Defeating the GRUZ MOTHER - Hollow Knight Mini-Boss

Hello, gamers. Welcome back to my blog.

I am exploring the depths of Hollownest, a kingdom with great treasure now in shambles and decaying and trying to uncover the mystery behind all that. In the last session, we found out about the Temple of the Black egg, not knowing what's the secret behind it and trying to uncover all the secrets.

I had found Cornifer, the Cartographer who sold me an unfinished map of the underground area of the Forgotten Crossroads. Today, we are exploring and trying to locate our position on the map while traversing through all the available paths (we have a lot of them). It is a web of paths which branches out to even more paths and some end in dead-ends while others are blocked or just a little too high to climb.

The Last Stag

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I did come across a signboard with what looks like a face (?) pointing in a specific direction. I took that path which had more of the same signs and it led me to another bench in the middle of the crossroads.

Right next to the bench was a pole, and a toll machine and it asked me to pay 50 Geo (so the currency is called Geo). I paid the 50 Geo and a large bug came rushing towards me, giving me a good shock. I even tried to hit it but I couldn't. Turns out he is a friendly guy...Phew!

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He is called the Last Stag, and it appears when you ring the bell. He is a quick travel guy and can quickly take you to the other station. This is a much-needed thing, I was already lost at the crossroads and wanted to go back up to the Dirthmouth to purchase the compass for the map.

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I saw only two stations on the list of stations so I am guessing I need to unlock all other stations but the map on this travel network is completely different than the other map Cornifer gave me.

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I travelled to the Dirthmouth station and a new door opened on the top. I entered and found this was the shop for the wife of Cornifer and he told us about the shop too.

I had only 292 Geo to spare so I bought the highly recommended Wayward compass which can be equipped only by sitting on a bench. You see, the game has charms and charm slots so you can only put a limited no of charms at any given time. I had 2 charm slots and equipped the wayward compass.

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With the Wayward compass equipped, I can see my current position on the map which is a super important thing. I had no idea which path I was taking before and sometimes you get lost in the web of paths down there.

If I had more Geo I would have bought the other item as well which allows me to fill up the map.

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I kept going into new rooms and locations, killing bugs and collecting more Geo. Enemies seem to respawn when you exit and reenter the room so you can kind of farm cash easily.

Defeating the Gruz Mother

I was about to enter a room with a big bug sleeping, I thought it was another NPC but that was a mini-boss, who locked me inside and it started attacking me. This one is a huge fly called the Gruz Mother. It took me some time to understand its patterns but it was too late, I died trying to fight this boss.

But I was confident on my next try so when I reached the boss room, I just recorded the fight and uploaded it on my Youtube channel.

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It was not that difficult once you understand all their moves and how they attack. It flies and remains in the air and suddenly dodges towards you and the other attack sequence is when it gets mad and slams itself on the floor repeatedly while moving forward, that is not so easy to dodge and you have to cross to the other side when it is up. So, the escape window is tiny.

One of the things that surprised me was when I defeated it, but the doors did not open, I was thinking my game got glitched or something but it was part of the fight, all her children came out bursting her. That was totally unexpected.

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What made it more surprising is we saw a dying animation too and that sold it. This game is full of surprises at every corner.

Found Sly, the shopkeeper

After defeating the Gruz mother, I came further down and saw a few huts. One of them was glowing so I went inside and found another NPC, this one looked like he was sleeping or hypnotized. His name is Sly

This one is a tiny bug with a couple of big eyes, they were orange before I woke him up.

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He has a shop in Dirtmouth as well so I went all the way up because this was kind of a dead end. There was this place on the far right where I could not jump and cross. I might need a double jump or some sort of ability to reach that ledge.

Anyways, I travelled back up killing more bugs and collecting more precious Geo along the way.

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Sly has a shop in Dirthmouth which have some interesting items, a Mask shard... I didn't even know what it was but that was the only thing I could afford so I bought it. It showed me a little animation and I need at least 2-3 more to make a complete mask. I think this one will grant me an extra life.

He was also selling a 'Simple Key', I remember a door I found that required a key but this costs 950!!! It will take an eternity to collect so much Geo. He was also selling a Lantern for 1800!!

This guy is looting me with all those expensive items. I will buy them once I have more cash on hand.

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That's it for now... I have two shops to spend money on... so the next thing is to kill gazillions of little bugs and collect those Geo and buy all these items. Or maybe I can find a boss who gives a huge amount of Geo when killed. Until then, I will keep on exploring more uncharted lands. Still, a lot to explore!

Thanks for reading...

Until next time...

Note:

• All the content is mine unless otherwise stated.
• Hive gaming text divider from Raizel posted in Hivegaming Discord Server.
• Screenshots are from the game Hollow Knight.

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