Royal Maze
The Royal Maze is a quick play, somewhat randomly generated dungeon mode available upon completing patch 2.2 of The Sleeping Hero and the Guiding Ally expansion that explores the lore of the Brave Hero Alvan, his Ally Kamil, and a previous age of Gran Zedora. It is accessible from the golden door in Brave Princess Anlucia's bedroom. This is played as a solo endeavor with yourself and Anlucia, with the option to take a Fellow Monster along with you and provides a way to increase Anlucia's level and abilities to allow her to perform excellently in story battles that she makes an appearance in. This timed mode can be enjoyed by any class (Recommended Level 60+), and is lucrative from both an accessory and extra items perspective. The main accessory to be gained from this mode is an Augite Belt and will be explained later.
Preparing Anlucia
The first aspect of the mode that should be explored is equipping Anlucia with equipment and activating abilities.
Equipment
Anlucia can equip any sword and any shield, regardless of level. She is mainly a normal attacker, but also knows healing spells and can learn Zap-line spells, so give her your best offering.
The sword and shield are removed from your equipment bag, but they are retrievable from Anlucia at any time.
She can also equip any costumes that you have unlocked for her.
Skill Allocation
Anlucia has several ability lines focusing on different aspects. They are:
- Courage: Percent chance battle buff triggers.
- Truth: Magical enhancements along with Zapple & Kazap.
- Justice: Dodge Rate and action speed with a crit bonus.
- Spirit: Physical enhancements and On-Attack Chance to debuff the enemy.
- Focus: Survivability and the Multiheal Spell, with a Battle Start Sap.
Each has a maximum of 40 points. Anlucia can reset her skills at any time and you can even deduct points from any ability line as you please.
Admission
To pass through the golden door, you must relinquish three Courage Augites. These are a resource that replenishes by fifteen(15) each week and also can be obtained through trading Augite Belts at a rate of 1-to-one, with a maximum stockpile of 60 Courage at once. As a complimentary, you start with 30 Courage when you unlock the mode. Once inside, you'll start at the Royal Tomb where you can walk up to the shining door and pick your stage.
- There are three varieties of environment: A Garden, Desert, and a Forest that each appear in order.
- Each environment is composed of two battle maps, two intermissions, a boss arena, and an exit hallway where you can exit with your spoils and learn another piece of Alvan the Brave's last mission.
- At the end of every Forest map, the Sealed Monster is replaced with a set of vengeful Ghosts. There are many levels to the Royal Maze--each time you clear one, the next floor will be unlocked.
The general flow of a Royal Maze stage is:
- Another Lobby > Battle Map > Intermission > Battle Map > Intermission > Boss Sanctuary > Wrap-up Corridor
The goal of a Royal Maze run is to defeat as many enemies as possible, to gain as many Sparks of Courage as you can, so that you can exorcise as many Dream Boxes as possible while still completing each stage.
There are 13 stages of Royal Maze, with the 13th stage having only a Boss Sanctuary.
Battle Maps
Each foray into the Royal Maze starts with 200 Sparks, or seconds, of Courage which deplete without pause in real time while you're in a battle map. The Sparks pause while you are preparing in an intermission map, and also pause until you engage with the floor boss in the Sanctuary. Every monster you defeat will dissolve into Sparks of Courage, which add precious seconds to your timer immediately and also store in orbit around you. When you complete a battle map, the stored Sparks of Courage add even more seconds to your Spark Timer for the next area, making the next map less strict. It is not mandatory that you defeat all the monsters, but each one you do take down makes your future easier.
If the remaining Sparks of Courage amount is reduced to zero, you are kicked out of the Labyrinth. Progress is lost and all items forfeited.
The areas are beautiful to look at, but there's no time to waste--you gotta race!
Every step counts. This can be a test of your menuing ability, memorization, and confidence in your class and you always want to emphasize overall speed. The first map can be tight on time. It is recommended to keep around 70 seconds when approaching the doorman as a safety buffer against unexpected complications. In intermissions, don't forget to replenish your resources ! There's little time to do so in the battle map unless you're ahead of schedule.
While in a battle area, you can see monster icons by pulling up the map or on your mini-map:
- Blue symbols are normal monsters. Each creature in the battle will drop 1 Spark of Courage to add to your Spark Timer upon defeat.
- Yellow symbols indicate a stronger and larger monster with more HP. Each will drop 2 Sparks of Courage.
- Red symbols indicate a boss. They will drop 2 Sparks of Courage.
- Purple symbols indicate a Dream Avatar. More information is being collected on this.
- Golden four-point star symbols indicate a Spark of Courage. This is a pickup that will immediately add Sparks to your timer and your stored amount. A godsend if you're short on time.
Special Monsters that are not Dream Mimics will drop 3 Sparks of Courage.
Intermissions
When you clear the first and second Battle Areas, you'll arrive at an Intermission island. Here, you'll be presented with one to three Dream Demons that are happy to trade you enchantments for Sparks of Courage. Expect to pay up between 15 and 40 Sparks of Courage depending on their whimsy.
They are:
- Love Demon: Offers Battle-Start buffs such as Attack/Magic buff stages, Faster Caster, or Snap Crackle Poof.
- Fiend of Desire: Offers "Meta" buffs such as increased drop rate of Boxes, Experience Point Multipliers, Movement Speed(!), and Gold multipliers
- Djinn of Power: Offers percentage increases on stats such as Attack Power +20% and chance of double-casts.
Also in every Intermission, flanking the exit door, are two Dream Boxes of any quality.
Dream Boxes / Worldly Boxes
This is the real reason you're here. In Royal Maze, you can encounter a variety of different Dream Boxes from a variety of sources. Dream Boxes come in a few flavors: Copper, Silver, Gold, and later, Dragon. They could be on the floor in a Battle Map or Intermission, or a drop from a monster inside a gold chest.
- Dream Boxes that are out on the map are wrapped in darkness and must be purged from it in order to pick it up. Ones found in Monster Chests are already untainted.
- Purging a Dream Box requires you to spend Sparks of Courage in increments of 20, starting with Copper. (So 40 for Silver, 60 for Gold, and 80(!) for Dragon)
Once you complete the Labyrinth stage and bring the boxes out, they become Worldly Boxes and you can open them to get at the goodies inside. This can be very rewarding as not only do they contain Augite Belts, a powerful accessory, but they also have a variety of items such as Metal Slime Coins, Magic Maze Coins, Yggdrasil Leaves, and more.
Make sure you have adequate Item Inventory space before doing Royal Maze runs!
| Copper | Silver | Gold |
|---|---|---|
| Augite belt | Augite Belt | Augite Belt |
| Lottery Ticket (1 - 2 ea.) | Lottery Ticket (1 - 3 ea.) | Mini Medal (1 - 3 ea.) |
| Magic Water | Magic Water (1 - 3 ea.) | Metal King Medal |
| Yggdrasil Leaf | Yggdrasil Leaf | Red Orb (1 - 2 ea.) |
| Green Orb | Metal Slime Coins | Gaia Dragon Coin |
| Metal Slime Coins | King Hydra Coin | and more! |
| Apex Belial Coin | Uberkilling Machine Coin | and more! |
Another Labyrinth
After clearing Basement 13 of Royal Maze, an additional mode will become available with more darkness to purge: Another Labyrinth!
"Another Labyrinth" Mode is a second page of Royal Maze destinations and the additions are immediately apparent.
Another Lobby
- Firstly, exiting from the Royal Tomb puts you in Another Lobby, where there are two large Djinns; Left & Right Ministers.
These fellows offer a variety of effects in exchange for three Courage Augite. In other words, you're trading another admission into Royal Maze for this benefit. The effects are powerful, but weigh whether or not you'd simply do another run instead.
- When you clear the Labyrinth floor, just like regular Royal Maze, one more area will be freed up.
- Special Monsters like "Incarnation of Dream" bonus Royal Mimics and Dream Mimics will have an increase to their appearance rate.
Yellow symbols, where monsters are powered up, are also more frequent.
- In Another Labyrinth, Dream Dragon Boxes begin to appear. These require 80 Sparks of Courage to exorcise, but always have an Augite Belt in them.
Don't forget how tight some of these sections can get and don't let your greed get the best of you!
- Finally, every Labyrinth Boss is now enhanced and even stronger than before. Take care!
Right Minister
"Don't do business with that unrefined lout to the left...My magic is both ancient and modern!"
Strong magic worthy of Augite... This guy offers enchantments such as:
Turns the Dream Boxes in the second Intermission into Dream Dragon Boxes each. (Remember this is 160 Sparks)
Dream Boxes are three times more likely to appear.
Left Minister
"Don't do business with the shabby looking fellow to the right...My magic is the best in the world!"
Only by trading Augite could you get effects like this... This one offers enchantments such as:
Halves the total consumption of Sparks of Courage when purging darkness from Dream Boxes.
Quadruple Experience and double the training stamps.
Light Ruler
"I am the shining king. Rejoice, for you are very deserving of my blessings."
This dude is a massive champion. If fortune shines on you, the Ruler of Light will come and modify your Labyrinth...for free!
The Light Ruler can offer to swap the Sealed Monster of the Another Labyrinth for a Dream Dragon Mimic at no extra cost of Courage or Sparks.
This is an excellent opportunity to go crazy on rewards while also being a test of battle management. Read the segment on the Dream Dragon Mimic below for more details.
Mimics
There are several types of Mimics that can appear in the dungeon. Royal, Dream, and Dream Dragon.
Royal Mimics
These fellows are Wardrobe-style mimics and are predominantly white cabinets with gold trim.
The author of this article does not know much about these other than they can randomly show up in regular Royal Maze, too.
Dream Mimics
These critters might appear in your Labyrinth. Dream Mimics show on your map as a normal monster, in blue, on your map.
They know Desperate Attack so watch out for run-ending crits.
Dream Mimics will always drop a Dream Gold Box from their gold chest and also have a strong chance to respawn each time one is defeated. Highly valuable encounters, but gauge your time and be careful not to over-greed.
Dream Dragon Mimic (Big Dream)
These guys are brought about by the Light Ruler and are an optional swap for the regularly scheduled boss fight in Another Labyrinth.
The fight can be tough if you're not prepared because the true objective is slightly different.
In addition to Kasnooze, Oomph, and Desperate Attack, The Big Dream Dragon Mimic has the ability to Call Ally to summon more mimics into the fight. It will call Dream Mimics and also Dragomimics. They all know Desperate Attack.
Importantly, every Mimic abides by their normal drop rules. Dream Mimics will drop Gold Boxes and Dragomimics have a chance to drop Dragon Boxes. The Big Dream themselves can drop any box.
Thusly, the clever way to face this boss is to not to vanquish it immediately, but to prolong the fight for as much time as you can comfortably spend on it while keeping the boss active and available to Call Ally.
You can keep the clock running down to the last second since this is the boss chamber. It will pause the moment the fight ends. Just keep in mind the fight ends when all enemies are defeated, not just the Big Dream!
As long as you are careful, you can weather the barrage of toothy treasure chests and reap big rewards.
Augite Belts
So what about those Augite Belts, then? Why are they important? Augite Belts are definable waist accessories obtainable from Dream Boxes in Royal Maze. You can determine what effects are on the Augite Belt by sealing away undesirable effects. Sealing an effect requires 1 Sealing Sand, which is obtained from crushing an undesirable Augite Belt at the golden door. If you need to reset your seals, this costs 50 Sealing Sand. There's more to it than this, but the author has not learned all they could just yet.
Mobile App
Coming as information is gathered.
