PAYLOAD-1

• BOSS
• GOODCO HQ

PAYLOAD-1 is a boss on GOODCO HQ, a place of staff.

The prototype the entire night shift exists to produce: a grinning robotic Shiba, the first physical body of the machine that runs the market. Its mind is already everywhere else, which is why breaking the body is only an inconvenience to it.

Where you meet it

GOODCO HQ

It is placed by hand on GOODCO HQ and waits at its post until you come close.

What to know

• HOW IT ENDSThe charge is caught rather than dodged: the hero rides it in, plants a foot, and tears the core out. It runs on for a moment without one. The hero: "THERE'S NO TOP. THERE'S JUST WIRE."
• LEASHEDNever strays further than 440 from where it stands.
• WHAT IT WAS CARRYINGMore than it should be. Its corpse sheds 2× the gold an ordinary body of its rank does.
• WHEN STRUCKIt throws sparks. A blow that overwhelms it bursts it into wire, cells and torn plate, and it smokes where it lands.

Mechanics

Every dangerous move is telegraphed — it roots, it winds up, and you get the beat you need to be somewhere else.

• CHARGEInside 170 it locks its bearing, roots for 0.7s, then dashes 221 along that line at 3.5× speed with its blows carrying 1.5× damage. The bearing locks at the START of the windup, so a sidestep beats it. Once every 6s.
• COIN CANNONIt roots for 0.8s first — the bearing LOCKS on where you were standing when it did. Then 7 coins go out at once in a 60° fan, reaching 230 at 150 a second, each carrying 35% of its contact damage — and each one comes off up to 2 walls before it dies. Cover is not the answer to this: the room is. Read where the walls are pointing and do not stand there. Once every 7s.

Below 50% health it switches to:

• CHARGEInside 170 it locks its bearing, roots for 0.6s, then dashes 221 along that line at 3.8× speed with its blows carrying 1.5× damage. The bearing locks at the START of the windup, so a sidestep beats it. Once every 5s.
• SUMMONEvery 12s it calls 3 more out of the ground, up to 6 of its own summons alive at once. They arrive outside the level's wave budget, so they are extra rather than borrowed. It calls ASSEMBLER.
• COIN CANNONIt roots for 0.7s first — the bearing LOCKS on where you were standing when it did. Then 9 coins go out at once in a 80° fan, reaching 250 at 165 a second, each carrying 40% of its contact damage — and each one comes off up to 3 walls before it dies. Cover is not the answer to this: the room is. Read where the walls are pointing and do not stand there. Once every 5.5s.
• PUMP AND DUMPIt roots for 0.7s first, then scatters 5 piles of coins across 120 of floor around itself. They look exactly like loot. They are not. Each one lies inert for 1.2s — long enough to watch it land and walk away from — and then goes live, bursting for 90% of its contact damage across 52 if you come within 20 of it. They go cold on their own after 15s, so leaving them entirely alone costs you nothing at all. Once every 14s. Only from NIGHTMARE upward.

What it drops

Every kill pays one piece of gear, 2 medkits, one repair kit and one XP scroll.

Its drops roll 30% better on the rarity ladder than the level's ordinary loot.

Guaranteed pieces by rarity: 1 magic, and a 50% chance of one more and a 25% chance of a rare. A rarity the monster's own level has not unlocked yet is skipped, so the same fight pays better on a harder rung.

Always drops

• PLASMA CUTTER

Named relics it can roll

Gated to the rung you beat it on, and rolled against the monster's own level, so the deeper rungs open names the shallow ones never see.

EASY

• PROTOTYPE FANG
• THE HOARD
• SATELLITE EARS
• REGOLITH RUCKSACK
• SHIBA PLATING
• FOREMAN'S DUFFEL

MEDIUM

• PROTOTYPE FANG
• THE HOARD
• SATELLITE EARS
• REGOLITH RUCKSACK
• SHIBA PLATING
• FOREMAN'S DUFFEL

HARD

• PROTOTYPE FANG
• THE HOARD
• SATELLITE EARS
• REGOLITH RUCKSACK
• SHIBA PLATING
• FOREMAN'S DUFFEL

NIGHTMARE

• PROTOTYPE FANG
• SATELLITE EARS
• SHIBA PLATING
• ZOOMIE GREAVES
• GOODBOY SABATONS
• VOIDCACHE

JESUS CHRIST!

• PROTOTYPE FANG
• SATELLITE EARS
• SHIBA PLATING
• ZOOMIE GREAVES
• GOODBOY SABATONS
• ADA'S SATCHEL

What it says

Spoilers for this fight, covered until you ask for them.

What this scene is part of — everything said and found around it — is its chapter of the story.