Mara’s Drainhouses

What it is

A Drainhouse is a small underground waterkeeping station with three rooms: an engraved entrance, a damp garden and a raised copper return desk. Each room has a ledger from Mara. Follow her notes and you can restore the desk and earn Mara’s Empty Bell, a tool for answering Rootmolt Striders.

How to get it

Finding a house. Drainhouses appear in lush caves, dripstone caves and the Belowkeeper Hollows in newly generated land. Their entrance opens off a dry cave mouth. Not every cave has one.

Following Mara’s notes. Read the ledgers in order, in Survival. Each gives you one of her journals, once:

1. Entrance ledger (The Borrowed Third Breath): first gather dew from a Sporeback Snail.
2. Garden ledger (Six Feet at the Table): first watch a living Rootmolt eat a mature Glowcap from close by.
3. Return desk (What the Empty Bell Keeps): first answer a Rootmolt’s warning, either with a melee hit during its warning or rake, or by stepping sideways off its marked line and letting the rake miss.

Rootmolts only threaten you on Easy, Normal or Hard. You don’t need to finish Mara’s Three Breathmarks first. Each player follows their own investigation, and using a ledger shows a hint for your next step.

Restoring the desk. After all three journals, bring 2 Mycelial Dew, 2 Dried Glowcap Gills and 4 copper ingots. Hold the dew and use the desk. It spends the materials and gives you Mara’s Empty Bell, once per player.

How to use it

Mara’s Empty Bell

Stand still and hold it up for one second while a Rootmolt within 5 blocks, in view, is warning, raking or holding you. The ring answers that creature and frees you from its hold.

• Each ring uses 1 of the bell’s 32 uses, slows you for 2 seconds and starts a 12-second rest.
• Moving, swapping items or losing sight of the Rootmolt cancels it.
• It makes no magic and deals no damage.

Repairing it: hold the damaged bell and use the restored desk. Each repair costs 1 dew, 1 gill and 1 copper ingot, restores up to 8 uses, and can be done once a minute. A lost or broken bell is not replaced, so repair it in time.

Rootbound Greaves

Craft leather boots + copper ingot + Dried Glowcap Gills + Mycelial Dew (shapeless). They’re boots with a little armour.

Crouch on the ground without moving for 1.5 seconds to brace your feet. Moving, jumping, sprinting or entering water breaks it. A braced pair stops one Rootmolt hold (you still take the hit). That costs 8 durability, slows you for 2 seconds and starts a 10-second rest.

Tips and counterplay

• Plant Glowcaps along snail paths under cover, on damp footing. Ordinary mushrooms can draw a snail away.
• Rootmolts eat mature caps and give you nothing, so guard your best ones.
• Brace your Greaves before walking into a Rootmolt’s patch.