Souls and your daily entry

Everybody gets one free dungeon entry a day, which comes back at midnight Pacific.

The free entry covers whichever door you go through first. Starting your own dungeon with /dungeon run spends it, and so does walking into somebody else’s with /dungeon join. Turning up an hour into a friend’s run costs the same entry that starting your own would have.

What a Soul buys

A Soul buys a seat in somebody else’s run. That is the only thing it does.

Once today’s entry is spent, /dungeon run refuses no matter how many Souls you are holding. It says so, points you at /dungeon join <player> and tells you how long until yours is back.

The daily entry is the limit on how many dungeons a day exist, so a currency that bought a second dungeon of your own would buy off the limit. Souls move you between the dungeons other people have already opened, and the number opened each day stays tied to how many people are playing.

A seat costs one Soul. /dungeon tells you whether you can afford one.

Where shards come from

Four Soul Shards make a Soul.

Shards are a real item lying in loot chests, and roughly one chest in six holds one. It looks like an echo shard and is called Soul Shard. Clicking it in your chest inventory takes it, clears the slot and tells you how close you are, as A Soul Shard. 3/4 towards a Soul. The fourth fuses them and says how many Souls you now hold.

A shard cannot leave that inventory. Shift-clicking, number keys, the off-hand swap and dragging are all refused, so there is nothing to drop, trade or store. Once taken it exists as a number against your name and nowhere else.

Putting the boss down pays no shards by default. The chests are the whole faucet, which puts the reward where the exploring is instead of behind the one fight. A server can turn a clear bonus on with souls.shards-per-clear.

Which entries earn

A free entry earns shards wherever you spend it: your own dungeon or a friend’s, at the start or an hour in.

A seat bought with a Soul earns nothing. Chests still hold their loot and their gear, and no shard is ever placed in one. You are told at the door:

A Soul spent, 2 left. A bought seat finds no shards.

If a bought seat earned as well, a group could cycle each other’s dungeons until the daily meant nothing, so what a Soul buys is the fight rather than a way to keep earning.

The cap

The purse holds five Souls, which is twenty shards. Nothing accrues while you are offline, so a full purse creates no reason to log in, and the ceiling turns hoarders into people who spend one on a friend.

Dying

Dying ends your run. Because a Soul buys you into somebody else’s, it costs you that dungeon rather than the day, which is what makes tuning a dungeon to kill you sometimes survivable.

Checking where you stand

Two lines print when you log in:

Your dungeon entry is waiting. /dungeon run
2 Souls and 3/4 shards  (a Soul buys a seat in someone else's run)

Once today’s entry is gone the first line says so instead, with the time left until it comes back. The same two lines come from /dungeon at any time, along with the run you are currently in.

Some entrances have a board with the same numbers on it, plus lifetime runs, clears and deaths. It shows your numbers rather than the party leader’s, even though everybody is reading the same block.