Terraria: Sir Digsalot doesn’t actually fight a boss

Sir Digsalot has a full set if iron armor, a silver bow, and 145 flaming arrows. It’s time to venture out at night and kill as many Demon Eyes as possible. Kill Eyes, get lenses, use 10 lenses to make the thing that summons the big eye boss. Of course, I’ll fend off lots of zombies along the way, and being out at night all that time will mean a few more fallen stars, too. I’m merrily running around the surface, waiting for the sun to set, when it happens.

After the break: Things don’t exactly go as planned…

Oh. Shit. “The Bood Moon is rising…” is not a message you want to see when you’re just out and about for a casual night of Demon Eye killing. There’s a small chance that any given night will be a Blood Moon, where the sky turns red and the zombies swarm. The spawn rate goes way up, and zombies can actually open doors after a short while. Sir Digsalot struggles valiantly to make it back to the relative safety of the keep, but it’s just too much.

After perishing and respawning in the keep, I decide it’s best to spend the Blood Moon night 500 feet below the surface, and resume digging. Hey, it’s not like they call him Sir Digsalittle. It’s just as well. Spending another night underground, I get some more gold, silver, iron, and even find another heart. It’s enough to make a gold pickaxe, which I’ll certainly need later. Digging ever further, I make it to the next layer – the cavern.

This is where you’ll find skeletons and mother slimes (that split into baby slimes when killed). I ran into a bunch all but guarding a heart crystal, but being safely up above, I lobbed a few bombs and flaming arrows and made short work of them.

Another heart and two chests later (fancy magic arrows and money, but nothing too special), I stumble upon a grove of glowing mushrooms, which only appear in the cavern level.

These are fantastic! You use them in making mana potions and bigger healing potions, and they grow quite densely on this special magic grass. Best of all, you can sometimes find some mushroom grass seeds when you chop down one of the big ones. Sir Digsalot can plant these on mud to make his own little magic mushroom garden!

But what’s this? One of the skeletons I killed must have dropped a hook! The hook is perhaps the most game-changing item in the game. Seriously. You use a little iron to make three iron chains, combine it with the hook, and you get the grappling hook. Vertical movement worries are a thing of the past! The grappling fires wherever you aim it, pulls you in, and only releases when you jump. You can stick to the ceiling of a cave, pull out your pick, and dig away. Move up your main mineshaft more quickly than jumping up dozens of platforms.

Okay, so Sir Digsalot’s dreams and plans of killing Demon Eyes until he had enough lenses to summon his first boss monster to fight were dashed by an untimely Blood Moon. Instead, he was forced to endure another night of mindless digging that resulted in an incredible underground adventure that boosted his life and gave him the single most game-changing item in the game. Who needs boss fights? Truly, it’s this sort of unplanned adventure that makes these games compelling. You want to zig, the game makes you zag, and it ends up being better than anticipated. A game like Terraria only has to do this to you once, and you’ll be hooked.