Guilder
03-27-2019

One of two Endless Dungeons found in the game, accessible from Inland Crete via Candia, after taking the following steps:

1. Complete Legend of the Labyrinthos quest
2. Complete the Land of the Legendary King quest (R1 Archaeology/Search/English language skills) from Stockholm. (This quest also comes from Amsterdam and London depending on how far along you are in the Xanadu chain, but let's be realistic, Stockholm is easiest and earliest way to access Land of the Legendary King quest, so most will do that version instead.)

After meeting the above requirements, you may enter the Labyrinth Endless Dungeon from the Ruins Interior entrance at the center of Inland Crete's map. Unlike other dungeons in UWO, it is not possible to bring those who haven't yet completed the above steps into the dungeon with you in a fleet. Also, the word 'Endless' isn't just for show -- there are no limits to the number of floors you can run, or at least none that anyone could likely encounter (999 floor limit? I wonder...), but your stamina drops every so often and cannot be recovered with household meds, nor can fallen party members be revived with analeptics.

To advance to the next floor (and the next, and the next, and...) you must either solve puzzle torches or beat up enemies relative to the number of people in your fleet. The stamina loss timer freezes while in battle, so guess which one is a better idea in the long run? Your progress is saved every 10 floors, and you can resume from the next floor after that up to three times (exit on floor 10 after clearing it, start again from floor 11). You'll return to the 1st floor after using up all three continues. However, if your entire party is wiped out, all remaining continues are lost anyway, and it's back to the start for you. Fun.

Additionally, Expedition Ship Boarding Tickets CAN be used to reach this dungeon from an appropriate port's docks; the cost is 10 ESBT per trip. It would save you time and trouble on having to walk all the way out to the dungeon each and every time you wish to challenge it I suppose. Decide for yourself if that's the route you wish to take. Caution: Change Expedition Destination Ticket reportedly cannot be used to change your destination to the Labyrinth at will.


The following can be looted from treasure chests in the dungeon:

Trade Goods: Mandrake, Green Ore, Iron Ore, Tin Ore, Zinc Ore, Cinnabar, Marble, Stone, Steel
Short Swords, Two-handed Swords, Longbows, Silk thread, Velvet, Bronze Sculpture, Marble Sculpture, Antique Art,
Ceramics, Eye-beads, Glasswork, Goldwork, Jewellery, Ivory Work, Fine Clothing, Gold thread
Crystal, Malachite, Coral, Ivory, Peridot, Jade, Emerald, Pearl, Amber, Diamond, Opal, Sapphire, Silver, Gold dust, Gold, Platinum, Lavender

Yikes, that's a lot of stuff isn't it. Note that some goods may show up more than others, or only in special circumstances. I'd love to be more specific but frankly I never went to the Labyrinth for trade goods and didn't pay much attention to what I got there -- with such a high number of them potentially dropping, it's a little difficult (though not impossible) to measure their patterns anyway.

Consumables:

Normal Floor: Fine ruby, Exquisite ruby, Monkshood Anesthetic, Tonic, Spider oil, Asclepius' Medicated Bath
Statue of Ariadne -- do note that this consumable item can only be produced in a hidden passage room with a stamina restoring statue; said statue also contains the recipe for this and a certain weapon listed below. Required skill rank/ingredients/item effect listed on its page.

Equipment: (seem to come mainly from normal floor chests, but possibly hidden ones also?)

Warrior Crest
Mycenaean Soldier's Protective Clothes
Mycenaean Soldier's Foot Armour
Cretan Pantaloni
Cretan Hair Accessory
Minotaur's Axe -- do note that this weapon can only be produced in a hidden passage room with a stamina restoring statue; said statue also contains the recipe for this and a certain item listed above. Required skill rank/ingredients listed on its page.


If you activate the The Fall of Atlantis or Ancient High Technology Treasure Hunt themes before entering the dungeon (which become permanently available after you've cleared the Land of the Legendary King quest) then the above loot table shifts as follows.

Trade goods: Gold, Silver, Copper, Dried Figs, Ivory
Consumables: No apparent change...?
Relics: There are five in all; see the above Treasure Hunt theme links for full details.
Equipment: (seem to come mainly from normal floor chests, but possibly hidden ones also?)

Cretan Loincloth
Corselet Dress
Cretan Headdress

As the stamina statue room's appearance is unaffected by themes active/inactive, the minotaur axe recipe is also available under these conditions.


Puzzles: Two types of torches are present which can be used to advance without fighting enemies. Blue shows you a region of the world and you must select an appropriate discovery from that area to activate the torch, while white is incredibly annoying and nobody probably ever does them 'cause ewww, math.

But if you like torturing yourselves on purpose... erm, enjoy a good mathematical challenge: examine the white torch to see a clock-face style image, then use green torches to make the hour hand "sun" icon move to the 12:00 position in exactly 5 moves. Example: If the first white flame was 12 o'clock and there were green flame torches with 8 and 6 values, then you would activate the 8 flame 3 times, the 6 flame 2 times, or 12 + 8 × 3 + 6 × 2 = 48. In other words, it is sufficient if it is multiplied by 12 when finishing five times. And I totally copy/pasted that example from the J-Wiki. Just saying.

However, doing all of that wastes time, which in turn depletes stamina. And please note that Search/Recognition skills are needed at a certain (admittedly low) level, or else the torches may not activate properly when toggled even if you did the math right, and then you'll have to fight enemies to move on anyway. See? Everything you were taught was wrong; violence really is the answer. Speaking of which...

Enemies:
NPC levels are as low as 20, and as high as 62. The deeper into the dungeon you go, the more likely you are to see higher level NPCs, though breather ones can still show up even as deep as 100+ floors. They mainly favor use of swords/spears/axes/bows; if attacked by more than one at a time, some will change to throwing knives. In addition, some named NPCs (IE, Wolfram Lv59) are rare to encounter, and therefore should be treated like mini-bosses as they tend to have high levels, can chain techs more easily, and drop rare alchemy seals.

Every ten floors (and sometimes even more rarely, in a hidden passage), you have a chance of encountering a boss. An incredibly elusive, stupidly difficult to encounter boss who very, very rarely shows up. Even with the Seeker of the Unknown title I mentioned earlier. Grrr.... anyway, the game coyly refers to this boss as ????; we of course would recognize this hulking bruiser as the Minotaur of mythic legend. He comes complete with a gaggle of ghostly underlings (x7 of them I think) whose levels range from 21 to 62 depending on how deep into the Labyrinth you are when you encounter them. The Minotaur and his crew can drop:

Ancient Map (floor 10-40 version)
Nectar (floor 20-50+ version)
King Minos' Amulet (floor 20-40 version)
Rotting Bracelet (unknown...)

As you'd expect, the Minotaur is quite powerful, having high health points, and boasting total immunity to all status ailment items/techs in the game. That's right, ALL of them. Strangely, his ghostly underlings have no such immunity; you can lacerate/blind/paralyze/poison/burn them quite easily with techs/items and it's recommended that you do so to thin the herd quickly before their large numbers wear you down completely. If you use weapon techs, they will almost certainly be countered by the enemy party but savvy players can sometimes use chains to their advantage anyway.

Note: A JP video playthrough I saw showed that if the Minotaur flashes brightly with the word 'Danger!!' appearing around it, that means the Minotaur is winding up to use a powerful group attack (surprisingly NOT a tech) that can inflict heavy damage and confuse any party members within range of the blow; he can also use a red power tech which inflicts lacerate damage on those struck by it. If he has blue/yellow status inducing techs, I've never seen them demonstrated and am no longer in a position to go minotaur hunting to determine if they exist or what they may do. Feel free to chime in if you know anything. Obviously, try to keep your health maxed at all times and bring items like Antidote/Soma so that the Minotaur's petty little tricks won't work on you.

All boss rooms contain a locked treasure chest, and all non-hidden passage boss rooms also contain a blue flame puzzle torch. Solve the puzzle by clicking the correct discovery picture associated with its description (the latter of which will not be 100% readable if you've not found the discovery before now), and the boss party will leave you alone so you can continue deeper into the dungeon, but the chest will remain locked... but if you defeat the Minotaur and His Fun Friends(tm), then the chest unlocks and one or more of your party may obtain a few pieces of Mysterious Gold to play with.

You have a pretty good idea of what to expect now, so have fun finding out the rest when you do finally get here. I hope this information will serve you well; please excuse any errors on my part. It's been fun -- cheers, great online voyaging to you as always.

Guilder
04-08-2019

Correction: Princess's Hair Accessory is the MA item, not the Cretan Hair Accessory. Sorry for the confusion.

Guilder
10-17-2022

Just a quick note that for the white-flame puzzle torches found in this dungeon, UWODB has a calculation tool to solve the math equation located here: Links

Cheers, and great underground dungeoning to you.