew my card for the turn. The first was my Skeletal knight (2/2) and the second was my deck box token Skeleton (1/1). I internally groaned at how easily I forgot about the token ability of my deck box and was once again thankful that it was an automatic process. I played my Commander against Krixis, my remaining (1/1) Skeleton against the next spider, and my token against the wounded spider on the right.

The small spider spit out a glob of acidic spit before the skeleton speared it through the thorax. The skeleton crumbled into a pile of broken bones right after. Commander advanced behind its shield. Krixis stabbed forward with her right leg but was rebuffed by the shield. The skeleton took a stumbled as the impact of its shield threw it slightly off balance. It stumbled right into Krixis’s waiting fangs. Her fangs were rebuffed by the Commander’s armor but she still pumped out a decent amount of venom which started to corrode what was left of its armor plating. Commander slashed out with his sword leaving another deep gash in her face before retreating. The token was jumped by the spider and ended up underneath the spider. Equipped with a dagger, Token kept stabbing the spider in the thorax while it landed a crushing blow to the skeleton's head and reduced it to dust. It slightly wobbled on its seven remaining legs before succumbing to its profusely bleeding wounds. Krixis ended the turn by hatching another egg. It crawled over her big abdomen and down her legs into the slot on her left. This spider was twice as big as the smoke grey spiders and its (2/2) stats reflected it.

The final turn had come and against my expectation it ended without me losing a single point of life. Seeing that there was a chance for the eggs to spawn a (2/2) spider I had been extremely lucky that it spawned two spiders with only one point of health. Without the power to take out the two health spiders, this could have gone in a very different direction. Thinking about it further, my deck box bonus had also been a major factor in the equation. It had blocked the spider attack and by killing it also prevented it from attacking in this final round.

I drew my shield-equipped (1/2) Skeleton and played my Knight opposite the spider spawn. Commander started to crack apart as the stack of poison took away another point of its health leaving it at one. Seeing how it was still standing due to my experiment with upgrading cards made me wonder if I should upgrade all my cards but that seemed unwise. The common units could only have one upgrade and after seeing plenty of uncommon creatures so far upgrading the commons looked like a waste.

Knight charged the spider and speared it through the head before it could mount a counterattack. The victory was short-lived as Krixis lashed out with her left leg and shattered the animated skeleton’s bones all over the battlefield. While she was distracted with killing the knight, Commander stabbed her in the thorax just behind her head. In a final act she slapped him away with her right leg and as Commander turned to dust Krixis closed her eyes as her body dropped to the floor. As her lifeless body hit the floor the trumpets played their victory tune.

VICTORY!

You have cleared a third room.

You can claim your rewards and leave the dungeon or press on for additional rewards.

Each dungeon can only be challenged once.

Claim / Continue

With a flash of light, her body vanished and the battlefield overlay disappeared. I stood around waiting for a few seconds but nothing else happened. I pulled on my backpack and picked up my torch. I noticed the flame was beginning to fade so I quickly grabbed another one from my backpack and used the old torch to light it. Since holding I no longer had a use for the old torch I just stuck it back in the ground. There was no need to carry it with me and the flame would die soon enough. Brandishing my new torch I made my way over to the spider’s nest at the far end of the room. Afraid to set the entire thing ablaze, I held the torch low at around chest level. Staring directly into the flame was doing my vision and favours but it was the only way to actually see where I was going. Luckily the nest wasn’t very big and it only took a few steps to get to the centre of it.

Various bones of different animals littered the floor together with discarded eggshells. I was kind of hoping for a pedestal with the gem I’d need for the spider statue but no such luck. While keeping the torch in the centre of the room so the flame was behind me, I used my foot the move pieces of all the junk around. I spent at least five minutes kicking through the junk before a shimmer caught my eye. I bend down and under the top part of an eggshell, I found the remains of a humanoid hand clutching the gem. The skin looked just like the mummy's skin indicating it had been here for a long time. I tried to pry the gem from the finger but with one hand it wasn’t going to happen. With a sigh I just picked up the entire arm the hand was still attached to and made my way outside of the nest.

Once outside I stuck my torch into the dirt to free up my other hand and finally got the ancient fingers to crack and snap to free the gem. With the green gem in my hand, I tossed the mummified arm and picked my torch back up. I quickly made my way back to the middle room and to the green-eyed statue. I carefully placed the gem into the empty socket and quickly stepped back. I was still suspecting something to be booby-trapped. All eight of the spider's eyes glowed bright green before they went dark again. I stood around for a minute but nothing else happened. Deducting that I would need both gems before the way would open I opted to continue the dungeon. But before heading into the left room I decided to first have a little break.

I stuck the torch into the dirt and pulled out my waterskin and some of the grilled rabbit meat. Now that I had a moment to sit down I felt tired. Not physically but mentally. Something about standing on an actual field somehow made the experience more mentally taxing or perhaps it was the fact that failing had a lot more consequences than playing card games online or with friends. Thinking about home made me wonder what was happening back on Earth. I was warped here yesterday on Saturday so I wouldn’t be missed for at least another 2 days. I quickly locked away that spiral of negative thoughts. I still had a tournament to win. I packed away my waterskin and made my way to the tunnel on the left. Time to get this W.