Draft:Shiren 5 2020:Pitfall of Life

Key Parameters
Initial Goal Floor	25F
Final Goal Floor	99F
Day / Night	Day
Bring Items In	No
Take Items Out	Yes
# of Allies	0
# of Rescues	3
Pre-ID'd Items	All except swords and shields
New Items	No
Shops	Normal (all 3 types)
Monster Houses	Normal, including pop-ups
Characters	Shopkeepers, wandering non-allies
Spawn Rate	Normal
Winds of Kron	Normal (slow) -- 1@1700, 4@2000

Pitfall of Life is a bonus dungeon in Shiren 5 in which you cannot gain experience or level up. It is otherwise notable for being an equipment upgrading paradise and for the valuable reward item you can win. You cannot take items, Gitan, or allies in, but you can request rescue up to 3 times, and you keep the items you have on hand if you win. The dungeon is daytime only and the goal floor is initially 25 F. After beating the dungeon once, the goal floor becomes 99F and stays there permanently.

Gaining Access

This dungeon is hidden and you must first unlock it.

• Beat Tower of Fortune
• Recruit Kojirouta from his home in Inori Village (left-most house) and bring him to the top of the Miracle Alcove.
  • Unlike most allies, he goes after monsters whenever he sees one, and dies often as a result, especially if underleveled.
  • You will need to actively protect him, for example by swapping places with him to move him away from a monster. Items like Confusion Scroll can also help, as well as ways to prevent night (Time Stop Bracelet) and ways to locate stairs quickly.
  • At the Miracle Alcove, he's pretty cocky when he talks to the god and rolls the Dice of Fate, and gets burned to a crisp (but is not dead)
• Return to his home in Inori Village and talk to the rich man (Kojirouta's father)
  • He tries to trick you into opening the big red box at the north end of his house. This springs a big pitfall trap, but you manage not to fall in.
  • The rich man explains the dungeon mechanism of not being able to gain experience, and dares you to dive in

Afterwards, you can access and play Pitfall of Life by going to the same house, or from the Sparrow Transport.

Unique Features

• You cannot gain experience or level up.
  • Killing monsters does not give you experience
  • Student Shields and Growth Bracelets are not available, while using Cheery Grass and similar items do nothing.
• You cannot take items, Gitan, or allies into the dungeon.
• New items do not appear in this dungeon.
• Items that help improve your build appear often.
  • Fate Scroll, Earth Scroll, and Strength Grass are very common.
  • Blessing Scroll, Extraction Scroll, Gambler's Scroll, Plating Scroll, Upgrade Seed, Blessing Pot, Fever Pot, Synthesis Pot, and Modder's Pot appear more often than in most dungeons.
• All items except for swords and shields are pre-identified. Cursed swords and shields are nonexistent or very rare.
• Monsters never drop Gitan bags, except for Froggos, Gitan Mamels, and Ultra Gazers.
• The dungeon is daytime only.

Final Reward

Every time you beat the dungeon, you get a True Knife, a sword that never misses. This effect can be synthesized onto another sword to make the Accurate rune.

Farming Opportunities

Beating this dungeon is the only way to get a True Knife in single player mode.

This dungeon has a high spawn rate of Fever Pots. But it is not easy to take them out, since neither Escape Scroll and Undo Grass appear in this dungeon. (Blank Scrolls are only available if you get the best fortune from the wandering fortune teller.) You may be able to get Fever Pots from doing Adventure While Awaiting Rescue in Pitfall of Life.

If you beat the 99F version, you will probably end up with close to +99 on both your sword and shield, although the rune selection in this dungeon is poor.

Strategy

Success in this dungeon depends heavily on how well you can maximize Blessing Scrolls and Extraction Scrolls.

• You can use a Blessing Scroll or Blessing Pot to bless a Fate Scroll, Earth Scroll, or Strength Grass. Effectively, each Blessing Scroll or Blessing Pot spot gives you +1 upgrade point or +1 strength.
  • Blessing a Blessing Scroll lets you conserve space without losing any value.
  • When choosing an item to bless, it is good to have a balance, although defense is somewhat more important than offense. Each point of Strength is worth more than an upgrade point on the sword, but you will max out Strength (at 50) earlier than you get +99 upgrade points, so there is a tradeoff between early game survivability and late game potential.
• Blessing an Extraction Scroll gives you up to 5 upgrade points (or strength or "blessing units"), assuming you have any pot with 5 items you want to bless.
  • A blessed Extraction Scroll can only be read once, but it blesses everything extracted from the pot.
  • Items to include in a blessed extraction: Fate Scroll, Earth Scroll, Strength Grass, Revival Grass, Extraction Scroll, Blessing Scroll, Monster House Scroll, among others. If a scroll (except Extraction) is already blessed, you can read it then insert it into the pot.
    • The blessed extraction is the reason to keep some of these items around, instead of using them right away.
  • The pot does not have to be a Preservation Pot; you can also use a Synthesis, Ordinary, or Modder's Pot.
  • If you have a Blessing Pot, then you can skip blessing the Extraction Scroll, which frees up one blessing.
    • Using a normal Extraction Scroll on a Blessing Pot with 4 spaces is as efficient as using a blessed Extraction Scroll on a Preservation Pot with 5 spaces. A Blessing Pot with 5 spaces gives you maximum efficiency, but it is only available with a Pot God Scroll.
  • Watch out for traps and monsters when you extract items. You will also need up to 5 spaces around you for items to land.

Fever Pots also let you double up Fate Scrolls, Earth Scrolls, or Revival Grasses.

Monster Detector is one of the best bracelets to wear most of the time, as it warns you of any potential danger. If you don't have one, Monsterphobic can play a similar role, whlie Alert Bracelet can protect you from some dangerous situations. The other bracelets should be switched on and off: Item Detector when you enter a new floor, Staunch Bracelet on floors with Polygon Spinnas, Cleansing on floors with Mutaikons, etc. Having the sword and shield resonance that lets you equip two bracelets also helps.

Test out all your swords and shields as soon as you find them, as it will help you maximize your Synthesis Pots. Cursed equipment is very rare, and you will almost always have a Fate, Earth, Exorcism, or Plating Scroll to remove the curse. When synthesizing, Make sure you don't exceed the upgrade point or rune limits on your swords and shields. If you have a sword or shield with upgrade points but a bad ability (such as a Glass Dirk +3), it is possible to synthesize the upgrade points onto your main sword or shield if it is already at rune limit. For more info on Synthesis Pots, see here.

Some useful runes include the Day Shield, which can considerably reduce damage from monsters. The Breeze Blade rune for your weapon can greatly help you. Since Gitan bags don't drop (with a few exceptions), the runes from Dirk of Debts and Pauper's Plank are risky, unless you steal from shops a lot.

You can increase your maximum HP by eating a Life Grass or eating a Herb, Otogiriso, or Heal Grass at full health. This should generally be done as soon as you can. Alternatively, you can turn them into runes (both sword and shield) on floors with Mixers. (13 - 15, 31 - 33, 50 - 51)

Grass Dudes appear on floors 36 - 38, and you can farm grasses from them. The most dangerous grasses do not appear in this dungeon, so you can have a Grass Dude throw grass at you, leave the Pin Poppa alone until it regenerates grass, and repeat. You will reach the strength cap of 50 pretty quickly, while also picking up maximum HP boosts. Try to avoid take hits, since Herb, Otogiriso, and Heal Grass only increases your max HP if you are at full health. Note that Polygon Shakas appear on floor 36, which can interfere with the farm. Grass Gramps appear on floors 61 - 62.

If you have the Anti-Theft rune (from Lock Shield) or a Perceptive Pot, you can farm Zaloklefts for items. (17 - 18, 21 - 23, 59 - 62) Make sure you pick up or destroy all items on the floor, since if a Zalokleft finds an item on the floor, it will warp and the item it spawned with will be lost.

The final 15 floors feature two of the most dangerous monsters in the game: Ultra Gazers (86-91 F) and Mesmerikons (90-99 F).

Ultra Gazers can hypnotize you when you are in the same room as it. If you have a Monster Detector, use projectiles and staves to kill or disable it from where it cannot see you. If there is an Ultra Gazer that you cannot hit with a ranged attack, use a Confusion or Slumber Scroll. A Reflective Pot protects you from Gazers for an entire floor, whereas Anti-Gaze Trge (or the Anti-Hypno rune derived from it) renders them completely harmless.

Mesmerikon can throw Rage Grass at you if you are within 5 spaces of it, or in other words, an 11x11 area centered around itself, even through walls. This can be fatal if you run into a Swordmaster (90 - 97) or Cranky Tank (98 - 99). Dodger Pot protects you from thrown grasses on the current floor. As with Ultra Gazers, stay out of range as much as you can, and disable them immediately if you are within their range. Anti-Parry Bracelet or Perceptive Pot could save you from Swordmasters if you cannot avoid becoming Berserk, whereas Zen Pot can be useful against Cranky Tank. If you have an Extinction Scroll, use it on a Mesmerikon (or any Mutaikon monster on an earlier floor).

Consider saving up some Gambler's Scrolls and blessing them, to use on these final floors. Each scroll gives you a 1/7 chance to skip ahead 5 floors, so you can use them to skip some particularly nasty floors. Read the scrolls on the exit stairs, and watch out if you get the swift monster effect. Note that this strategy is very risky if Mesmerikons are already extinct, since getting the extinction effect from a Gambler's Scroll will make them appear again. (as there can only be one extinct monster family at a time)

Expert Badges

1. You conquered a dungeon without equipping any weapons!
2. You beat a dungeon without using a shield or bracelet!
3. You conquered a dungeon without eating any food!
4. You conquered a dungeon without using any talismans!
5. You conquered a dungeon without using any pots!
6. You conquered a dungeon without collapsing even once!
7. You conquered a dungeon without doing any direct attacks!
8. You conquered a dungeon with your max HP at over 250!

Monsters

The types of monsters that can appear in this dungeon have not yet been replicated to this wiki. Here are good external resources:

• https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1C1h9IRPQPLg9g7aE48wlyw8IudHIStawK4mR3kuggto/edit?usp=sharing
• https://seesaawiki.jp/w/shiren5/d/%bf%cd%c0%b8%a4%ce%cd%ee%a4%b7%b7%ea (Japanese wiki page for this location)