So, what's a budding hero to do? Stop and take a break for Block Defense. He talks to the old woman at Wardna's house, who is now ready to let him play. As soon as he agrees, he's teleported to a plain in the middle of nowhere, simply titled "Road to Dotnia". The rules to the game are relatively simply (that is to say, kinda complex):
Waves of enemies walk along the dirt path toward the exit, and Frum has to defeat them before they escape, lest he lose one of his 20 LIFE points. At zero life points, the game is over. If he has some money left over after a wave is defeated, he gets a small bonus equal to a percentage of the money he has left in reserve. Money dropped from enemies can be used to place new towers, or upgrade existing ones. Unlike most Tower Defense games, Frum can also attack enemies himself with his sword. Standing still will allow him to slowly gain experience and level up, to a maximum level of 10. A few foes will drop Crystals, which can be used to purchase new types of towers and other upgrades from the merchant on the map (PixelJunk Monsters has a similar system). To balance things out, Frum is only allowed to use his rusty sword. He is given three towers to build with while starting out: Arrow Towers, your cheap, all-purpose tower; Cannon Towers, which deal heavy damage to ground targets; and Anti-Air cannons, rapid-fire weapons that supplement that arrow towers against air targets.
The first wave
is a group of weak bunnies. Frum stands still for a bit to gather his strength so that he can take them out without needing to build any towers. The second wave is a group of trees, which are slower but more durable, so he uses some of his money to build a pair of Arrow Towers, which help him take care of some of the enemies he can't defeat with his sword alone.
Next up, shambling zombies. They have even more HP than the trees, so Frum upgrades the two towers and lets them do the work for him as he sits by and levels up, only moving around to collect the gold from them.
Wave 4 consists of goblins, necessitating the use of a third leveled-up Arrow Tower. At the end of the wave, an armored knight wanders onto the battlefield. It takes Frum's sword skills to bring it down, yielding a shiny crystal. He visits the Merchant to see what new items he can purchase with it. There are Fireball Towers, which fire powerful fireballs at land and air targets; Quake Towers, which cause area-of-effect damage against land targets; Slow Towers, which slow down and damage enemies; and Missile Towers, which are expensive and slow-loading, but attack with powerful missiles (and cost two crystals instead of one). He can also choose to add to his percentage bonus, or restore five LIFE points. As the next incoming Wave is a group of speedy Centaurs, he trades for the Slow Tower and places one near the entrance. It doesn't make that big of an impact, but Frum is able to use it to prevent any from slipping past his defenses.
Wave 6 has durable Golems. The Slow Tower helps slow them down even further, and the Arrow Towers do the rest. Just in case they don't, he sets up a Cannon Tower around the bend. The Skeletons that arrive in wave 7 are more closely bunched together, somewhat limiting the Slow Tower's effectiveness, so he has to break out his sword once again to assist them.
Wave 8: BEES! These are aerial targets, so the Cannon Tower is mostly useless. I say "mostly" here because there's another Knight at the end of this road, which means another crystal for Frum. Instead of buying a new tower with it, he uses it to increase his end-of-wave bonus from 5% to 10%.
Wave 9: Fast-moving slimes (perhaps they were the ones that the man in Raejack alluded to earlier?) They move so quickly that the towers have trouble keeping up with them.
Wave 10: More Zombies. Frum upgrades all of his towers and lets them go to work for him. Most of the money dropped by the monsters almost falls right into his lap.
Wave 11: A stronger batch of tree monsters prompts Frum to build a fourth Arrow Tower near the first corner. It takes much longer for Frum to gain experience now, so he decides to get up and help the towers stop them and the improved rabbit monsters that appear on the next wave. After defeating the knight and taking his crystal, Frum peeks ahead at the next wave, noticing that a group of floating blue things that may or may not be ghosts are next, so he trades for the Fireball Tower, places one down, and lets it go to work.
Wave 14: Golems again. Having that extra Arrow Tower at the beginning helps, as they don't get too far.
Wave 15: Skeletons again. Some of them slip past Frum's group of towers, but he eventually emerges victorious with enough cash in his pocket to upgrade his towers for Wave 16 (more Goblins). He himself has gained plenty of strength watching the battle, so he joins in and helps his towers out. He uses the crystal to add to his Gold bonus once again while he prepares for wave 17's centaurs. Predictably, they come in quickly and furiously, so another Slow Tower is in order.
Wave 18: Even more Zombies. Not that much stronger than the Centaurs, so Frum doesn't have to do much.
Wave 19: Actual Ghosts. Frum upgrades the Anti-Air and Fireball Towers and lets them fight.
Wave 20 onward: The enemies are getting much harder to kill, so Frum purchases a Quake Tower with the Crystal he gets from the Knight on Wave 20 and hopes for the best. Amazingly, it's taken almost until wave 23 for any enemies to slip past the towers' defenses, ruining Frum's bid for a perfect score. At the end of the final wave, not one, but THREE knights barrel through, shrugging off most of Frum's defense, but he manages to kill one of them, saving the day and earning 100G for his heroism.
