Karos' Defence

**Karos' Defense** is a minigame in Aurelia. It consists in defending Karos from hordes of monsters while he mines gems and gold.

The minigame is a type of light tower defense, with the protagonist shooting arrows at hordes of enemies coming from the right. Enemies will come in waves and will try to attack the protagonist, lowering his HP. The player can use 2 spells and build wooden barricades to help fend off the waves. Each enemy can drop an item when killed based on your Luck stat. Every 10 waves, a boss is encountered. The first 30 waves show 3 unique bosses, each dropping a unique artifact.

10 waves need to be cleared to unlock the dialogue with Karos that will advance Scarlet's “Scarlet's Bed” quest.

Clearing 30 waves unlocks the endless game mode. Levels past 30 tend to be much longer with much more monsters. The boss that is encountered every 10 levels is random from among the 3 and there are no unique drops anymore.

## How to Play

This game costs the whole day to play, which means it will always be night when you finish. To start the game, visit Orson's bar during morning or afternoon, talk to Karos the Minotaur and select “Karos defense”.

The main controls consist of mouse movement to aim and left click to shoot an arrow. The arrow travels in an arc and there's a bit of delay between shots. The damage dealt scales off of your Power (POW) stat. At 20 Power you hit for 15 damage a shot, at 25 Power you hit for 18 damage.

* 'Q' makes your left click rapid-fire for a few seconds. Costs a small amount of MP.
* 'W' then left-click casts a wave that sweeps across the bottom of the screen, from left to right, hitting every monster on the ground. Costs moderate MP.
* 'E' then left-click casts a slow fireball in the direction of your cursor. It can only hit a single enemy, dealing heavy (twice) the normal damage that your arrows do. Costs a lot of MP.

Monsters will spawn and come from the right. Sometimes they also spawn in the middle of the screen (red Specters can spawn monsters). Some monsters walk and some others fly; some are slow and some are fast. Many flying monsters cast projectiles that do a lot of damage. Projectiles can be destroyed if you shoot them before they reach you. After a set amount of monsters are killed, the level is complete, and you get an intermission.

During the intermission, you can choose between continue playing (dealing with the next wave), build a barricade (that will cost 5 Firewood) or flee. Depleting all your HPs ends the minigame, forcing you to flee, keeping considerably less loot. Beating all 30 waves for the first time or deciding to flee lets you keep all the loot gathered up to that point.

## Monsters and Bosses

### Monsters

#### Blue skeleton

The base skeleton. Slow speed. Drops *Bone ashes* x1.

#### Green skeleton

1.5x tougher than the blue one. Slow speed. Drops *Bone ashes* x2.

#### Red skeleton

Twice tougher than the green one. Slow speed. Drops *Bone ashes* x4.

#### Jumping skeleton

As tough as the green skeleton. Fast speed, will also ignore your wooden barricade and land behind it. Drops *Battered skull* x1.

#### Rogue

Throws knives at your barricades or you. Medium speed. Drops *Weird eye* x1.

#### Blue/red/green specter

Flying enemies, medium speed. The blue specter will throw fireballs at you, the red specter will spawn one skeleton at a time, while the green specter is healing himself and other enemies. Drops *Ectoplasm* x1.

#### Hovering ghost

Weak but very fast, this ghost is flying near the ground, rushing towards you. Drops *Ectoplasm* x1.

#### Gargoyle

Very tough and very slow. Drops *Broken fang* x1.

#### Banshee

Flying, medium speed. Will fly for some time before it turns into some kind of arrow, rushing towards you. Drops *Antique rag* x1.

### Bosses

#### Arbac, the Archmage

A Goat Demon that flies around, casts two skeletons from time to time, getting invincible until you destroy them, and casts fireballs. Drops *Abrac's Horn* once, then *Ectoplasm* x4.

#### Orgos, the Golem

A rock golem that only takes damage when shot in the head. Orgos creates a rock wall from time to time, that will protect it until you destroy the wall. It also sends a rock boulder towards the player, that will destroy the wooden barricade. Orgos has two fists that will come flying towards the player when attacking. The fists can be destroyed, but will eventually regenerate. Drops *Orgo's Heart* once, then *Battered skull* x2.

#### Von Kamfeer, the General

An armored Dark Knight. Casts fireballs and small scythes, both can be destroyed. Drops *Von Kamfeer's Helmet* once, then *Diamond* x1.

## Strategy (spoiler)

Placing the mouse cursor just at the top of one of the two smaller pines right below the center mountain, then spamming left-click, will hit and kill most if not all ground monsters. Pivot the mouse upwards as needed to hit flying enemies, then downwards again to hit ground enemies that are near the player. It is recommended that you have at least maxed your Power attribute, allowing you to hit for 15 damage per shot. You may want to have upgraded your HP a bit as well, although it should not be necessary to clear the 30 first waves. Having some *Firewood* in order to slow down the denser waves might help a bit.

If you don't have 20 points in Power, you can gain +15 until the end of the day by drinking an Potion of Power (XL).

## Achievements

* **That's a Big Goat** – Defeat Arbac, the Archmage.
* **Rock and Roll** – Defeat Orgos, the Golem.
* **Castlevania Reference** – Defeat Von Kamfeer, the General.

## Notes

* As of v0.20.1 gem fragment drop rate has been severely nerfed. Clearing 30 waves & going home gives you only a handful of gem fragments. It is unknown if this change was intentional or if it's a bug. As of v0.25.2, a 70-wave run with a Luck stat at 23 resulted in: 2620 gold, 14x *Ruby fragment*, 5x *Sapphire fragment*, 6x *Emerald fragment*, 11x *Topaz fragment*, 6x *Diamond fragment*, 2x *Diamond* (2 encounters with Von Kamfeer), 42x *Bone ashes*, 10x *Weird eye*, 40x *Ectoplasm* (2 encounters with Arbac), 12x *Broken fang*, 9x *Antique rag*, 16x *Battered skull* (3 encounters with Orgos).
* In v0.19.2, positioning your cursor a bit below the peak of the second mountain then spamming left-click allowed you to hit and kill 99% of the monsters. With 20 Power, you could clear all 30 waves without ever needing to use any MP. In v0.20.1 the arrow's travel arch was changed, so you could not do this anymore.
* This page was last checked and completed on 13/10/2022.