Qi's Hungry Challenge
| Qi's Hungry Challenge | |
|---|---|
| Type | Special Order |
| Board | Mr. Qi |
| Giver | Mr. Qi |
| Time Limit | 7 days |
| Repeatable | Yes |
Mr. Qi dares the farmer to walk down to the hundredth floor of the Skull Cavern on an empty stomach. Nothing may be eaten or drunk while underground, which removes the one thing every deep dive normally leans on: a pocket full of cheese and salad to undo a serpent's bite. The descent itself is the ordinary problem, solved as always with a tall stack of staircases, so the whole order really turns on keeping health above zero without a plate. Qi answers that problem himself while the order runs, by seeding the cavern with slimes that carry hearts. Twenty-five Qi Gems is a modest purse, and the sensible time to take the notice is a week when the staircases are already cut and the right rings are already on.
The board reads: Your task is to make it to level 100 in the Skull Cavern. However, you can't eat or drink anything while there.
Requirements
The ban applies underground and nowhere else. A full breakfast in the farmhouse, a mug of coffee at the Bus Stop and a piece of Magic Rock Candy on the desert sand all count as eaten before the cavern, and whatever they grant carries on working past the entrance. Hoarding food in the backpack is allowed too; the game only refuses the act of consuming it below the surface.
Buffs do run short down there, for a reason that catches people out. An hour inside the cavern takes a quarter longer in real seconds than an hour anywhere else, and a buff is counted in real seconds, so a dish eaten at the entrance expires after fewer game hours than it would on the farm. A long buff such as Magic Rock Candy therefore covers far more ground than a short drink.
Big Purple Sludges are the replacement for a lunch. While the order runs, some of them spawn holding a heart worth ten points of health, and a sludge carrying one looks faintly see-through, so the drop can be spotted before the first swing. The slime has to be killed for the heart to fall. A Burglar's Ring turns that single heart into two, which is the cheapest doubling of healing in the game and the main argument for wearing the ring that week.
Passive healing covers the rest. A Vampire Ring returns two points for every monster slain and a second Vampire Ring adds two more, since the two stack. A weapon taken to the Forge and given the Vampiric enchantment heals on some of its kills. A Fairy Box in the trinket slot summons a fairy that tops health up during fights on its own, which suits a farmer who means to fight rather than run, and the fairy's level decides how often and how much it gives.
Rewards
Twenty-five gems buys the small, useful end of the walnut room's stock rather than the headline items. A dose of Qi Seasoning comes ten to the purchase and Magic Bait comes twenty to the purchase, so this one payment covers a tin of seasoning, a long run of bait and Mr. Qi's own hat for the novelty. Saved instead, it is most of the recipe that lets Magic Bait be crafted at home, which pays for itself on a farm that fishes.
The dive pays twice over in things that are not gems. Floor one hundred always holds a Treasure Chest, the iridium grows thicker with every floor below ten, and the sludges carrying hearts sometimes carry a Pink Cake or a Qi Gem of their own instead.
Strategy
Build the staircase stack before accepting anything. Ninety-nine stone makes one staircase, which is a brutal rate when stone is bought from the Carpenter's Shop, so the standard supply is Jade: a few Crystalariums turn out Jade all week, and the Desert Trader swaps one Jade for one staircase on Sundays. Kent's stall at the Desert Festival trades them for calico eggs as well.
Then plan the single day rather than the week. A Warp Totem: Desert or the Desert Obelisk opens the sand roughly four hours before Pam's bus arrives, and four extra hours is the difference between floor sixty and floor one hundred. Eat the long buff at the cavern mouth, put the rings on there, and start dropping staircases immediately.
Take every shaft that appears instead of the ladder beside it. A shaft drops between three and fifteen floors at once, and that is the fastest progress available, but it costs three points of health for each floor skipped. With no food to spare, the shaft is still worth taking: it can never bring health below one, and the slime hearts are there to repair the fall.
The usual failure is the clock, not the monsters. Fainting at two in the morning costs gold, and a run that reaches floor eighty at one in the morning has achieved nothing. Seven days means seven attempts at one day each, so a cautious farmer can probe with the first run and commit the whole staircase stack to the second.
Notes
The quest does not toughen the cavern by itself. If the statue at the entrance has been switched on after an earlier invasion, it should be switched off before the week starts, so the monsters stay at their ordinary strength while there is nothing to eat.
The notice goes up on a Monday and its week drains from that morning, whether or not it has been taken off the board. Reading it on Thursday leaves four days, so a farm that wants the full seven has to look at the board early.
Health and energy are separate meters, and only food is forbidden. Energy still drains from swinging the pickaxe, and an exhausted farmer moves slowly long before health becomes the problem, which is one more reason to let the staircases do the work.
All Special Orders
Every special order from both boards, with who posts it and how long it runs.