Gaia's Challenge

The first thing I do is text Lena back. 'I have to go through a Legend Of Zelda themed dungeon on my own. I have one chance to win. If I fail, Emma stays mundane. If I kill the boss and beat the challenge, Emma will develop her own mana' I write. Lena takes a minute to respond. 'HAH Emma would be so jealous' She replies, with several laughing emojis. I smile at that.

‘I’ll be attempting the dungeon in about half an hour. Are you okay with that?’ I ask her. ‘Go for it dude! Omg I can’t believe this is happening’ She sends back almost immediately. ‘Haha I can’t either, but I haven’t won it yet’ I send back. ‘I trust you. You tore apart those trafficker assholes. You can do this’ She encourages. ‘Thank you. I won’t let you down’ I promise, putting my phone back into my inventory.

I’ll do my damnest to win. I’m not letting this girl down. Gaia says that fateweaving is active inside the barrier, so I don’t have to worry about my own survival. I can take a few more risks than I normally would. Not that I can afford to be reckless. I just don’t have to worry about dying.

It only takes about 15 minutes for my mana bar to fully regenerate, but I take the full half an hour break anyway, to sit down, rest and pet Luna for a bit. I sit with Ivy while I do, who provides me with quiet support in the form of back rubs and occasional kisses. We would cuddle, but I feel too sweaty for that. Instead, I have some food and ready myself for the battle ahead.

The comfort in this is that I don’t think Gaia would give me a challenge like this if I was completely unable to win it. Knowing that fills me with resolute confidence. I know I can win. I just have to fight using everything I’ve learnt. When I feel that I’ve rested up enough, I get up off the couch, sadly having to move Luna from my lap. She’s way too cute, I swear.

Ivy stands up with me, holds my face in her hands and gives me a deep, passionate kiss. “You’ve got this my lovely Gem!” She encourages, kissing me on the forehead and giving me the biggest, goofiest, most genuine smile. “I’m so proud of you!” She says. Her energy is infectious, and I can’t help but smile goofily myself.

“Thank you gorgeous. Although I haven’t done anything yet, I’ll do my best.” I giggle, telling her. “Good luck babe!” Mia calls. “Y-you got this!” Paige encourages shyly. “You’ll win, I know it.” Skylar says. “I believe you can succeed. Remember our training. Be alert.” Olivia gives out some final advice. I nod. “Thank you.” I say sincerely, to all of them.

I head outside and focus once more on the window I’ve been ignoring for the past half an hour. I take a deep breath, let it out and press the yes button. That brings up a second, confirmation window, letting me know that when I hit the yes button, I’ll be dropped into the dungeon immediately. I’m thankful for the second confirmation, and hit the yes button.

Just like the window says, I’m instantly teleported into a dungeon. I look around to get my bearings. I’m in a grassy area with a lot of rolling hills and trees dotted sparsely around the landscape. The sun shines down on me, thankfully not that bright. There don’t seem to be any enemies within my immediate vicinity, so I look down at the window that popped up on my arrival.

That’s a new way of doing things. I’ve never really had to explore inside dungeons before. That one time I found the ring of mana inside the skeletons dungeon was technically a form of exploration, but it’s nothing like this. The way to the boss has always been obvious, in every dungeon I’ve run through. But like Gaia said, this isn’t like one of my usual dungeons.

Devoid of any other options, I decide to pick a direction and start walking. I activate mana shield and manifest a sword and shield of ice. I can’t afford to be careless in this dungeon, and I value the extra defence provided by a shield much more over the extra offensive capabilities of a second sword. I will beat this dungeon.

I lightly jog to the top of the tallest hill around me. I decide against trying to climb one of the trees, not wanting to deal with the embarrassment of falling if a branch snaps. That’s when I see what must be the primary enemies for this challenge. I’ve no idea what they are, but they look like some kind of lizard people. They must be from one of the Zelda games.

There’s that theory confirmed. Lizalfo is a weird but oddly fitting name for these things. Their weapons range from spears and shields, to bows, to very strangely shaped sword looking things, that almost look like a boomerang with a handle. There must be a dozen of them in the valley below, patrolling the area back and forth like only NPCs can.

Looking around at the rest of the environment, I see more lizalfos, some different colours, that I’m assuming are either tougher, have different attacks, or both. I see grassy hills stretching out in every direction, with no real end in sight. Barrier walls are often a bit hard to see from far away, so that doesn’t mean it’s not there, just that it might be a bit far.

None of the lizalfos have noticed me yet, so I take a moment to think of a strategy to approach this dungeon. Obviously it ends when I beat the boss, and the first part of the challenge is actually finding the temple that the boss is in. There aren’t any obvious temple entrances around, and I’m really hoping Gaia wouldn’t hide the entrance underground for me to dig out.

The best way to approach this is would be to minimise fighting the lizalfos themselves, to save as much of my health, mana and energy as possible for the boss. Although my mana regenerates really quickly, my health does not. Fatigue might be a possible concern, depending on how long this takes, although it’ll be a while before that becomes a problem.

That said, I’d still like to find out how strong these things are first. Knowing if I should stand and fight or run away when I bump into a large pack of them is a really good idea. If I can take them all out with one hit, I don’t really need to be so cautious. If each of them is as strong as a regular boss, I’m basically screwed.

That conclusion reached, I turn away from the small mass of enemies below me, and walk in a different direction instead, hoping to find one of those things on their own. After a couple of minutes walking, I spot a pair of lizalfos, and I decide that’s good enough. I approach them slowly, sword and shield raised, at the ready for any attacks.

The two of them spot me as I get closer. One of them begins to hop around quickly, in a seemingly agitated fashion. The other one jogs towards me, brandishing it’s spear. Immediately, it’s obvious that I have a speed advantage. My high agility lets me react easily to the spear thrusting towards me.

I knock the spear aside, redirecting it’s momentum and leaving it wide open. I take the opening and slash at the creature’s neck. An expertly placed strike, clearly wounding it, but not killing it. The lizalfo, seemingly immune to pain or fear, stabs at me again with it’s sinister looking spear. I catch a glance of the other one drawing it’s bow, and I nimbly dodge to the side.

The arrow it looses flies harmlessly into the grass. I start my sword swing and use a trick I’ve recently learnt, lengthening the blade to give it more reach midswing. This time, my blade of ice shears right through the head of the lizard thing. The enemy dissolves into golden dust, and I don’t get any XP notification.

I’m a little disappointed about that, but it does make sense. The reward for this dungeon is supposed to be that Emma becomes an abyssal, not that I level up. At least the question of how tough these things are has been answered. One sword disappears, and I fire a concentrated blast of ice out of my left hand.

200MP evaporates from my pool and the lizalfo freezes up from the potency of my ice magic. I form the sword in my right hand into a mace and swing it in a heavy, two handed overhead strike. The ice shatters along with the lizard-like creature and it dissipates into dust. I think I’ve seen enough for the toughness of these enemies.

The real threat would come from their numbers in large groups, which makes sense as to why there are a few clusters around that I can see. The strategy for advancing is pretty straightforward then: avoid big clusters of lizalfos, while small clusters can be cautiously seen as a workable obstacle.

The main point of course is to find the hidden temple, not kill lizalfos. They don’t give experience and I find it unlikely that loot farming would be much use. My mana bar recharges from the spell at a rapid pace, and I find myself very happy that I’m investing in Wisdom. Wisdom is definitely seeming like an overpowered stat at the moment, so I’ll have to see what the next bonus is.

With no timer ticking against me, I rest for a moment while my mana bar recharges. 4mp/sec means roughly a minute to regenerate all the mana for a spell that powerful. I pull out a water bottle and take a sip of water. I have my inventory stocked with food, both healthy stuff and some snacks, plus plenty of water. I have no idea how long this challenge dungeon will be, so it’s good to be prepared.