Mission 8: Mastermine II

**Mission 8** is the eighth mission of Assassin of Steve 3, where you must find the Minemistress somewhere in her mines.

## Walkthrough

When you enter your quarters after defeating Captain Coldbeard, Mechanical Island will have made it to the Minemistress' Mines, and you will get teleported back to the lander room. Go back onto the lander, and it will go down to the ground. There will be another Shop Altar.

When you come out from underneath Mechanical Island's shadow, you will enter the Minemistress's open-cut mines. Only the Clay Serpents and Spiders here are hostile - the Clay Miners are just standing around. Go to the tunnel that the Gold Miner is guarding, and you will go into the cutscene, where the Gold Miner will not let you in. Then the cutscene will pan over to one of the other shafts, where some Clay Miners exit it and walk away, leaving the trapdoor on the shaft open. Go down the ladder in the shaft. Near the bottom you will find a chest containing two Pickaxes and two pairs of Claws. The Pickaxe can be used to destroy Monster Spawners and the Claws can be used to destroy Cobwebs.

At the bottom you will emerge into a dense cave network filled with mobs. Some Monster Spawners that spawn Clay Serpents are sprinkled throughout this cave network - you can destroy them with your Pickaxe. It is quite a maze, but in the tunnel you come out in, go in the U-turn to the right, then at the T-intersection turn right, then turn right again. Continue down the long tunnel, and you will eventually go up a level. Parkour across the gaps in the tunnel - if you fall you will have to find your way back to the entrance and then back to here - and eventually you will make it to the next area. Be careful - a Gold Miner spawns around here.

Once you leave the cave network you will emerge into a large cavern with giant cobwebs made of wool and white glass draped across the cavern. In the first cobweb cavern, you need to drop down to the cobweb directly below, then go across to the tunnel at the other end. In the second cavern, to the right there is a large string draped from the cobweb all the way up to the tunnel that leads to the third cavern, which you can climb up by parkouring. In the third cavern, drop down to the cobweb below, then climb up the string there, up to the upper cobweb. Another tunnel will lead off to the fossil cavern.

The fossil cavern is a large cave with long, skeletal spines with rib cages hanging from the ceiling. You need to grapple onto the first fossil's spine, then parkour on the spine and drop down to its ribs. Then parkour across its rib cages until you make it to a fossilised skull. If you fall at this bit you can go backward and up the ladder to where you started. Jump in through the skull's left eye (from your perspective), and then drop in through the hole in the back. From there, make your way across the planks, and you should see another grappling hook that will let you grapple onto the next spine. From there, drop onto one of the rib cages, and continue to parkour across. Be careful at this bit - if you fall, you will land straight in lava. Eventually you will reach the shore at the other side of the lava lake.

Hidden Mission 3 is located near this shore. If you fall down onto this shore, then go through the tunnel to the left, you will enter Hidden Mission 3.

If you do and complete Hidden Mission 3, to get back up to the rib cages there is a grappling hook. On the rib cages you can grapple up onto the top of one of the ribs, then into a tunnel. Move along the tunnel, but the floor will explode, dropping you into a cavern with gold sprinkled across it. In this cavern you will fight off some waves of mobs. Once you fight them off the door at the far end of the cavern will open, and you can go up the stairs to the Minemistress. While attempting to talk with the Minemistress, however, she blows up the floor you are standing on, and you fall down into a darker cave where you will encounter the Bedrock Serpent.

### Boss Fight: Bedrock Serpent

#### Stage 1

The Bedrock Serpent is initially burrowing just underground. Lots of clay particles are being spat into the air due to its digging, and evoker fangs are being shot above the ground (which is really the serpent pushing its spike above the ground). It will deal hefty damage to you if you get close to it, so stay away. Every ten seconds it will gain a speed boost, which will enable it to easily catch up to you if you are in its point of view. Clay Miners spawn in the cave - you have to defeat them, and they have a chance of dropping TNT. You have to drop a TNT block on the ground, and lure the Bedrock Serpent into a TNT block. The Serpent's spike will eat the TNT block, and then it will explode, damaging it. The Bedrock Serpent has 5 health in Stage 1, so you have to do this 5 times.

#### Stage 2

Upon exhausting the Bedrock Serpent's health, it is not quite defeated yet. A way out explodes, and you can move through it into a larger cavern. Here, instead of burrowing just underground, it will emit clay particles on the ground beneath where you are standing, and will then shoot out of the ground, then back down. If you are caught within it when it comes out of the ground you will take minor damage. If you keep moving around the cave, it should keep missing you, as it aims for the spot you are standing on, and comes out of that spot about two seconds later. The trick comes with damaging it. Again, Clay Miners spawn in this cavern, and you can kill them for TNT blocks. The Bedrock Serpent emits a sound similar to that of an Elder Guardian's when it is about to come out of the ground, so use that as a cue to drop the TNT block right where you are standing, then move out of the way. The Bedrock Serpent should eat the TNT block and it will explode, damaging it. Again, it has 5 health, so you have to do this 5 times. Note: In multiplayer it will choose a random player to burrow beneath.

After defeating the Bedrock Serpent a way out will blast open, and you can grapple up to it. There you will find a Shop Altar.

## Mobs

* Clay Serpents are retextured silverfish mobs so they are clay-coloured, that spawn in the open-cut mine and from monster spawners in the caves. They have low health and attack damage.
* Clay Spiders are retextured cave spider mobs so they are clay-coloured, and they will inflict poison on normal and hard difficulties. They have increased movement speed.
* Web Spiders are normal spiders. They can place cobwebs on the block they are currently on, and if a player is nearby they can also place a cobweb on that player, slowing them down. Use the Claws to deal with their cobwebs, or if you get them, Bipedal Claws. They have increased health and knockback resistance.
* Bipedal Spiders are skeletons wearing iron armor and a spider head. They come in two types - the first has Bipedal Claws and a Cobwebbed Shield, while the second has a Web Shooter, and shoots Slowness Arrows. Both types have increased movement speed and will also jump in random directions, making them tricky to deal with.
* Clay Miners are zombies with iron armor, hardened clay for their head, and a Prospector's Pick. They have a higher amount of health, attack damage, and knockback resistance.
* Gold Miners are zombie pigmen with gold-colored leather armor. They have a considerable amount of health, attack damage, knockback resistance, and increased movement speed. They can jump up and slam the ground upon landing, and this also deals a fair amount of damage.

## Equipment

You can get two types of armor - Spider Armor and Prospector Armor. Spider Armor has slightly more health than Mechanical Armor from the previous mission, and has Attack Damage, Attack Speed, or Movement Speed attributes. Prospector Armor has more health than Spider Armor but no attributes.

* Bipedal Claws: 15 attack damage, 1 sweeping damage, 1.6 attack speed, 24 DPS, can destroy Cobwebs
* Prospector's Pick: 27 attack damage, 0.9 attack speed, Knockback I, 24.3 DPS, can destroy Monster Spawners
* Clay Spider Fang: 12 attack damage, 2 attack speed, 24 DPS.
* Web Shooter: 27 ranged damage, Slowness Arrows (1:00)
* Cobwebbed Shield: +40% Health, +25% Knockback Resistance.

Rare equipment:

* Golden Armor has health greater than Prospector Armor, but all has attributes that reduce your movement speed (cause gold is heavy). It only consists of a helmet, leggings and boots.
* Golden Edge: 23 attack damage, 12.5 sweeping damage, 1.2 attack speed, Looting I, 27.6 DPS, -10% Movement Speed on user
* Golden Pick: 36 attack damage, 0.75 attack speed, 27 DPS, Looting I, Knockback I, -10% Movement Speed on user, can destroy Monster Spawners
* Nugget Shield: +50% Health, +30% Knockback Resistance, -10% Movement Speed
* Golden Throne: 90 attack damage, 0.25 attack speed, -20% Movement Speed on user, 22.5 DPS

### Recommendations

* The Spider Head is an unbreakable helmet part of Spider Armor. If you get one be sure to hold on to it in case all your better helmets break.
* If you only have an Iron Cutlass as your best sword and get a Clay Spider Fang, use it instead.
* Once you get Bipedal Claws or a Prospector Pick drop the plain Claws or Pickaxe you got from the chest in the shaft, as these weapons can also break Cobwebs and Monster Spawners respectively.
* Be sure to dequip all Golden Armor and don't hold the Nugget Shield, Golden Edge, or Golden Pick while doing the fossil parkour, or indeed any other parkour in future missions, as it will reduce your movement speed and make you less capable of doing the parkour.
* The Golden Edge is useful during the wave section due to its high sweeping damage and the fact that it has Looting.
* The Web Shooter is the first common bow you can obtain with tipped arrows that inflict an effect, and all bows in later missions have tipped arrows that inflict an effect.
* If you do Hidden Mission 3, you'll get a few free Detonator Charges to use, and you can probably use them to great effect in the wave section. The Dwarven Hammer is also very useful given its high damage and knockback enchantments. The Detonator Shield also gives you the highest knockback resistance obtainable with a shield, tied only with shields that you can't get until Hidden Mission 5, or Missions 13 or 14.

## Chest Locations

* From the entrance of the Spider Caves, head along the main path until you reach a T intersection. Keep heading right until you hit a wall, then go right again until you reach the end of the hallway. There you will find a chest with the lore book Evolution of Bipedal Spiders.

* From the T intersection, go left, take the first tunnel on the left after, then take one last left and follow the path. Here you should find a staircase made out of wood leading up. At the very top of this tunnel is a loot chest.

* After getting the next checkpoint (the room with the giant webs), go back and fall down the nearest hole back into the spider caves. There will be a Mimic right next to you. (You can die to return back to the checkpoint instead of having to go through the maze again).

* In the giant web room, grapple up the another web higher up, and climb up to the top of the room. Here you will find a loot chest.

* At the end of the final web room, there is a chest on the back of the web with the lore book Reply to my brother.

* Right next to the Minemistress' Gate is a chest containing Fossil Studies.

* At the end of the ribcage parkour, instead of grappling into the terracotta cave, drop back down onto some of the ribs lower down. Here you can parkour on another rib next to the wall, and then from there, there is a passageway in the wall you can head through. Parkour from the end of there up to part of another rib to find another loot chest, for some reason.

* In the middle of the first phase of the Bedrock Serpent's arena is a chest with the lore book Anatomy of the Bedrock Serpent.

## Music

*Main article: Music*

At all times, the following tracks can play:

* **The Descent** by Kevin MacLeod.
* **Full On** by Kevin MacLeod.
* **The Coal Mine** by Twin Musicom.
* **Industrial Revolution** by Kevin MacLeod.
* **The Escalation** by Kevin MacLeod.
* **Chee Zee Cave** by Kevin MacLeod.
* **Stoneworld Battle** by Kevin MacLeod.

During the Bedrock Serpent boss fight, **Cornfield Chase** by Cinematic Waves plays.

## Trivia

* Many of the songs that play in this mission are used for underground-themed missions in other maps.
	+ 'The Descent', 'Full On', and 'Chee Zee Cave' all play in the Slime Cave in Mission 8 of Assassin of Steve 2 and in Mission 6 of Assassin of Steve.
	+ 'Stoneworld Battle' and 'The Escalation' also play in the Slime Cave. In Assassin of Steve 1, they play during Mission 5.
	+ 'The Coal Mine' plays in Mission 6 of Assassin of Steve as well.
* The boss track 'Cornfield Chase' by Kevin MacLeod also plays during the Aracold Spider boss fight in Assassin of Steve, which is fitting since it means this track is used for both the Minemaster's and Minemistress's pets.

* This mission features a hidden sign with the word 'lasaga' written on it.
	+ The map The Kitatcho Laboratories: Episode 2 also included a hidden sign with the word 'lasaga' written on it, which sparked a trend among Java mapmakers. The sign itself is a reference to the string of Garfielf memes.
* This mission's legendary items are the only which provide negative attribute bonuses to the player, decreasing their movement speed. This is based on the fact that gold is very heavy. It comes with the cost that completing the parkour sections in this mission becomes more difficult.