Grimsbane in normal mode was fairly straightforward. The mobs were regular enemies, and level five enemies were easy to Corwin who was used to fighting upcurve. That all changed once reaching a boss though as elites and chieftains were never so simple.

The first boss was only an elite, the Goblin Scrimshaw. He fought with a Katana and had a fairly simple attack pattern. His two power moves were an overhead cleave and a Whirlwind AoE. Both were parryable, so Corwin was able to fight without taking damage. He fell into a natural rhythm and things were simple until the boss reached 20% health and went berserk. Unfortunately, goblins gained a lot of agility when they berserked and dodging became substantially harder. Fortunately, the attack pattern didn’t change save for the speed which meant Corwin was already dealing with something familiar. He managed to not get hit and reduce the goblin to 5% health before comboing it out with: Thunder Slash, Slash and Pierce.

He excitedly looted the corpse, but to his dismay he found only a level 5 common cloth leg armor. However, after the boss he found a common chest, something he suspected was a reward for being the first in the dungeon. The common chest had 3 items, a level 5 common leather armor, a level 5 common leather helm, and a level 5 common plate boots. The plate boots gave +5 Con and some extra Def and MDef so they went on right away. The others went in the inventory to sell later.

He continued grinding the dungeon mobs and eventually arrived at the second boss, an Orc named Sabrefang. Sabrefang unsurprisingly fought with a sabre. His movements were quick, making it more challenging to dodge, but he was only an elite and normal mode was normal mode after all. Sabrefang had a forehand side-cleave and an AoE multi-slash as his two power moves. The AoE was a cone shaped attack so it was easy to avoid, especially as the boss telegraphed it. The side-cleave was parryable, so saving the parry for that move was useful as it was a bit tricky to dodge. Corwin fought well executing his dodges perfectly and doing plenty of damage with his good weapons. When the boss entered berserk his rhythm accelerated but it still wasn’t necessary to use potions. Finally, the boss had 5% HP, and a thunder slash, slash, pierce combo did him in. The loot this time was rather exciting as it has a skill book for the uncommon sword skill double slash, and a level 5 common plate gloves. The skill book was used and the gloves were equipped and Corwin got that little bit better.

Corwin’s luck was in because there was another common chest for being the first to reach this point of the dungeon. When he opened the chest, there was a bright flash of light indicating a lucky drop. Inside was a recipe, and not just any recipe but a bronze tier recipe. Even better, the recipe was for plate armor, something Corwin definitely needed. Bronze Tier items offered a minimum of +1/level to key stats (Str, Agi, Con in this case), 4Def/level and 2MDef/level. While this item was a minimum bronze item with no special abilities it was still impressive for this stage of the game. The only drawback was he couldn’t equip anything right away so he didn’t get additional help for the next boss. He also only got one item instead of three.

At this point the cave in the dungeon narrowed to a small path and Corwin pushed onwards. The narrow restricted his dodging and forced him to fight enemies while dodging only backwards which was trickier than usual. Fortunately, he was equal to the task and managed to avoid taking hits. The cave opened to a clearing for the final boss, a Chieftain. At this point there was no sense taking chances, and Corwin rested to full health and stamina, applied a speed potion and engaged the boss with a slow potion.

The difference in agility proved decisive as the orc Boss, Scarfang, who fought with an Axe was not equal to hitting him. Even his power moves Overhead chop, and Axe-Spin did not connect. Corwin reduced the boss to 20% HP before it went berserk. The berserk mode was challenging and the extra agility meant the AoE hit Corwin once, reducing him to below half health. Nonetheless, one hit was not enough and Corwin soon had the boss down to low health.

Corwin combed out with Thunder Slash, Double Slash, Slash and Pierce resulting in Scarfang meeting his maker. As Scarfang fell to the ground announcements, Corwin was asked to enter a party name. Corwin planned to name his guild Righteous Destiny so he used that party name and quickly a spring of announcements rang out.

Congratulations to Party Righteous Destiny for the first clear of a normal difficulty dungeon in Eternity’s Wake. Party member Corwin Swordborn receives 2,000,000 XP, 20 Gold, and 1 Tier 1 Gemstone.

Congratulations to Corwin Swordborn on the first solo clear of a normal difficulty dungeon in Eternity’s Wake. He receives 4,000,000XP, 40 gold and 1 Tier 1 Gemstone.

Congratulations to Party Righteous Destiny on first clear of a normal difficulty dungeon in Altaea. Party Member Corwin Swordborn receives 1,000,000XP, 10 Gold and 1 Tier 1 Gemstone.

Congratulations to Corwin Swordborn on the first solo clear of a normal difficulty dungeon in Altaea. He receives 2,000,000XP, 20 gold and 1 Tier 1 Gemstone.

Congratulations to Party Righteous Destiny on the first clear of normal difficulty of the dungeon Grimsbane. Party member Corwin Swordborn receives 500,000XP, 5 gold and 1 extra dungeon pass.

Congratulations to Corwin Swordborn on the first solo clear of the dungeon Grimsbane on normal mode. He receives 1,000,000XP, 10 gold and 1 extra dungeon pass.

The 8.5 million XP was really nice for pushing the level bar from near 25% all the way to just over 50%. More importantly, the 2 extra dungeon passes and extra money created good opportunities. Normally you could only raid a dungeon once a day, regardless of what difficulty you picked. The first clear bonuses meant you could raid multiple times, something that Corwin planned to use to get through hell mode today.

When Corwin looted the boss, the flash for a lucky drop appeared and he excitedly reached down. He received a recipe for a level 5 Bronze Plate Gauntlets along with two mana crystals instead of the usual one. This was enough to upgrade the ring of hidden attributes to bronze tier which Corwin immediately did. At bronze tier the ring gave +1 to all attributes per level and +1 to all hidden attributes per level. It now needed 5 Mana Crystals to evolve.

There was a common chest as the end of the run and 10 luck showed its power as the rather fortunate Corwin received a lucky drop containing a recipe for bronze level 5 plate boots. Corwin for now would just use these recipes to equip himself, but if he was careful in timing he could create good value from selling said items at the cost of accelerating his opponents gear.

Meanwhile, the Raven guild was trying to figure out what to do about Corwin Swordborn. His multiple first clear announcements and promotion of “Heaven’s Path” created quite an issue for the first-rate guild of Orleans. They knew from the XP bonuses and the dungeon clear he was already level five and possibly even level six. He also had to have good equipment. Being top tier experts, they already had many characters who had reached level one, and their very best expert had reached level two. They ultimately decided it would be worth trying to kill him with numbers, to get whatever equipment dropped, and hopefully leave some of the announcements and bonuses to their guild.

In Eternity’s wake a player would experience down to the minimum for the previous level so they’d always lose slightly more than a level for dying. Killing him down to level 4 would slow down his dungeon running as he’d need to get back to level 5 again. On death, usually the most powerful equipment on a player would drop. This typically meant a player with bronze tier equips would lose a bronze tier item. Losing items often slowed down dungeon running as one needed to run the normal-mode again instead of hard mode to get gear back.

Corwin wasn’t exactly unaware of danger, although he had no clue where it was coming from. He headed back to town and purchased a cloak for two gold. In this game, a cloak could hide one’s identity, a useful feature for remaining anonymous. Unfortunately, because of the high cost for this stage of the game, people with cloaks tended to be targets anyways. Nonetheless, a cloak was less high profile than Corwin himself, who had the only global announcements so far in game.

In the market he found someone who was rather desperate for money. They had found the rare swordsman skill book Wind Charge. In the past this skill book was easily worth thirty gold, but at this time no one in the game knew prices and he had decided to sell it for merely ten gold. Corwin was a bit hesitant about providing anyone ten gold out of fear they could use poison to power level but decided to chance it as this was an important rare skill useful in both PvP and PvE. After all, most people had only hours of experience with Eternity’s Wake and didn’t have the finely honed sense of dodging Corwin had developed over 15 years of close combat. So, Corwin bought and learnt it before spending the remainder of his money on crafting gear and materials.

He went to the forge and worked on crafting the plate while cloaked. The first tries were all failures, but after 8 failures he succeeded. He equipped the new armor and worked on the gloves next. After four failures the fifth try was a success and he replaced his gloves with bronze versions. He then did the boots and was pleasantly surprised to succeed on the 2nd try. He received a token amount of experience from his crafting, as well as some crafting experience as a metalworker. He had plans to improve his crafting skills much more later, but all those plans relied on knowledge of the Verdure Kingdom so he had to wait until he completed his plans in Orleans and saved up his massive teleportation cost.

He now had a decision to make, did he have enough gear for hard mode, or did he need another run of normal. Fortunately, the first clear gave out two extra dungeon passes, so he ultimately decided to run normal again first. As expected, the second run did not have the chests anymore, but he had lucky drops and managed to get a recipe for level five bronze plate main hand sword, and a recipe for a level five bronze cuisse as well as some cloth and leather armor drops. He also got three magic crystals which put him a good chunk of the way towards evolving his bronze ring.

Heading back to town he sold off all his cloth and leather armor drops for ten gold and spent fifty silver on crafting materials. That gave him five tries at the cuisse and the fourth succeeded. Another fifty silver went to five tries at the main hand sword, and the fifth succeeded.

Corwin Swordborn

Spoiler : Level 5 (53% to level 6)

Str: 35 (base:5)

Agi: 55 (base:30)

Con: 30 (base:5)

Int: 10 (base:5)

Cha: 10 (base:5)

Lck: 10 (base:5)

Cnc: 10 (base:5)

Sta: 10 (base:5)

Def:110

MDef: 50

HP: 650/650

MP: 550/550

Gear:

MW: Bronze Tier Level 5, Level 5 Longsword, +5 Str, +5 Agi, +5 Con

Damage: 30-40 Durability 25/25 Requirements: 20 Str

OW: Common Tier, Level 5 Shortsword, +5 Str

Damage 15-20 Durability 12/15 Requirements: 10 Str

MA: Bronze Level 5 Plate, +5 Str, +5 Agi, +5 Con

20Def,10MDef, Durability 25/25 Requirements:20 Str

LA: Bronze Level 5 Plate Cuisse +5Str, +5Agi, +5Con

20Def,10MDef, Durability 25/25 Requirements:20 Str

B: Bronze Level 5 Plate Gloves +5 Str, +5Agi, +5 Con

20Def,10MDef, Durability 25/25 Requirements: 20Str

G: Bronze Level 5 Plate Boots, +5Str, +5Agi, +5Con

20Def,10Mdef, Durability 25/25 Requirements: 20Str

RR: Bronze Level 5 Ring of Hidden Attributes (+5 All base attributes, +5 All Hidden Attributes)

LR: None

AM: None

MW=Main Weapon OW=Offhand Weapon MA= Main Armor LA = Leg Armor B= Boots G= Gloves RR = Right Ring, LR = Left Ring, AM = Amulet