Stick Bug

Stick Bug

Type	Monster
Location	The Dangerous Mines
Floors	41-69
HP	700
Damage	20
Defence	2
Speed	3
XP	4

The Stick Bug is a piece of fallen wood that is not a piece of fallen wood. It lies on the webbed floors of the dangerous Mines looking exactly like debris, and it only moves when the farmer comes close enough to touch it. Behind the disguise sits seven hundred health, the stoutest of any monster in the cave, and twenty damage a hit. The reason to fight it anyway is the drop: a Stick Bug always hands over a Qi Gem and often a second one, which makes it the one monster that pays in the currency of Mr. Qi's shop. It also drops Ginger, and Ginger is the cure for the Nauseated effect the Putrid Ghosts on the same floors inflict.

Behaviour

A Stick Bug does nothing at all until it is approached. It sits as scenery, indistinguishable from the wood that litters a mine floor, and a farmer walking a familiar route is the easiest person to catch. Stepping within reach, or trying to pick the wood up, brings it to life.

After that the fight is honest but long. The only problem is the health pool, and a weapon that handles everything else on the floor comfortably will take a long run of swings to get through this one. Every one of those swings happens next to something hitting for twenty, so health and food matter more than usual.

Bombs are the shortcut. Explosives deal fixed damage rather than weapon damage, so a Cherry Bomb or a Mega Bomb takes a far larger bite out of seven hundred health than a sword does, and it clears the rock around the bug at the same time. A Mega Bomb dropped on a bug standing among spiders is better value still.

The disguise is worth beating rather than enduring. A Magic Quiver trinket fires arrows at nearby monsters on its own, and on these floors it will shoot at a Stick Bug before the farmer is standing on top of it, which turns an ambush into a warning. Watching for wood that sits in an odd spot works too, though spiders leaping in from the sides make that hard to concentrate on.

Location

Stick Bugs live in the Mines between floors forty one and sixty nine, and only while the cave is in its dangerous state. That state arrives with Mr. Qi's Danger In The Deep order, which switches the whole mine over and disables the elevator, and afterwards it is controlled by the Shrine of Challenge on floor one hundred and twenty, which flips the mine overnight each time it is used.

Those floors are the most unpleasant stretch of the dangerous mine. Cobwebs on the ground slow movement, Spiders swarm in numbers, and Putrid Ghosts drift through casting the spell that blocks healing from food. A Stick Bug sitting quietly in the middle of that is easy to miss and expensive to wake up at the wrong moment.

Drops

The Qi Gem is the point. One is guaranteed from every Stick Bug and a second arrives on about half of them, which is a far steadier supply than the challenges Mr. Qi posts. Gems buy the things that quietly change how a farm runs: a Hopper that feeds a machine on its own, a pair of Junimo Chests that share their contents across the map, the Pressure Nozzle that widens a sprinkler, the Enricher that fertilises as it plants, the Key To The Town that opens every door at any hour, the Deconstructor that takes a crafted item apart, the Horse Flute that calls the horse, a Galaxy Soul towards an Infinity weapon, Qi Seasoning that lifts every cooked dish to gold quality, and Magic Bait that ignores weather and season. The recipes are the better buys: Heavy Tapper, Hyper Speed-Gro, Deluxe Fertilizer and the unlimited Hopper recipe all sit on the same counter.

Ginger always drops as well, and on these floors that is not a trivial item. Eating Ginger clears the Nauseated effect, so a Stick Bug killed on floor fifty hands over the antidote to the Putrid Ghost two rooms along. Beyond the mine, Ginger makes Ginger Ale with sugar for a luck bonus, goes into the Warp Totem that returns the farmer to Ginger Island, pickles well in a Preserves Jar, and becomes the Forager's Hat at a Sewing Machine. Mr. Qi's Island Ingredients order asks for a hundred ginger roots, and a run of Stick Bugs makes a dent in that.

Deep into a save the universal Diamond and Prismatic Shard rolls apply to Stick Bugs as they do to everything else, though the Qi Gem is what brings farmers back.

Items this monster can drop when it is defeated, with the chance of each.

Item	Image	Chance
Ginger		100%
Qi Gem		100%
Qi Gem		50%
Diamond		0.05%
Prismatic Shard		0.05%

Notes

A Stick Bug is the only monster in the mine that rewards patience rather than speed. Since the gem is guaranteed, there is no bad roll and nothing lost by committing to the fight, which is unusual on floors where most monsters are worth avoiding.

Qi Gems otherwise come from his challenges, which pay between ten and a hundred gems apiece, and from trading Golden Walnuts two gems at a time once every parrot on the island has been paid. Against that, a monster that drops at least one every time is a genuinely useful thing to find.

Anyone walking these floors should treat every piece of loose wood as suspicious. The disguise is good, the health is high, and the farmer who swings first keeps the initiative.

All Monsters

Every entry in this group, with its key details.

Name	Location	HP	Damage
Armored Bug	Skull Cavern	1	8
Armored Bug (dangerous)	Skull Cavern	250	20-27
Bats	The Mines & Skull Cavern	24, 36, 80, 300,; 268, 277	06, 07, 15, 30, 13, 14
Blue Squid	The Dangerous Mines	310	18
Bug	The Mines	1	8
Bug (dangerous)	Dangerous Mines	250	15-16
Carbon Ghost	Skull Cavern; The Dangerous Mines	190	25
Cave Fly	The Mines	22	6
Cave Fly (dangerous)	Dangerous Mines	266	13-15
Duggy	The Mines	40	6
Duggy (dangerous)	Dangerous Mines	280	8
Dust Sprite	The Mines	40	6
Dust Sprite (dangerous)	The Mines	280	13-15
Dwarvish Sentry	Volcano Dungeon	300	18
False Magma Cap	Volcano Dungeon	290	15
Ghost	The Mines	96	10
Grub	The Mines	20	4
Grub (dangerous)	Dangerous Mines	265	12-13
Haunted Skull	Quarry Mine; The Mines random dungeon floors	160	15
Haunted Skull (dangerous)	Dangerous Mines	310	19-26
Hot Head	Volcano Dungeon	215	18
Iridium Crab	Skull Cavern	240	15
Iridium Golem	Wilderness Farm	430	15
Lava Crab	The Mines	120	15
Lava Crab (dangerous)	Dangerous Mines	340	19-26
Lava Lurk	Volcano Dungeon	220	15
Magma Duggy	Volcano Dungeon	380	16
Magma Sparker	Volcano Dungeon	310	15
Magma Sprite	Volcano Dungeon	220	15
Metal Head	The Mines	40	15
Metal Head (dangerous)	Dangerous Mines	280	19-26
Mummy	Skull Cavern	260	30
Mummy (dangerous)	Skull Cavern	445	38-55
Mutant Fly	Mutant Bug Lair, Skull Cavern	66	12
Mutant Grub	Mutant Bug Lair	100	12
Pepper Rex	Skull Cavern	300	15
Putrid Ghost	The Dangerous Mines	500	25
Rock Crab	The Mines	30	5
Rock Crab (dangerous)	Dangerous Mines	272	13
Royal Serpent	Skull Cavern	150 + (50 × tail segments)	32-48
Serpent	Skull Cavern	150	23
Shadow Brute	The Mines	160	18
Shadow Brute (dangerous)	Dangerous Mines	370	22-32
Shadow Shaman	The Mines	80	17
Shadow Shaman (dangerous)	Dangerous Mines	310	21-30
Shadow Sniper	The Mines	300	18
Skeleton	The Mines	140	10
Skeleton (dangerous)	Dangerous Mines, Quarry Mine	655	16-18
Skeleton Mage	Dangerous Mines, Quarry Mine	355	20-25
Slimes	The Mines, Skull Cavern, Quarry Mine, Secret Woods, Tiger Slime Grove, and Volcano Dungeon	Varies	Varies
Spider	The Mines (Shrine ON)	200	15
Squid Kid	The Mines	1	18
Squid Kid (dangerous)	The Dangerous Mines; Skull Cavern	250	22-32
Stick Bug	The Dangerous Mines	700	20
Stone Golem	The Mines	45	5
Stone Golem (dangerous)	Dangerous Mines	283	13
Truffle Crab	The Farm	30	5
Wilderness Golem	The Farm	30	5