Part 21: Love in an Elevator

#19 - Love in an Elevator



Hello everyone. Today is a very important day in Rivershire. You see, today we're embarking on a massive building project.



We don't have nearly enough stone bricks. This is every piece of stone we have currently, and our brick count is woefully low. So we're going to have to wing it as we go.

You're probably wondering what we're going to be building. Well, it's simple. You see, we need an easy way to get back to Hell. Right now, if we want to return to the underworld, we have to navigate the labyrinthine caverns. Under the best of circumstances, that still takes forever to do, and we have to do all manner of platforming while navigating down.

What if there were an easier way?



But first, we're going to combine one of our double jump bottles with the balloon we found. This frees up an accessory slot, allowing us to have all three bottles equipped at the same time.



Now, to quickly return to hell, we're going to need to dig a gigantic pit. So the first step is to build a little house to contain that pit, so nobody can accidentally fall in. Here you can see gray stone brick walls, a meteor door, and a copper plated roof. You make copper plating by combining some copper ore and some stone block at a heavy work bench. I really like the way it looks.



The easiest part of creating the pit is just to start digging. Some people recommend you use bombs, but I prefer neat little holes instead of a blasted-open crater all the way down. And, yes, we're going all the way down.

You see, today we're creating what is known as a hellevator. We're literally digging a massive trench all the way down through the world.



We're a short ways into the dig when we run out of torches. Honestly, I just buy them from Edwin at this point because we're flush with cash, and it costs almost nothing to buy a full stack from him.

It's a good thing we're in town when we are, because the sun sets and a new status message appears...

Blood Moon Video

Here's the whole blood moon. Unwittingly guest starring in the very first part of the video are Gary Butterfield and Kole Ross of Duckfeed.tv fame.



Blood moons are pretty dangerous times in Terraria. They can start appearing as soon as you have 120 life, although they can only occur on nights when there is a moon in the sky.



Usually in Terraria, more than 3 NPCs in an area will suppress hostile mob spawning. Blood moons do away with all of that. The whole game world will take on a reddish tinge, and the spawn limit on monsters is removed. So they're going to come fast and furious at us.



Blood zombies are one of two new types of enemies during a blood moon. They're otherwise normal zombies, but they just are bloody.



Water takes on a red color during a blood moon. Passive creatures will also become hostile. So the little bunnies you see hopping around will become red and evil. There are actually two types of hostile bunnies, and they depend on the (primary) type of evil in your world. So we'll see crimtane bunnies, but not corrupt ones.



Both the crimson and the corruption have a type of herb growing within, called deathweed. Blood moons are one of only two times that deathweed will bloom. So if you need some seeds, be sure to head out there to get them. Though be aware that you're gonna be absolutely swarmed by monsters while you're hunting.



In one of the less mature "jokes," female NPCs will be irritable and annoyed during blood moons. I'm sure you can guess why.

Though speaking of NPCs, they will also get new stock in during blood moons.

The Merchant will sell throwing knives.
The Arms Dealer (who I still need to show off) will sell Silver Bullets.
The Dryad will stop selling Purification Powder, Grass Seeds, and Sunflowers. She will start selling evil seeds and powder that you can use to spread the crimson/corruption.
The Painter will start selling the Evil Presence painting.



The enemy I'm shooting at here is called a Drippler. It, like the bloody zombie, also only spawns during a blood moon. Both it and the bloody zombie both have stupidly rare drops (less than 1%) but we don't get lucky here.

Also for some reason our glowing mushroom farm turns bright pink.

Actually, why don't I take this time to show off the arms dealer's inventory.



Musket ball - 7 copper coins - (Your basic unit of ammunition)
Silver bullet - 15 copper coins - (2 more damage than musket balls. Always available in the second half of the game.)
Unholy Arrow - 40 copper coins - (Penetrates through up to 3 monsters. Available at night after defeating the Eater of Worlds or Brain of Cthulhu.)
Flintlock Pistol - 5 gold coins - (10 damage pistol weapon. Used to be used to make the space gun, now just available in general.)
Minishark - 35 gold coins - (Super fast assault rifle. 6 ranged damage, 33% chance to not consume ammo. It's good. Real good.)
Illegal Gun Parts - 20 gold coins - (Used to make high end weapons. Notably used to craft the Minishark's bigger, meaner brother.)







But yeah, that's the blood moon. Monsters swarm your base and you get to fight them off. It's pretty fun. Anyway, back to the hellevator in progress.



I like to line my hellevators with brick, as well as run a rope down the full length. So you can safely fall all the way down, and grab the rope at the end to save yourself from going splat into the infernal ash far, far below.



Plus you get to see all sorts of neat caverns while digging down.



It doesn't matter where you start digging, your hellevator is eventually going to run into a pocket of water. Usually you can just dig straight down, and eventually the water will drain off when it reaches a lower cavern.



Like so.



Digging a hellevator is not a quick process. On a large world like we have, it will take hours upon hours.



You'll also find a bunch of long-forgotten and buried minecart tracks while digging. If you're anything like me, you will also get so fucking sick of this tune:

Terraria Soundtrack vol. 2 - Alternate Underground



So almost an hour and a half after that last screenshot, I started a new recording. In that time I found a gigantic spider cavern that our hellevator ran right through the middle of.



It normally wouldn't even be worth mentioning, but we found something in this spider cavern. You see, rarely these cobweb infested biomes will have a treasure chest inside.



Inside these spider chests can be found a grappling hook called the web slinger.



The web slinger lets us shoot out eight webs at once. I've never actually found one before now, and it's pretty rad as you might expect.



We still have a very long way to go. We've made some good progress, but we can't rest on our laurels yet.



I wish I could be more informative or entertaining here. But digging a hellevator is a tedious process. Just be thankful you can read through this in a few minutes. It took me somewhere close to 6 hours.



One of the random skeletons we've killed dropped this. It's another of those weapons that would be great if we had found it earlier.

By the way, not pictured here is me using a lot of TNT to clear away and drain off a massive underground lake that was right in the path of the hellevator. I'm still not entirely sure where all of the water drained off to, but it eventually disappeared into a dark black cavern never to be seen again.



Oh, there it is. It disappeared into a granite biome.



Eventually you're going to run into lava. This is your chance to stock up on enough obsidian to last you a lifetime. Also this is still that same water that has been hounding me for the past 45 minutes. It was a massive underground lake.



The second recording ended and this next one picks up a full hour later. We're much closer, but we still have quite a ways left to go. We've actually gone deep enough that we've used almost 2000 pieces of rope, two full stacks, and we still aren't done.



We're most of the way down through the earth when, for the second time this update...





This time we stake out a killing ground and spend the night doing target practice. But anyway, back to the hellevator once more.



That blood moon interrupted us just before we reached the pre-Hell background. So we're pretty close now.



We're close enough that Hell's version of a giant worm comes to say hello. This is a bone serpent. He used to drop a piece of equipment for several patches, but eventually that item was changed to be craftable.



But after I don't know how many hours, we're finally done. We finally have an express elevator to Hell. Even better, because we ran a rope the whole way, we can easily get out as well.

Now I know this would be a good place to end the update, but how about a boss fight to see us out? The hellevator is done, and after doing nothing but dig for several hours, I'm ready for some action. So...



Remember this old man? He lives in the front of the dungeon. Tonight we're going to break his curse.



The boss fight will start the second we hit the curse dialogue option. So be prepared. You don't really need to build an arena to fight him in, not for normal mode at least.





Skeletron Boss Fight

So, Skeletron used to be a bit of a speed bump for folks. His head has 4400 HP, and his two hands have 600 each. 5600 HP is a lot to tear through in a single night, so we have our work cut out for us.



The most dangerous part of Skeletron is his arms. So we want to take those out pronto. To that end, we've brought out the frostburn arrows we made last time.



After swiping at you several times, Skeletron's head starts spinning at you. Coming in contact with the head while it's spinning deals 25 damage per tick. Being hit by its swipes only deals 10 damage. While its head is spinning is the best chance we have to pile on damage, because it does nothing for that entire time.

If you're clever, you can slowly kite the head backward, stabbing it with a spear the whole time. That really piles the damage on, and is in fact how I earned my first Skeletron kill.



Breaking one of its hands means that the hard part of the fight is very nearly over.



The fight is now all but over with both hands down. Now we just need to dodge the slow moving head. Because both arms are dead, the head's only attack is to try and spin at us.



In this state, it's pretty pitiful. So let's put it out of its misery.



And just like that, we've broken the old man's curse and defeated one of the few remaining bosses in the first half. The Skeletron hand pictured is yet another grapple hook. I'm still gonna keep using the web slinger because I like shooting out a bunch of hooks.



We also get our first trophy. Each boss in the game has a low chance to drop a trophy to hang on the wall of your base.



But that, I think, is a wonderful spot to leave off on.

NEXT TIME: What do you say we go into that dungeon?

EDIT AFTER THE FACT: Well fuck. My recording for going into the dungeon was lost. So I'm gonna have to record delving into some other world's dungeon to show it off. So just be aware that the dungeon we see in the next update won't necessarily reflect Rivershire's.