Part 20: Cold as Ice

#18 - Cold as Ice



Hello everyone. Wizard Sam is on the way to one of the last biomes we have yet to explore today.



Several updates back we briefly visited the surface of the ice biome, but today we're going subterranean.



I don't remember if I showed it off or not, but like many other biomes, the ice caves entrance is an otherwise unremarkable hole in the ground.

Terraria Soundtrack vol. 2 - Ice

I have to applaud Terraria's soundtrack dude for not taking the easy way out and using Christmassy music. Sleighbells are the usual audio shortcut for winter areas, and I'm glad they're not present here.



Anyway, people have been alluding to something in the thread for most of the LP. So I'd be remiss if I didn't show this off. First we're going to need some ice blocks.



Next we're going to need some ice torches.



Finally we're going to need regular arrows. Frostburn arrows are incredibly powerful ranged attacks. They inflict the frostburn debuff, which only a very tiny handful of monsters in the game are immune to. Furthermore, frostburn can't be put out by jumping into water, and it even deals more damage than the standard "on fire" debuff.

And you can have enough to last you an eternity for a very cheap investment of digging up ice. 33 ice blocks + 99 torches = 99 ice torches. 10 arrows + 1 ice torch = 10 frostburn arrows.

So 990 arrows + 99 ice torches = 990 frostburn arrows. Frostburn arrows are hilariously good, and you can have them as early as your first night in Terraria if you know what to do. These will be shown off in an upcoming update, when we face one of the few remaining bosses in the first half of the game.



So anyway, the ice caves. I try to not spend a lot of time here. They're a gigantic honeycomb network of passages, and most of the surfaces down here have ice physics.



Speaking of ice, the underground ponds all have thin sheets of breakable ice on top. If you do anything but gently walk onto these, you're gonna fall straight through.



Like so.



Anyway, there's not a lot to really show off about the ice caves. The only reason you'd even come down here is if you want a functionally infinite supply of ice blocks or if you want the unique loot. We're all about the loot, so let's see if we can't find any treasure chests.

And the biome-specific slimes. Because Terraria also has more types of slimes than a Dragon Quest game.



Unfortunately, because the underground ice caves are just a lot of unconnected passageways, you're left with a lot of digging and guesswork.



Well this is an oddity. We dug into a small chamber full of breakable ice. If we jump onto any of the surfaces of this room with enough force, we're taking a trip down to the bottom.



Why is there a skeleton statue hooked up to a button down here?



This gives me a chance to show off that some statues are spawners. If you use wire and hook them up to a button, or switch, or whatever, then they'll spawn a monster. Why was a skeleton spawner was hooked up under a huge chamber full of fragile ice, though?



Proving the game RNG is spiteful, the spawned skeleton drops a hook item.



Finally, an underground ice cabin.



Ice blades are pretty good if you can get your hands on one early enough. This is something we'll come to find out in the second half of the game more, but melee is going to start meaning "shoots a projectile that deals melee damage." So this is just the first in a long line of weapons that are going to do exactly that.



The ice biome actually has two slimes. This fellow here shoots out spikes at us.



If you remember back to the very start of the LP, the very first decorative statue we ever found was of an Undead Viking. These are them.



In an underground icy marble biome, we find another new enemy. This is an ice bat, because I haven't suffered at the hands of awful flying rats enough.



Marble biomes have their own houses. I do have to say, I really like the look of polished marble blocks.



I always hop aboard minecart rails if we come across them. They almost always lead somewhere worth going.



By the way, here's what the ice blade looks like in action. If nothing else, the little ice balls are great for lighting up dark caves.





But this is what I've been looking for! We now own all three double jump items! Though as fun as quad jump can be, it is more than a little overkill if you ask me. So we'll just hang onto this for now. Once we have some more items, we can combine all the double jump bottles into a single amazing accessory.



Now this... this is new. I don't think I'd seen one of these before this moment. This potion can randomly teleport you around the map. It will always place you on a solid block in relative safety, though it can't be used to sequence break the game. Each map has two areas that require beating bosses to enter, and teleportation potions will never put you into either location until you beat those bosses.

But beyond that, you can wind up anywhere. So what the hell... bottoms up!



Well, it's certainly a lot warmer here. Warmer and humid.



Here's the world map. The jungle we've explored is to the right. We're not very far away from there, actually.



We were just below yet another marble biome. But in this marble biome we can see some yellow water. That there is honey, which means we're very close to a gigantic beehive.



In fact, here it is. We'll break into that another time however, as our inventory is incredibly full and a boss fight awaits within.



Also yet another entry in the slime parade for today. Spiked jungle slimes shoot venomous spikes at us, but are otherwise just another type of slime.



With only a couple minutes of exploration, we've found torches from our last expedition into the jungle. So we were remarkably close to where we were before. That's pretty lucky!



Forward, into the unknown!



I don't believe I've shown them off before, but mother slimes appear all over the cavern layer of the world. Once you kill them, they break apart into three baby slimes.



Like so.



Is that a chest I spy?



THIS is what I was looking for last time. This Staff of Regrowth will allow our herb farm to expand. When we harvest herbs with this, we will get a bunch of herbs and seeds back. So this will be permanently hung on the wall in our greenhouse.



Oh hey! A little past the tree, we found this camping spot. That's a stack of silver coins next to us, and a deactivated campfire next to it.



It wasn't a lot of silver, but some is better than none I guess.



Back at home, we'll end this update admiring our greenhouse. We'll have to expand it fairly soon, but for right now, we're doing pretty well for ourselves.

NEXT TIME: Joel 2:31 ESV