THE FOUNDER

• BOSS
• MARS

THE FOUNDER is a boss on MARS, a place of machines.

The richest man alive, owner of Mars on paper, and the coward this whole chase is about. He sold Ada to the planet's real landlords as the down payment on it, and would sooner tear a hole in the universe than lose a negotiation.

Where you meet it

MARS

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

What to know

• COWARDBolts at 25% health rather than dying, tearing a way out a few strides off and running for it.
• HOW IT ENDSHe does not stay to be finished. He tears his way out, runs for it with his back turned, and is drawn through spinning. The hero: "RUN, THEN. I'M GOING THE SAME WAY."
• LEASHEDNever strays further than 460 from where it stands.
• WHAT IT WAS CARRYINGA fortune. Its corpse sheds 6× the gold an ordinary body of its rank does, which is the plainest thing anyone has ever said about it.
• WHEN STRUCKIt bleeds. A blow that overwhelms it bursts it, and there is a face among what lands.

Mechanics

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

• SUMMONEvery 13s it calls 2 more out of the ground, up to 4 of its own summons alive at once. They arrive outside the level's wave budget, so they are extra rather than borrowed. It calls SERVO UNIT.
• ORBITAL DELIVERYIt roots for 1s first, then calls 3 pods down onto marks scattered across 130 around YOU. Each falls for 1.5s behind the same firming ground shadow a meteor drops behind — so you already know how to read it — and bursts for 80% of its contact damage across 58, then pops open and lets one more out of the crater. The marks bracket you rather than chase you, so the question is which way to move, not whether. Once every 12s. It calls SERVO UNIT.

Below 35% health it switches to:

• ENRAGEBelow 35% health it fights like a cornered animal for the rest of the fight — 1.35× speed and 1.25× damage, permanently.
• SUMMONEvery 11s it calls 3 more out of the ground, up to 5 of its own summons alive at once. They arrive outside the level's wave budget, so they are extra rather than borrowed. It calls SERVO UNIT.
• ORBITAL DELIVERYIt roots for 0.8s first, then calls 4 pods down onto marks scattered across 150 around YOU. Each falls for 1.4s behind the same firming ground shadow a meteor drops behind — so you already know how to read it — and bursts for 90% of its contact damage across 62, then pops open and lets 2 more out of the crater. The marks bracket you rather than chase you, so the question is which way to move, not whether. Once every 9.5s. It calls SERVO UNIT.
• CALL OF INCELSIt roots for 0.9s first, and then they come — 2 waves of followers at a dead run, about 3.2s apart, down a lane the approach dust draws for you before the first of them is even on screen. They trample what they hit and put a grounded hero flat on his back. The answer is the one every herd in the game has: get out of the lane. Once every 17s. 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 35% 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 75% 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

• THE LEGAL DISTINCTION
• THE AUSTERITY CHAINSAW

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

• GILDED CARAPACE
• LAWLESS STRIDE
• OVATION STRIDERS

MEDIUM

• GILDED CARAPACE
• LAWLESS STRIDE
• OVATION STRIDERS

HARD

• GILDED CARAPACE
• LAWLESS STRIDE
• OVATION STRIDERS

NIGHTMARE

• GILDED CARAPACE
• LAWLESS STRIDE
• OVATION STRIDERS
• THE SIGNAL CROWN
• WRATHFLAME

JESUS CHRIST!

• GILDED CARAPACE
• LAWLESS STRIDE
• OVATION STRIDERS
• THE SIGNAL CROWN
• WRATHFLAME

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.