Part 44: I Am The Lizard King, I Can Do Anything

Update 43: I Am The Lizard King, I Can Do Anything



"Man, this place stinks. I mean, it literally smells like someone took a dump in there and let it stew for a couple of years. Why do we gotta go in here? There's lots of stuff to kill outside."
"Sure, but are they going to have as much treasure as a cave full of dragons?"



"Hah. If this is a kingdom, where's the king? Come out, dragon king. Let's see what you're made of!"



"I dunno where the king is, but it looks like this whole dungeon is his throne. Hey, look, there's a whole dwarf skeleton in here!"




As you might expect, the Dragon's Dominion is full of dragons. They drop tens of thousands of gold pieces and the early encounters aren't too hard to kill, which is one of the reasons why this is the best place in the game to earn money.



There are also some items stashed behind secret passages in various places around the cave. This set of +5 armour is near the entrance and can be reached after only a couple of easy fights. Lloyd's Beacon doesn't work in this dungeon, though, so you have to walk all the way back out and in again if you want more.



"Don't mind if I do!"



+5 weapons are a lot easier to get than +5 armour thanks to the blacksmiths, so this little stash isn't really much use.



"Ooh, a wishing well! I wish for eternal youth and beauty!"



"Eh, I guess that's okay too."

This pool can permanently raise the party's maximum Hit Points. The catch is that it only works on characters whose maximum HP is below 200, so you have to get here early on, when the monsters in here are still actually dangerous. It's no good to any of us any more.



Halfway through the dungeon, the party will start running into these encounters. Earth Wyrms can breathe fire for a lot of damage, so this does a pretty good job of screening out low-level parties who can't kill them in a round or two.



The further in we go, the stronger the enemies get. Magic Serpents have 800 HP...



... and they have one hell of a breath weapon. Good thing the party's now strong enough to kill them in two or three attacks.



And at the far end of the dungeon, right on the eastern edge of the map, we meet this guy.



"Wow, he looks pretty strong. It might actually take us more than one round to kill--"







One Time Distortion and a few hours of rest later, the party is ready for take 2. Let's try that again, this time with less dicking around.



Even with everybody attacking, we still don't manage to take him down in one round. Fortunately, this time we get lucky with the damage we take from his breath weapon.



"And you call yourself a dragon king. Even the dragons in Varn put up a better fight than you."



The Ancient Dragon is worth as much experience as a Cuisinart, although he's significantly tougher and therefore not as good to level up off. There is, however, one good reason to kill him.




"Ten million gold! I'm filthy stinking rich! And once I pay to get all the dragon dung cleaned off these clothes, I'll just be rich!"



In the northeast corner of the cave, there's a second Ancient Dragon. He's just as tough as the first one, and drops just as much loot. And behind him is an even greater prize...



"This had better give us more than 10 hit points."




"Okay, sure, I guess that was worth it."



And just like that, our party has gone from ridiculously powerful to, well, even more ridiculously powerful. I'm not sure how high your HP has to be before this stops giving you more, because I've never actually felt the need for more than about 5000 HP.

This really isn't something you should attempt below around level 40, because the Ancient Dragon is devastatingly powerful and there's no easy way to kill it.

"And you have to kill it quickly, because you can't afford to let the fight drag on!"



Oh, and there's some more stuff in the cave as well. Behind a secret passage near the first Ancient Dragon is a Gold Shield, Gold Plate Mail and Gold Helm, all enchanted to +7 with no alignment restriction. I'm too lazy to enchant them all to +63 right now, but I'll hold on to them in case I feel like it later on.



A little to the south, we can find the three strongest weapons in the game, all at +7. We already have an Ancient Bow (does loads of damage, raises accuracy, is awesome). The Titan's Pike does a whopping 1-40 base damage and raises Might, although I prefer the Dark Trident for its AC bonus. The Photon Blade is a one-handed weapon that also raises Might, and casts Implosion when used as an item. I'll be duplicating one of those for everyone in the party, not to use as a weapon (only Knights can wield it) but just so they can shoot black holes at enemies whenever they feel like it.



"Sure, why not? Dragon genocide is thirsty work, after all."





This is yet another way to raise maximum HP in this cave. I think it raises HP by 25 and works up to about 500 HP, so it's obviously no use to us now.



And that wraps it up for the Dragon's Dominion. Just in case you were wondering, there's no way into those last three unexplored squares, since Teleport and Etherealize don't work. People have checked the game data and there's nothing in there anyway.



"We just slew a whole bunch of dragons! Awesome!"



"I could probably take on three Cuisinarts all by myself now. In fact, I'm gonna go do that just to prove that I can."



"I've got so many spell points it doesn't display them properly any more!"



"I picked up this wand somewhere. It'll be handy if I ever need to cast Remove Condition for some reason."



"Who needs thieves' picks when we're all tough enough to just open every chest and let the traps go off?"



"Man, think of all the things I could do with this money. I could pay someone to invent a sports car, and then drive around in one all day!"







"Gertrude strongest half-orc in Cron! Nobody mock Gertrude speech impediment now!"



"Since you're all so rich, how about a raise for us hirelings, huh? Are we just meant to be happy with 50,000 gold a day forever?"

And with that update, we've broken the game just a little bit more than we already did. Hit points aren't going to be a problem any more, and neither is finding money for training. The party has already become unimaginably powerful and explored almost all of the world of Cron: only a few things remain unfinished. Should the party explore a castle dungeon, or travel to the elemental planes? Vote now!