Part 19: Bat out of Hell

#17 - Bat out of Hell



Hello everyone, and welcome back to Rivershire. Here you can see that our surface glowing mushroom farm is coming along quite nicely. Six rows of 39 mushroom grass is more than enough to convert the surrounding area into a mushroom biome.

This is important for the second half of the game, when one of the game's NPCs will only move into one of those. In fact, before that time comes, we'll actually double this farm in size. It takes almost no resources to do so, and it helps us out immensely.



But today we're not worried about that. Today we only have one mission. Today, we're fulfilling this thread's title and going to the center of the world.



It's amazing how fast you can descend through the caverns when you don't have to manually dig. By the way, look to the left side of this screenshot. There's one of the demonite deposits that I snuck into an earlier update.



This otherwise unassuming wall hides a mini biome.



Yes, that is a wall of cobwebs in front of us. This is the spider cavern. There's actually an NPC that spawns inside a spider cavern, and you can access her as early as the beginning of the game if you get lucky.



The background tiles for the spider cavern can make it difficult to see light. Though we shouldn't destroy these background tiles, because any spider caverns will infinitely generate cobwebs for the duration of the game. So if we ever run low, we can return to harvest more.



After a few minutes of looking over the cavern, we finally meet one of the inhabitants of the spider caves. This is a wall creeper, and it has 100 HP.



I usually never find this NPC in the first half of the game. Spider caves aren't rare mini biomes, but they are uncommon enough that you're incredibly unlikely to stumble across them accidentally. If you pay attention, you can sometimes find them by following the screeches of the spiders that spawn inside.

Anyway, this is the stylist NPC. She lets us change our hair style and hair color.





Her name is Bri and she has an adorable bow in her hair. She'll eventually make her way back to town, so now that we've found her, it's best to move on.



Moving on, we kill a skeleton and it drops this. The Ancient Iron Helmet is a pretty rare drop from skeletons, and can actually be used as a piece of the iron armor set. Its appearance is what iron helmets used to be super early in the game's life, back before the 1.0.3 patch. It's a curiosity, but really nothing more.



A little further down, and we're back to where we mined out our obsidian. Time to explore even deeper!



Spelunking down near lava is hazardous, so often the best course of action is to pave over it with something nearby. Usually I wind up doing this with stone.



By the way, don't jump on strange TNT plungers.



It never turns out well.



Still, dying always teaches a lesson. Even if that lesson is as simple as "don't jump on a TNT plunger you moron."



Unfortunately, spelunking in the lower depths of the world is not an exciting endeavor. Usually it involves finding a gigantic lake of lava and digging around it. Riveting stuff, I know.



The good news is that we're getting closer to the center.



While exploring down in this new cavern, a new and very rare friend comes to say hello. This is Tim the Wizard, and he has a 1-in-200 chance to spawn at random. We can actually manipulate his spawn chance by crafting a mage robe.

20 silk pieces at a loom crafts a regular robe. Then you combine that with 10 gemstones to create a "gemmed robe." These gemmed robes reduce your mana usage by a percent from 5% for an Amethyst Robe to 15% for a Diamond Robe. Wearing one also changes Tim's spawn chance to 1-in-50 because you "need his hat."



This hat.



While it looks good on Sam, I like the sunglasses better.



While returning from the exploration trip, a cave bat starts harassing us. We kill it and it drops this. The Chain Knife has a 0.4% drop rate, or 1-in-250.



The weapon is exactly what it sounds like, a knife on a chain. Our current stuff is better, but it's not a bad weapon for earlier in the game. The wiki specifically says it is a great weapon to use against the Brain of Cthulhu, as it keeps the Creepers away wonderfully.



The change in background tiles means we're just above the center of the world. There's something kind of ominous about these lava veins lining the walls.



You can kinda see it, but the game has added a "heat" filter like you find in the desert.



We did it! We've reached the center. If you've never played before, take a moment to take a deep breath before continuing on. Because shit is about to get weird.



Terraria Soundtrack vol. 3 - Underworld

Looks normal so far, right? Just a lot of ash and lava. For what it's worth, the little plants in front of us are fireblossom. Like I said a few updates back, these guys only bloom in the afternoon.



You see, we're not just in the center of the world. We're in the underworld. We dug down so far that we've reached actual Hell. This charming fellow in front of us is a fire imp, and he can shoot fireballs through walls.

You often find this fact out when you start taking damage from an enemy you can't hit, clear across the screen.



He, and every other enemy in Hell, are also immune to lava damage.

So anyway, I'm sure you all have been wondering about this purple chest in front of us. These are shadow chests, and to even unlock them, we need to venture into the dungeon to recover a Shadow Key. These chests are worth the trip, though. They often have some of the best and strongest equipment in the first half of the game.



Pots in Hell will drop more money and better quality stuff. You're almost guaranteed to find Hellfire Arrows, which explode when they hit a target. Also instead of dropping lesser healing potions, pots in Hell will drop regular healing potions. The random potions you find also tend to be of a higher quality as well.



If being in Hell weren't bad enough, it has a new type of bat, appropriately enough named Hellbats. Also when you first get down here, be damned sure to mine out this thing we're standing in front of.



The Hellforge is the only way you can smelt the ore unique to Hell: hellstone.



One of the random pots we smashed gave us this little beauty. So let's go into the (relative) safety of the lava to mine some Hellstone the easy way.



Hellstone is a fiery ore, like meteorite. So if you want to mine it safely, you absolutely should have your obsidian skull equipped. There's also one little snag to hellstone. You see, earlier in the game it was too easy to mine it safely. So the developers added a little snag. Now when you mine Hellstone, it creates lava.



This is a lava slime. It's one of the few enemies that has an actual mechanical change between normal and expert modes. In expert mode, lava slimes will also create lava on death.



This is a demon, and he's holding a Guide Voodoo Doll. These guys in particular are why you need to be super fucking careful in Hell. On death, this guy drops a guide voodoo doll. You want to do absolutely everything in your power to not let that voodoo doll touch lava.

Real Bad Shit will happen if that voodoo doll hits lava.



This is a disaster waiting to happen. Too voodoo demons, a fire imp, and offscreen two lava slimes and a hellbat.



Demons and their voodoo cousins attack by firing these magic slices at us. If the slices hit, they have a pretty good chance to inflict the "blindness" debuff, which makes the screen darker. Though in Hell you hardly notice the effect.



Spot my mistake.



Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

So the one thing I told everyone to be careful of just happened.



There are actually two status messages, but I'm going out of my way to not show the second one. Know that a boss has just spawned, and it is pissed off.



Very very pissed off.

We're at nowhere close to ideal conditions for fighting this thing. It has a truckload of HP, and is not a boss you want to fight while navigating the landscape of Hell.



We're also hurting pretty badly.



So we do the only thing we can do and end things on our terms instead of its.



So we made it down to Hell, but we fucked up in as big a way as we possibly could have. We sacrificed our oldest friend in Terraria and in return all that happened was we released a Thing That Should Not Be. The rain feels like a fitting end to this update.



We can make some Hellstone bars as a consolation prize. We rescued 52 pieces of ore, so we can make 17 bars. Though look closely at that recipe. Yes, Hellstone Bars need 3 ore and a piece of obsidian. Hellstone stuff is the strongest material in the first half of the game, so while it's expensive to make, every thing we can make is worth it.



The bow alone is 55% stronger than the one we made from crimtane. It also makes each regular arrow innately a fire arrow.



We can also make an Imp Staff. It summons a fire imp to fight for us. While summon weapons are nice, I like direct damage stuff better. Still, it never hurts to have a helper.



Finally, we can make this. It... can wait.

We can also make a single piece of armor, but it's not worth losing the meteor set bonuses. Not yet, at least.



I feel confident that I made the right choice for which weapon to make. This bow will last us for the entire rest of the first half of the game.



Our minerals chest is looking pretty full. Though there are still some holes we can fill in.



This is a pretty good note to end the update on. Everyone say hello to Bradley. He's no Garrett, but I'm sure he'll do just fine.

NEXT TIME: Let it go! Let it gooooo!