"Is that a pixie? Can we pick that race later?"
"Probably not. Word from xX_ShadowBlade_Xx is that it's a surface-world race — with our background, we won't be able to pick it later."
Who? Who's talking?
"I heard this pixie is super likely to be our future life-skills trainer!"
"Life skills? Which ones?"
"Gardening! Didn't you see the area we just dug out? They're already building a well and a greenhouse flower room. We even got the 'Care for the Pixie' quest — xX_ShadowBlade_Xx and Arthur finished their quest chain, and THAT's how Locke got to bring the pixie back."
"But how are we supposed to take care of her? Nobody knows what pixies eat. Does she eat dirt?"
Quest chain? Life-skills trainer? What are these people on about? Where am I? Oh, right... I've been taken to a demon's dungeon...
"Locke says she eats flowers. Tons of people already took the quest and went out flower-hunting."
"Huh. Hope she doesn't starve. If she dies and the quest fails, does that mean we can't learn life skills anymore?"
"Could happen... The flower crew's back! Quick, hurry, the pixie's in bad shape!"
Am I dying? Maybe dying is better... otherwise these dungeon monsters are sure to make sport of tormenting me...
The little pixie felt her consciousness slowly slipping away. Someone stuffed some crumbled bits into her mouth. Crowds hemmed her in on every side, a jumbled mess of voices. She couldn't think that far anymore, and once again she sank into deep, sleep-like unconsciousness.
As the night wore on, more and more of the otherworldly players began saying their goodbyes and "logging off." Logging off, as such, just meant the players finding a spot out of everyone's way and lying down to sleep. Only their bodies slept, though — while they rested, their souls returned to the other world. The core, "Bru," called this "logging off."
Sharlock took a lap around his dungeon. Thanks to the otherworldly players' efforts, the dungeon's floor space had doubled in just two short days. A food storage room had already been dug out, though it had only gotten a preliminary sweeping — no stone laid on the floor yet, no stone walls put up on the tunnel sides either. Over the next few days, once Simba the blacksmith finished forging a hundred sets of weapons and armor, he'd forge some chisels and small hammers and the like, and then the otherworldly players could take up those chisels and hammers to make stone slabs for laying floors and roads, plus stone walls for lining the tunnels.
Sure, his dungeon still looked like a dusty, grimy mess right now, but Sharlock could practically see it already: in the future his dungeon would stand shoulder to shoulder with Frostlake in scale. And it wouldn't stop there, either.
Besides the food storage hall, he'd also planned to build a dormitory for the otherworldly players to rest in together — all these bodies sprawled every which way really wasn't a good look. But no plan survives contact with reality: the space originally earmarked for the dormitory was now becoming a flowerbed, with a well dug alongside it. The stonefolk would spend two days working the site.
The pixie brought back from Frostlake, though, was in even worse shape than Sharlock had imagined. From the moment she'd crossed the portal back to the dungeon, she'd been out cold. According to the gnome shopkeeper of the 【Welcome Wagon Magic Goods Shop】, this little pixie was actively trying to starve herself to death.
Sharlock quickly posted a caretaking quest for the little pixie to the otherworldly players through the core, "Bru." Some gave her water, some went hunting flowers — one player even gave her a full-body massage, claiming to be a professional masseur with an advanced masseur's license.
Whatever the case, though the pixie was still unconscious, you could clearly see her condition had improved a lot. She'd probably wake before long.
As for the whole "pixie won't farm or brew" problem — no big deal to Sharlock. He had plenty of time to wear her down, and breaking someone in was a skill Sharlock was VERY good at! It was, after all, Demon 101!
Setting the pixie business aside, Sharlock went over to Simba the blacksmith to arrange the chisels, small hammers, and pickaxes. The chisels didn't matter either way, but the hammers and pickaxes needed wooden handles — and for wood, you either had to dig your way to a big subterranean forest, or sneak up to the surface world to chop trees, or, last resort, buy some. Sharlock's dungeon was only a day's travel from the surface world, but he currently had zero plans to risk a tree-chopping run up there. If he drew the attention of the surface world's human kingdoms, and a whole army or a pack of heroes and adventurers found their way to his dungeon — that'd be game over, man.
Sharlock's dungeon had no real fighting strength right now, and the entrance labyrinth hadn't been built either — zero ability to resist invaders. Sharlock himself could fight, but he wasn't exactly invincible; if a few dozen high priests came knocking, even he couldn't hold them off. He'd paid big money for this dungeon. He had to play it careful and not blow the whole thing up.
Sharlock planned to head out exploring in the next few days to see if he could find a subterranean forest. If there wasn't one nearby, then no wooden pickaxe handles for now — he'd just have handle-less hammers and chisels made instead. The otherworldly players would get a little more worn out, but hey, savings! Find the original chapter at g.com.
This reproduction came from the author's publication page without permission, and the version there supports the creator.
Only a dozen or so players were still up and working in the dungeon — it was deep into the night now. With everything arranged, Sharlock headed back to the dungeon core hall, booted up the computer, and logged into the official forums with practiced ease. The thread he'd posted yesterday announcing the newly opened zone had somehow already blown past eighty thousand replies, and the forum's total thread count had jumped by over two hundred thousand in just two days. Reading every post was flat-out impossible now, even if Sharlock wanted to.
Sharlock could only skim the first few pages of threads. Most of what was on them was players speculating about the dungeon, plus a fair share desperately begging for beta spots. Before long, he found a newly posted thread by that player called xX_ShadowBlade_Xx — titled 【Dungeon: The Eternal Kingdom — A Hidden Zone Almost Certainly Opening in the Future: Frostlake!】.
As a CBT1 tester AND a famous guide author, xX_ShadowBlade_Xx's threads naturally drew massive attention — the reply count under this one had already blown past a thousand within a single hour.
Sharlock clicked open xX_ShadowBlade_Xx's thread and started reading.
"Hey everyone, it's me again — CBT1 tester 【xX_ShadowBlade_Xx】. ╰(*°▽°*)╯
As everyone knows, a new zone opened up in Dungeon today: the Spider Nest. Quick rundown — so far only the five of us, me, 【Arthur】, 【BurningChestHair】, 【Sylvana】, and 【ShrineNeko】, have attempted it once. Less than ten minutes after reaching the Spider Nest, we were all dead.
Dead, yes — but 【Arthur】 played heroically, killed one subterranean spider, and triggered the follow-up hidden quest.
We found a weird metal sphere in the subterranean spider's corpse, and then 【Arthur】 and I lucked into a quest escorting His Lordship — Locke himself — to another new zone. Yep, that new zone is the whole subject of this thread: Frostlake!
Not the Frostlake from A Song of Ice and Fire — pure coincidence, same name. But this Frostlake is SO incredibly bustling I genuinely lack the words. The big thing is, inside this Frostlake I saw content the game hasn't even released yet — it's like a living, breathing sword-and-magic world. And by "living," I don't mean the graphics: from the races to the common sense to the social structure, everything feels like an actually alive world. Especially the NPCs — they're not looping AI, they don't repeat the same line or the same animation over and over. Every single NPC seems to have their own life going on. I honestly cannot imagine how big the server has to be to hold all this content.
My guess is Frostlake works just like our dungeon — everything's interactable. I just didn't get a chance to run around checking, since I was glued to the lord's heels the whole time.
I don't have a ton of intel on Frostlake, but I took a bunch of in-game screenshots of the zone. Behold!
(pics, pics, pics...)
Alright, as you can see, this game holds to its 100%-realism principle like always, and Frostlake is no exception. These screenshots should give you the general idea, but trust me — when it comes to Frostlake, this is the tip of the iceberg. Hoping they open Frostlake for us to explore ASAP.
Also, a note on how to get INTO Frostlake: right now only Locke can bring us, and only Locke brings us back. No route from the dungeon straight to Frostlake has been found. So all you players planning to hike there on foot, or clip through some bug into the Frostlake zone — don't bother. You really think a game this polished is gonna have a bug that lets you clip into Frostlake?
That's about all I can say about Frostlake — I've only been once, less than two hours total, front to back. But I can responsibly tell you all: the races in this game are wildly varied, to the point I got dizzy just looking. And there are all these other game elements — magic, transportation, architecture, skills, buying and selling, and so on. None of it's open to us yet, but once all these systems and elements go live? I can't even imagine what this game becomes. Honestly, at that point it's not even a game anymore — it's a second life where we get to live out swords and sorcery!
Bottom line: I am hyping this game to the moon.
Now that the daily hype ritual is out of the way, here are the possible mechanics I've worked out from testing so far. These are personal opinions, for reference only — the actual canon is whatever the official forums announce.
First: about the stats question from yesterday. It's now confirmed that whether you're in combat or out of it, there is no stat sheet. Strength, Intellect, Agility, crit rate — these stats straight-up do not exist. And after pushing into the Spider Nest today, I finally understand why the devs didn't build in any of that numbery stuff.
Because in this game, player power is NOT decided by numbers! It's decided by YOU, the player! Take Intellect: whatever your IQ is in real life, that's your IQ in-game. There's no Intellect stat making you smarter than the next guy. Same with Strength — however strong the goblin character is, that's how strong you are. Wanna get stronger? Grind more coins, do more manual labor! Honestly, after these two days of physical work, I swear my in-game strength has actually gone up a little.
Second: the dungeon now has a little pixie in it besides Simba the blacksmith. From what I can tell, the pixie will be handling herb growing and potion brewing in the dungeon down the line — but as things stand, her lore says she's unwilling to serve the dungeon, apparently because the pixie race sits on the opposite side from dungeons. My guess: that's another hidden quest. Ambitious players, try working the pixie NPC — see if you can clear that hidden quest. Could be juicy rewards. Let's all get after it!
Third: as of today we can equip weapons and armor. Unlike characters, who have no stat points, weapons and armor DO have very detailed stats — Attack Power and Defense, plus Weight and so on. See the pics and stats below.
(pics, pics.)
【Attack Power: 0-10】
【Weight: 10】
【Durability: 10】
【Forged by: Blacksmith Simba】
【Required Reputation Level: Eternal Kingdom Dungeon reputation level 1 (entry level)】
【The most common standard-issue weapon in the Eternal Kingdom Dungeon, refined and forged from diamond】
Then, next to the armor, a tooltip panel appeared as well:
【Diamond Armor (Common, White gear)】
【Defense: 10】
【Weight: 20】
【Durability: 10】
【Forged by: Blacksmith Simba】
【Required Reputation Level: Eternal Kingdom Dungeon reputation level 1 (entry level)】
【The most common standard-issue gear in the Eternal Kingdom Dungeon, refined and forged from diamond】
But gear is EXPENSIVE — the two pieces together ran six hundred copper coins. That said, merchants will probably move into this game eventually to make a business of it, and then the whale players can just smash cash directly into game currency.
Fourth: as of today we have a reputation system. From what I can see, quests now give rep in addition to currency, and rep's current function is gating equipment. Judging by the two pics above, I'd say it's basically a disguised leveling system. It'll definitely have way more uses later. Once open beta hits, everyone needs to grind quests hard and stack that rep — so get those livers ready, people!
Everything above is just stream-of-consciousness scribbled down after I logged off. These past few days everyone's been grinding quests and saving up for gear — I figure tomorrow we can group up and push the Spider Nest together. Just a few of us going in honestly can't win, and it's also terrifying. Completely realistic spiders, man. I've STILL got goosebumps.
Anyway, gotta crash. Up early tomorrow to keep grinding quests, scrounge up gear money, and push the Spider Nest with the main crew! Also gonna check if the pixie's got a hidden quest for me. Y'all rest up too — check the replies tomorrow night. Peace out!"
Sharlock read the OP's post in one gulp and was about to dive into the comments when a player came sprinting excitedly up to the outside of the core hall and shouted:
"My lord! The little pixie is awake!"
══════════════════════ DUNGEON LORD'S NOTE ═══════════════════════
The players can't stop pampering the terrified pixie — flowers, water, one guy claiming a professional masseur's license — while she's convinced she's about to become monster food.
What's your strategy for unlocking the pixie questline?
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