Cave of the Mind

The **Cave of The Mind** is the second section of Chapter 4, taking place an underground place under the main Varkem base where The Mind is located.

## Walkthrough

At the beginning of this section, you have to fight Varkem Soldiers and move through some underground caves infested with strange, alien vegetation. It is built around a vast cavern with a massive, tentacled alien creature that snakes up the entire length of it.

Shortly after fighting a Varkem Elite Soldier, you will encounter a Varkem Soldier that uses detonators to collapse a section of cave, preventing you from moving forward. Narelle shoots a hole in the window, and from there you have to slow-fall all the way down, all while avoiding the alien creature’s tentacles, as landing on them deals massive damage and poisons you.

Once you land in the liquid methane below, you get attacked by numerous soldiers with Lightning Bolts and some Varkem Commandos that stand up in the windowed areas high up on the cave walls. Once all the Varkem Commandos are defeated, Narelle will swim to the lowest windowed area and place a Jump-Pad beneath it, then rocket-jump upwards. Follow her, and in a cutscene you see her interrogate a soldier. However, at this same moment, a tentacle from the alien creature - now revealed to be named The Mind - slings out and slams the soldier dead.

## The Mind

### Phase 1

At first you are given no hints on how to fight the Mind, as you are expected to explore until you find the locations you can use. You have to first find the Explosives storeroom, which can be found by going all the way around the caves, passing all four windowed areas.

Inside are purple explosives which can be picked up with a Magnetic Levitron. You have to carry them and drop them onto the top of each of the Mind's four main tentacles, which will cause each tentacle to explode completely.

### Phase 2

Once all four tentacles are destroyed, the Mind opens up and new, alien creatures begin spawning directly from it and throughout the caves, replacing Varkem Soldiers.

You have to find the Mines and the Large Matter Manipulator. When you approach the Mines for the first time after finding both locations, six crates of Refined Metal will spawn in one of the storage areas, which you can pick up with your Magnetic Levitron. You have to bring each crate of Refined Metal over to the Large Matter Manipulator and place them on each of the six lime-concrete spots. This will begin to generate a small Laser Cannon.

Once you’ve completely generated the laser cannon, you have to find a Large Power Core. There is a side area of the caverns that is blocked off by a glass door, which will open at this point. You have to place and rocket-jump off of Jump-Pads to climb up some shafts to get up to a cavern with a shulker box that contains a Large Power Core, then bring it back to Narelle.

The Laser Cannon can then be pushed along the rails on the floor. Some sections of the track are missing, so you will need to craft more sections using the Matter Manipulator and place them. Once you’ve done so, you can push the Laser Cannon all the way to in view of the Mind, and it will open fire.

The Laser Cannon takes time to destroy the Mind completely. It has 6000 health, and the cannon deals 20 damage per second, meaning it takes 5 minutes. However, some of the Mind’s abilities can damage and disable the laser cannon.

The Mind can use the following abilities. It adds more as its health gets lower.

* It can spawn some Mind Spiders and Spiderlings, or a swarm of Mind Stingers from the sides. Their abilities can target the cannon, dealing 4 damage per hit.
* When below 80% health, it can summon Mind Spitters. The Spitters will target the Laser Cannon, dealing 4 damage per hit.
* When below 50% health, it will add the ability to summon two Mind Monstrosities and also the ability to summon three ‘energy balls’, which hover for a moment before being launched at the laser cannon, dealing 20 damage per hit. These energy balls can be shot or hit to stop them, which will actually deflect them at the Mind and deal a good amount of damage to it.
	+ Below 33% health, four are summoned instead, and below 16% five are summoned. Note that the more summoned, the less damage they each deal if reflected back (basically if you deflect every energy ball, you deal the same amount of damage - 300 damage).

The Laser Cannon has 180 health, and it can be damaged by the Mind’s energy balls (which deal 20 damage each) and also by Mind Spitters. If its health bar gets depleted, it will stop firing, and it will take Narelle 60 seconds to fix the laser cannon, during which you can see its health regenerate. However, at the same time the Mind’s health will also regenerate slightly (at a rate of 10 health per second, so it regenerates 600 health overall)

Once the Laser Cannon completely brings down the Mind’s health, it explodes. Make sure to pick up the weapon(s) it drops (which should spawn in front of you), and shortly after you, Lucas and Narelle will teleport back up to the ship.

## Equipment

The Mind drops one of the following five weapons upon its defeat. In multiplayer it has a 50% chance of dropping an additional weapon for each player:

Flashscimitar - 25 Attack Damage, 1.6 Attack Speed, 19.75 Sweeping Damage, Fire Aspect II

Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster - 14-24 Ranged Damage. Shots inflict Slowness II and Wither III for 10 seconds

Pigstep Subwoofer - Launches a large musical burst that moves forward, dealing 8-12 damage per hit to all enemies in its path. Inflicts Slowness III for 10 seconds and Weakness II for 15 seconds

Big Brain - Summons a Big Brain that chases after the closest enemy and clamps onto it, dealing 8-12 damage per hit. Inflicts Slowness IV and Weakness II for 10 seconds

Cave’s Gaming Chair - 125 Attack Damage, 0.2 Attack Speed. Knockback III

## Recommendations

As stated in Back to the Compound’s Recommendation’s section, the most useful weapons for this section are the Absolute Zero or Frost Thrower, Subspace Rapid Blaster or Solar Flare Triblaster, and the Magnetic Repulsor. Similar to the Space Deck and Experimental Lab, this is because this section has large numbers of enemies that spawn - namely, the Mind enemies.

The Frost Thrower in particular can be useful as it sets enemies on fire, and this will allow you to see enemies easier in the many low-light-level areas of the cave.

The Varkem counterparts of those weapons can suffice, though they will suffer in general damage output, as they mostly only deal half the damage.

The Cosmic Commando Phaser can be useful for quickly taking out Mind Spitters, though the Subspace Rapid Blaster can work just as well.

## Notes

* If the Laser Cannon is destroyed the energy balls and Mind Spitters will target the player instead

* All Varkem Soldiers are removed from the map and stop spawning once the player enters the storage unit in the Mines and gets Refined Metal to spawn.