General Long's trials

In short: General Long in Twin City runs nine solo boss trials from level 50 to 130, three wins a day, and losing one costs you nothing.

Twin City keeps a soldier who has spent his life losing to things stronger than himself, and writing down how. He keeps nine of them. You fight each one alone, and each pays once a day.

Where

General Long stands in Twin City at (429, 241). Click him and he lists the trials you have reached and not yet taken today. Pick one and he tells you what it does and what it pays before you commit to it -- choosing which three to spend the day on is the whole decision.

How it works

• You fight alone, in a copy of the arena nobody else can enter. Whatever happens in there happens to you and the boss and nobody else.
• Losing costs nothing. No experience, no dropped gear, no lost attempt. You are put back exactly where you were standing and may walk straight back in.
• Only a WIN spends a trial, and you may win three a day. Which three is your choice.
• Each boss pays once a day. Beating the same one twice pays once.
• Ten minutes is the limit for a single attempt. Nobody has needed nine.
• Bring an empty bag. The General checks before he opens the arena and will not let you fight a trial whose prize you could not carry -- he says how many slots you are short.

The ladder

Each rung teaches one thing. That is deliberate: a defeat should tell you what you have not learned yet, not merely that you lost. Move at 60, handle what comes with him at 70, move sooner at 80, learn that backing off is not an answer at 90, learn to run towards him at 100, to step aside at 110, and to leave him alone a while at 120. Long's Shadow asks all of it in one fight.

Two things worth knowing before you go in

The boss is measured against you. Its health is not a fixed pile — it is a fixed number of your blows. A Trojan and a Taoist fight the same number of swings, and the fight lasts as long as your class takes to land them. Good gear still ends it sooner, up to a point; poor gear makes the ten minutes real without making the fight impossible.

Armour saves you from its sword, and nothing saves you from its fire. An ordinary swing is reduced by what you wear. The ground strike is a share of your own maximum life and lands in full — at every level, in any armour. Standing in it is a mistake you cannot buy your way out of, which is the whole point: these fights ask for attention, not for numbers.

Reading the fight

Three warnings, three different answers. The higher bosses use more than one and rotate between them, so the words matter — a reflex that saves you from one will kill you on the next.

• "the ground beneath you glows" — walk. Anywhere. Two steps is enough.
• "it draws the fire INWARD" — run at the boss. Everything beyond a few paces of it burns, and the safe circle is inside its own reach. This is the one that catches careful players.
• "it levels its blade at you" — step sideways. The whole line is cut, so running away down it is exactly as fatal as standing still.
• "acolytes begin to mend it" — stop hitting the boss. They are frail, and while one lives the boss heals faster than most players can cut.
• "it is bleeding, and furious" — the last quarter comes faster. If you are low, drink first.
• Guards do a fraction of the boss's damage, but three things hitting you at once is how most attempts end.

Where to start

Take the trial at your own level. The first three are meant to be won on the first try; from eighty upward you should expect to lose one before you learn it, and that is what losing being free is for.

Where to find them