Cave

*This is about Kingdom Two Crowns.*

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Is this the final location to end the Greeds vile existence, to put an end to their monstrous pursuit to end our rightful expansion? Only time will tell!
The **cave** is the Greed lair on each island. It is accessed through the cliff portal.

Destroying the cave secures that island and it stops the greed spawning on it, even if there are still standing portals there.

## Outside

### Marching

A bomb can be purchased at the iron keep for eighteen coins.

Before paying for the bomb, it is advisable to destroy all small portals on the cliff side. And, if the cliff is too far from the town, it is better to build further walls or wait for a truce past blood moon to avoid encountering greed raids on the way.

Building the bomb triggers a cave assault where:

1. The Monarch (if in co-op, the closest one to the cliff) leads the march to the cave.
2. Up to three builders push the bomb. 【  】They will halt if they reach the Monarch leading the march (or if the Monarch goes behind them); and will resume the stride when the Ruler goes ahead again.

3. Two squad leaders with their soldiers start following the Monarch. 【  】This detachment is chosen from the sea side first and then from the proximities of the bomb. They will defend their Monarch leader and/or the bomb: whoever is closer to the cliff.
If there was an ongoing regular assault to the cliff portal, it is cancelled.

Arriving with the bomb at the cliff portal, it won't release a defense wave; even if the portal is active. Nightly waves, however, keep their everyday routine.

If the Greed attacks the bomb and destroy it before it is lit, the offensive to the cave is dismantled. The explosion of the bomb, in this case, won't harm any friendly units. A new bomb can then be bought to restart the march.

### Entering

Once in front of the cliff portal, the builders stop pushing the bomb. The Monarch must then spend five coins at the bomb to be able to enter the portal. The whole escort will follow along with the bomb. In cooperative mode, both players must enter together.

The state of the portal does not matter, including being destroyed.

The Monarch can exit anytime. This saves the escort but ends the assault and the bomb is lost.

## Inside

### Greed nest

* Intact
* Falling
**Intact**
**Falling**

Inside the cave, there are a number of nests, which spawn groups of four to six greedlings when they sense a hostile presence, and can be destroyed much like small portals. A greed nest, representing the Greed idea of a tree, has the appearance of a purple tumorous octopus with its "legs" stuck on the ground as if they were the immersing aerial roots of a mangrove plant. Each nest has 80 hit points, and loses its "legs" as it is damaged, until it collapses. If the monarch leads them close enough, knights can also damage Greed nests. The number of greed nests depends on the island on which they're located.
The tables below show their number per land.
As Norse Lands has one more island, its numbers are displayed on second table.

Number of greed nests per cave on campaigns:

 Nests

Number of greed nests per cave in Norse Lands:

 Nests

The caves in Skull Island and Lost Islands have only two greed nests.

### Hive

Near the end is the hive, the heart of the cave. It does not attack.

Right behind it, at the very end, there is a pool guarding it by spawning greedlings once the last nest falls.

Both cannot be directly attacked, instead, the bomb is set on them.

### Destroying

Once the bomb reaches the hive, it stops and its eyes glow.

The Monarch must then pay five coins to light it, which causes:

* the screen to shake
* the pool to unleash a last, much stronger wave of greedlings
* the builders to run for the exit
* the squires/knights to walk for the exit. 【  】This typically causes them to be hit and appear as vagrants outside the cave.

## Exiting

#Explosion
Monarchs have only a short time to escape the cave explosion.
This time varies between fifteen to thirty real-life seconds, depending on the island.
On caves infested with more nests, the times are longer in absolute values, but not necessarily more lenient, if compared to the distances the mounts have to run.
The bomb fuse is also a bit longer if monarchs are playing co-op.
【  】It is best to recover full mount stamina before lighting the fuse, and doing so from the bomb's edge, but even then slower mounts may not make it.

Reaching the exit in time causes premature explosion right at that moment, for fake tension.

After the explosion the Monarchs appear in front of the cliff portal, along with the builders, a random part of the escort in whatever state they were in at the time of the explosion, as well as any gems, hermits and/or the dog that were lost to the greed on that island. To recover them though, the Monarch must have escaped the explosion.

A couple of popup sheets display various game stats, then gameplay resumes.

The cliff portal is henceforth permanently destroyed and can not be accessed again. The remaining greeds (if any) retreat back into the nearest portal (or cliff portal if none), and no more ever spawn on the island.

In cooperative mode, if one of the Monarchs does not escape the explosion, they will lose the Crown, but the island is secured, and a new Crown may be crafted by their partner.
If the only Monarch in single player or both in co-op do not get out of the cave in time, the island remains secured for their Successor. In this case, any gems spat out of the cave can be recovered by a Heir if they "revisit" the place. Also in that situation, any hermits or dog spat out of the cave are lost, but Heirs will be able to replace them by using coins on their respective original places. If the Heirs visit the cave on that island, they may find its portal open. This is nothing but a visual glitch: the portal won't spawn any greed as that cave is already destroyed.

## Single play exploit

The following steps exploits the fact that a single player can activate and deactivate local co-op at any time:

1. go on splitscreen
2. go inside the cave
3. reach the hive
4. player 1 go near the exit
5. player 2 activates the bomb
6. exit splitscreen
7. exit the cave.

## References

1. ↑ "Greed Lair" trading card on *Steam*.
2. ↑ Also called **greed dimension** or **greed realm**.
3. ↑ The solo and co-op times were tested on version 1.1.4.
4. ↑ I found an exploit on bombing the portal. User jaxbackstab0011 on *Reddit*. 7 May 2020. The exploit was tested on version 1.1.2.