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
NPCs	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

This guide details the ways to improve swords and shields. The main focus of this guide is on crafting powerful gear to use in post-credits dungeons such as Lost Well, but the first few sections have some tips that apply to dungeons where you cannot take items in.

Leveling Up Equipment

Swords and shields gain experience and level up as you fight monsters while have them equipped. Levels 1-7 show as numbers on the item, while level 8 shows as a 5-pointed star icon instead. The green bars next to the item's icon shows how close it is to the next level. It takes more experience points to gain later levels. Fighting tougher monsters on deeper floors yields more experience per fight. As a piece of equipment levels up, it gains improved base stats, an improved magic effect (if any), a higher max upgrade value, a higher max rune count, and sometimes new runes.

When you use the Upgrade Seed, you gain Tinkerer status, and your equipment gets a lot more (4x the usual) experience per victory. If you can bless the Upgrade Seed first, Tinkerer status will last longer. A good time to use an Upgrade Seed is right before attacking a monster house. (You can create your own monster houses with the Monster House Scroll or a Blank Scroll.) If you don't have a monster house, eat the Upgrade Seed as you enter a new floor, as there will be more monsters available to fight. An Upgrade Seed can also help you level up a new, better base weapon quickly, so it has enough capacity for all the upgrade points and useful runes on your old weapon.

The fastest ways to level up many pieces of equipment at once is the Level 8 Equipment Easy Trick, which relies on the Gambler's Scroll. This is especially useful for something like the Glass Dirk, which can break as you use it.

A wandering character can level up Shiren's items, but this requires giving the item to the character, who will disappear and will only give the item back once she's encountered on a different dungeon run. It's generally not a good idea to do this with your primary gear.

Upgrading Equipment

The upgrade value refers to the + value after the name of a sword or shield. For most swords and shields, the upgrade limit increases by roughly 10 every time the item level's up, and becomes 99 at level 8.

The simplest way to increase upgrade value is to read a Fate Scroll for swords or an Earth Scroll for shields. As a bonus, this will dispel any curse or seal on the item. A blessed scroll can be read twice. The rare Darth Scroll upgrades a random sword or shield in your inventory that you didn't select. The blacksmith at Hermit's Hermitage can upgrade items for 1,000 Gitan once per encounter. In some dungeons, one wandering character (a bent old man) upgrades your item for 1,000, while another (the blacksmith's wife) takes your item away to be upgraded by a lot, only returning it the next time you run into her. This can be anywhere between just a few floors later, or much later on a future run. If you encounter her, consider giving her a spare piece of equipment and merge it with your main equipment when you get it back.

In a dungeon run, you can hold off on reading a Fate or Earth Scroll for a bit, so you can bless it if you find a Blessing Pot or Blessing Scroll. If you find an Extraction Scroll, you can get even more uses out of a Blessing Pot filled with Fate and Earth Scroll. Whether delaying reading the scrolls is a good idea depends on how much you need the extra power right now, and whether you can afford to carry the scrolls around.

The upgrade value on your equipment can decrease in a few ways. Mudkin family monsters can decrease the upgrade value on your equipped sword or shield. Seal them before fighting them, or unequip yourself then fight them. If there are no other monsters around, they are completely harmless if you have no sword or shield equipped. Your equipment can also rust if you step on a Rust Trap. Having the Rustproof rune prevents the upgrade level from being decreased. The Rustproof rune can be obtained in a few ways: reading a Plating Scrolls, synthesize with Dull Gold Edge Type or Gold Shield Type, or talking to a specific character and paying them 2,000 Gitan.

An Upgrade Pot causes items inside it to gain upgrade points as you change floors, but it is very rare and can break as items level up. If you find one, you are probably better off using it in a Mixer recipe. The rune obtained from it (Refining) has a chance to give the sword or shield more upgrade points every time you change floors.

Runes and Synthesis

Runes are magical enchantments that you can apply to your swords and shields. Once applied, a rune lasts forever unless you or a monster remove it. Most runes are good, while a handful of runes are bad and a few are situational.

To take advantage of synthesis and runes you will need a Synthesis Pot. Synthesis Pots always have a capacity of 5 when you first find them, and they are fairly common in most dungeons. If you find a 5-spot pot for sale for 7,500, or one that the shop offers 2,625 for, it is very likely to be a Synthesis Pot. Outside of dungeons, you can buy a Synthesis Pot at the Point Shop for 400 points, and they are often for sale in Hermit's Hermitage and Sparrow's Inn as for 7,500 Gitan.

Once you have a Synthesis Pot, insert the sword or shield you want to enhance first, then insert a second sword or shield. The second item will be destroyed, but its magic essence will be turned into a rune and applied to the first item. For example, if you insert a Red Blade and then a Dull Gold Edge, the Synthesis Pot will now contain a Red Blade with the Rustproof rune added, since Rustproof is the inherent magic effect of Dull Gold Edge converted into a rune. Swords will only merge with swords, and shields with shields.

The resulting item has the type and level of the first item, the combined upgrade value of both items, and the modifier status (blessing/curse/seal) of the second item. If the second item already had runes on it, those will be added to the first item too, as long as the rune limit isn't exceeded.

Generally speaking, you want to use a sword or shield with strong stats (Red Blade, Helix Shield) as your base item, and convert swords and shields with magical effects (Nap Rattle, Breeze Blade) into runes to add to your base item. There are some exceptions to this rule however, since some equipment items have magical effects that grow stronger as they level up, but you only get their effects at level 1 if you turn them into runes.

If you build up a sword or shield with many runes and upgrade points, but then find a better base item, you can migrate your progress to the new base item. You may need to level up the new base item before all the runes can fit on it. Whether you should switch to a better base weapon or not depends on your situation, and in particular, how many floors are left in the dungeon.

If you have a Pot God Scroll, you can use it after putting in some items to add more capacity to the shrunken pot.

A few things to note while working with Synthesis Pots:

• If there are several items you want to merge together but some of them are cursed, make sure the last one you synthesize in is not cursed, and the resulting item will not be. Likewise, if one of the items is blessed, add it last and the resulting item will be blessed. (Though blessings on primary swords and shields don't tend to last long.)
• A given piece of equipment can have only one copy of any given rune. In addition, a sword or shield with an innate magic effect cannot have the related effect added as a rune. For example, the Dull Gold Edge is inherently rustproof, so you can never add the Rustproof rune to it.
• Make sure the first item has a high enough upgrade limit and rune limit for the synthesis. The merged item's inherent ability will be added first, then any runes on the second item in the order they are listed, until the rune limit of the first item is reached.
  • Let's say you have a 14K Gold Blade with +10 upgrade points and the Tri-Direction, Confusing, and Augmenting runes on it. Then you find a level 1 Red Blade and you want to transfer your progress from the 14K Gold Blade to the Red Blade. If you do the synthesis right away, the Red Blade will only get +8 upgrade points and will only have Tri-direction, Rustproof, and Confusing runes. This is because level 1 Red Blades can only have a maximum of 8 upgrade points and 3 runes. The innate effect of the 14K Gold Blade will be turned into a rune and added first, then runes will be added in listed order until the rune cap is hit, so the valuable Augmenting in last position will be lost. But if you level up the Red Blade to level 2 (Fine Red Blade), it will be enough to hold all the upgrade points and runes.
  • You can use rune limits to your advantage as well. For example, if the level 1 Red Blade already has 3 runes, it is safe to merge in a Rusty Pickaxe +3.
• Try to use all 5 spots of the Synthesis Pot, ideally for 5 items of the same type. It is possible to (say) use 2 spaces for swords and the other 3 for shields, but this is less efficient.
• On the other hand, there are a few reasons you might want to use a Synthesis Pot at less than full efficiency:
  • Scoopies and Trip Traps can ruin a Synthesis Pot if you carry it around for too long.
  • Using a Synthesis Pot frees up many inventory slots.
  • Powering up your main equipment can improve your chance of survival right now.
• Using a Synthesis Pot can take a few turns. Make sure there are no nearby monsters, and watch out for Pop Tanks especially. Prepare all the items you want to merge in your main inventory, so you can add all 5 items in a single turn with multi-select. Make sure there are no traps in the area, and work next to a wall so you can smash the pot against the wall and pick up your item(s) quickly.
• Make sure you do not have the Cannon Arm state from a Can. Arm Bracelet or a Dracon Grass when you throw your Synthesis Pot against a wall, or the items will be lost.
• You cannot synthesize with unpurchased items. If you put an item with a price tag into a Synthesis Pot, it will not merge.
• The Blazing Shield's magical ability can't be synthesized onto other shields.
• The Diurnal rune and Nocturnal rune can't both be added to the same shield. If you try to add both, whichever one you add first will stay and the 2nd one will be lost.
• If you're trying to identify an unknown pot by using it, and you think you've found a Synthesis Pot, beware the dreaded Modder's Pot. The Modder's Pot is in effect an unbreakable Synthesis Pot. The only way to get items out of Modder's Pot is the Extraction Scroll. In most dungeons, Synthesis Pots are more common and appear on earlier floors.

Synthesis with a Mixer

In effect, the Mixer Family have a more powerful Synthesis Pot in their belly. They can merge swords and shields (and staves) just like a Synthesis Pot, but they can also merge other items, such as a grass, onto a sword or shield, to produce a rune on the sword or shield. There are also Mixer recipes that consume 2 or 3 items to produce one rune. See Runes for a list of all runes and Mixer recipes.

Throw the items at the Mixer for it to swallow, and kill it to get your item out. If the recipe didn't work, you will get back your items unchanged.

By default, the size of a Mixer monster's belly is its level plus one; a level 1 Mixer has 2 spots in its belly. If you throw a Stomach Expander at a Mixer monster, it will gain an extra empty spot. For example, throwing a Stomach Expander at a level 1 Mixer results in a level 1 Mixer with 3 spaces in its belly, all of which are empty. You can also use a Glorious Staff to increase the level of a Mixer monster (and thus increase its belly), and it is safe to do this even if the Mixer has items inside.

Things to note while working with Mixers:

• All the above points related to Synthesis Pots also apply to Mixer.
• Be mindful about how many open spots are in a Mixer's belly, and make sure it still has a spot before you throw an ingredient at it. If the Mixer is full, the thrown item will behave like a normal projectile and be destroyed.
  • If you want a thrown item to hit the Mixer, such as a Glorious Talisman, make sure it has a full belly.
• Do not throw items at a Mixer if it is asleep, sealed or paralyzed, as the item will act like a normal projectile and be destroyed. A confused or slowed Mixer swallows items as usual.
• Beware using a Mixer in a dungeon that can change between day and night. Make sure to complete your recipe and get your items back before the time changes, else all monsters will disappear taking your items with them! Do not mix after you get a nightfall warning. A Time Stop Bracelet prevents the sudden change of day/night.
• Mixer recipes work regardless of the order you throw the items in. Aside from sword + sword and shield + shield, it is not known whether the order affects the result in any way, for recipes such as sword + grass or any of the multi-ingredient recipes, especially when either the sword or another ingredient is cursed or sealed.
• Mixers gain attack power for every item they swallow. It is risky to merge runes directly onto your main shield, since a high level Mixer with upgraded attack power can kill you in one hit if you are not wearing a strong shield. Make sure you have the items to help you deal with a powered up Mixer. A Slow Staff lets you kill a Mixer without taking a hit, provided you have enough room behind you and you don't walk onto a trap. Talismans and projectiles only work if the Mixer already has a full belly, and they have a chance to miss. Likewise, watch out for other monsters while mixing items onto your main shield. You can also mix the runes you want onto another piece of equipment first, then later merge them onto your main equipment via a Synthesis Pot.
• High level mimics (N'twyn and up) can disguise as unidentified items in your inventory, and cause items to fail to merge for no obvious reason. This cannot happen with fully identified items.
• A Crow Tengu can look like a Mixer, but any item thrown at it will be treated as a projectile and destroyed if it hits.
  • Lure the monster to walk across void or water. A Tengu will fly over those tiles, but a Mixer cannot and will walk around.
  • See the page for your location, or use this external resource to see if Tengu monsters can appear on your floor.
  • Throw a test item (that doesn't mix) to see if the Mixer swallows it. The test item will take up a slot, so make sure you count the number of remaining slots correctly.

Choosing Base Swords and Shields

There is no perfect answer as to what is the right sword or shield to use as your base item. Here are some considerations:

• The Red Blade and the Red Shield are the strongest items that also resonate to let you equip two bracelets. There are some great bracelet effects, so being able to equip two is very powerful. These can be found in most dungeons including the Tower of Fortune.
• The Kaburagi and Helix Shield have the highest base stats in the game without also having a terrible downside. They resonate to add 10 more damage to your direct attacks. But, these are non-trivial to acquire, and other level 8 items that are fully maxed out will be powerful enough for most situations.
• The Pathetic Blade and Pathetic Shield are almost as strong as the Kaburagi + Helix Shield pair and are easier to acquire. They also have an interesting resonance in that monsters will sometimes retreat from you.
• Many swords and shields have magical effects that scale up as the item levels up, but only if you use them as base items. If you turn them into runes, you will only get the effect at level 1. For example, a level 8 Day Shield has a much stronger damage reduction effect than a shield with the Diurnal rune.
• You can make a New Item with bonus great effects built-in. But if you add runes to it, you can never migrate those runes to other equipment later. This can become problematic if you later make an even better new item.
• When you're in a dungeon where you can't take items in, it may be better to choose weaker equipment as your base either because it levels up faster, or because it manifests runes at an earlier level. See Dungeon Tips for some good options in these dungeons.

See Swords and Shields to explore your options.

Improving Equipment Outside of Dungeons

Once you've played a bit and gathered the appropriate materials, you can turn your dungeon-based storage unit in Nekomaneki Village into an upgrading factory. You will need to have read Extraction Scroll at some point on this save file, to be able to write it on a Blank Scroll. Find a Blessing Pot and bring it back to your dungeon-based storage unit in Nekomaneki Village. Use Pot God Scrolls on it until it's the maximum size 5. Fill the Blessing Pot with Fate Scrolls and Earth Scrolls. Buy Blank Scrolls from the Point Shop and write Extraction Scroll on them. The Extraction Scroll will empty the Blessing Pot and you can read the 5 blessed Fate and/or Earth Scrolls. After you read them once each, put them back into the Blessing Pot to re-bless them.

Effectively, this means each Blank Scroll provides 5 equipment upgrades. You can max out the upgrade values of your primary equipment this way for relatively few points.

When you want to use Mixer recipes, use the Sparrow Transport to jump directly to Lost Well (or stop in first to do some shopping at Sparrow's Inn first if you prefer). Lost Well floor 1 and 2F have level 3 Mixer monsters, suitable for all recipes. Take care not to let night fall while your valuable equipment is inside a monster, else it will be lost. A Time Stop Bracelet or a new item bracelet with Time Stop on it is useful. And of course, take strong equipment so you don't die there, and make sure to take an Escape Scroll or Undo Grass in with you so you can escape the dungeon at will when you're done crafting.

Lost Well is one good place to refill points, too. Points Traps there provide you more points up front than in most dungeons, and by the time you get really deep in Lost Well, you can get over 200 points per Points Trap. Gorger's Manor is probably the single best place to refill points, as you can begin getting 200 points per Points Trap on 48 F or possibly even a bit earlier. You will need strong equipment, appropriate safety items and a way to escape the dungeon (such as blessed Undo Grasses). See the location pages for what to bring in.

See Mass Production if you are interested in crafting in bulk.

Protecting Your Equipment

Since you lose all your equipment if you die, you should always carry an Undo Grass, available for 70 points at the Point Shop. The Undo Grass triggers automatically if you die and lets you revive or escape the dungeon with your items, and a blessed one works twice. If it is your last Undo Grass, always escape so you do not risk losing your items. If you are just starting out and do not have Undo Grasses yet, keep some Revival Grasses and an Escape Scroll on you, and escape when you lose your last Revival Grass. While it may be tempting to try to press on and use the Escape Scroll at the last moment, sometimes you won't have the chance to do so. A Blank Scroll can be used as an Escape Scroll in a pinch (writing on a Blank Scroll does not take a turn).

Make sure your most valuable swords and shields are tagged at all times. When you lose tagged equipment, it will show up in the lost-and-found in Hermit's Hermitage. Note that a tag does not protect a sword or a shield if it was turned into something else. See Item Tagging.

If you lose a valuable piece of equipment that wasn't tagged, there is a very slim chance you can get it back. Sometimes a single lost sword or shield can appear in the fields of Inori Village, or on the rooftops of Hermit's Hermitage. For both of these locations, no other item can appear there until you pick up the item that is already there, so check them regularly and make sure they are empty.

There are many horrifying ways to lose your items other than dying.

Horrible Thing That Can Happen To Equipment	Ways To Help Prevent It
A Swordsman can knock your equipment out of your hands, having it fly backwards. If your equipment item hits a monster behind you, it will be destroyed. It can also fall into water/void and be lost. The level 4 variant, Swordmaster, knocks the item away to some random location many tiles away.	Fight Swordsman with your back against a wall, so any item that flies away will just land at your feet. (This won't work against Swordmasters.) Fight them at a distance or in ways they have zero chance to swing back at you, for example with an arrow or with the Breeze Blade effect around a corner. Zap them with a Seal Staff. Use a Seal or Berserker Talisman, although these can miss. Wear an Anti-Parry Brce. or a bracelet with that effect on it. Use a Perceptive Pot.
A Field Knave can throw Weeds at you from a distance and knock items out of your inventory. I don't recall if this can happen to equipped items or just unequipped items, but IIRC it causes your item to drop at your feet rather than flying away. Knave Kings can turn your items into Weeds, including your equipment, if they are next to you. (Confirm)	Avoid being in a straight line with a Field Knave. Seal Staff, Seal Talisman, Berserker Talisman, Anti-Parry Bracelet, and Perceptive Pot can all help in the same ways as vs. a Swordsman. Using a Dodger Pot will make sure their Weeds always miss.
A Nigiri Morph can turn items in the inventory into onigiri.	An Onigiri Shield or the rune derived from it prevents this entirely. Blessed items resist turning into onigiri about 99% of the time, but this isn't a great solution for your main sword/shield because they lose blessings as they are used. Disable or seal it before it can attack you. You can kill an Onigiri monster outright by throwing an Onigiri at it.
A Gazer monster can hypnotize you, causing you to remove your equipment or throw it away, possibly hitting a monster or into water/void. Ultra Gazers can hypnotize you from anywhere in the same room.	An Anti-Gaze Targe or the rune derived from it can prevent this. Disable or seal it before it can gaze at you. Immunity Scroll and Reflection Pot prevent hypnosis. Ultra Gazers are so dangerous that it may be best to escape from a run if you cannot deal with them immediately.
A Bored Kappa can throw a sword or shield at you, which can be forcibly equipped, dropping your equipment at your feet.	Pay close attention to what happened to your primary equipment and make sure you retrieve it. Do not leave it on the ground.
Mudsters and Mudders can remove tags and runes from your weapon and shield.	Fight them from a distance. Zap them with a Seal or Transient Staff. Unequip your weapon and shield before fighting them. Use a Blank Scroll as Tag Scroll.

The PS Vita and the game Shiren 5 are both incredibly stable, but they can crash. If data is important to you, back it up if you can. One way to back up data from a PS Vita is with the built-in Content Management App and the QCMA open source project. (This can also be used to "save scum" aka cheat. But generally speaking, the content on this wiki is about how to beat the game as designed.)

References

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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 F)

Grass Guys appear on 36-38 F, and you can farm grasses from them. The most dangerous grasses do not appear in this dungeon, so you can have a Grass Guy 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 36 F, which can interfere with the farm. Grass Gramps appear on 61-62 F.

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 F) 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 F) or Cranky Tank (98-99 F). 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)