THE PROSPECTOR

• ELITE
• THE MOON
• PHASING

THE PROSPECTOR is a named elite on THE MOON, a place of ghosts.

It senses you through walls and drifts straight through them; the dead do not respect stone.

He dug GOODCO's secret tunnels at Site T on the far side, for freight that was never tracked. He quit the month the crates coming up started breathing, and up here a resignation is not a letter.

Where you meet it

THE MOON

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

What to know

• HOVERSHas no legs and never touches the floor — it drifts over it, casting its shadow down.
• PHASINGWalks through walls and hunts you through them.
• THE ENTRANCECloses at 120/s until it has said its piece, then fights at its own pace.
• WHAT IT WAS CARRYINGNothing. It has no pockets, and never had wages — a kill pays in gear, not in coin.
• WHEN STRUCKIt comes apart in ectoplasm. A blow that overwhelms it bursts it, and the goo it was holding together goes everywhere.

Mechanics

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

• CHARGEInside 160 it locks its bearing, roots for 0.7s, then dashes 208 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 6.5s.
• QUAKE LINEIt roots for 0.7s first — the bearing LOCKS — then the ground splits away from it along that line: 5 fissures, one every 30, opening 0.1s apart in order, each biting 70% of its contact damage within 20. Nothing travels — it stays where it is and the floor does the walking. A step SIDEWAYS is the whole answer, and the further out you are the longer you have to take it. Once every 9.5s.
• EMBER TRAILIt roots for 0.6s first, and then for 5s it leaves burning ground behind it as it hunts — a patch every 0.4s, each 22 across, alight for 3.6s and biting 30% of its contact damage every 0.6s you stand in it. It is not aimed anywhere: it paints whatever path YOU walk it down. Kite it in circles and the room fills up; kite it in a straight line and it costs you nothing. Once every 13s.

What it drops

Every kill pays one piece of gear, one medkit 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. 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

• CORE DRILL

Story items

• GOODCO BLUEPRINTS

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.