Spheniscine's MouseHunt Walkthrough

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Chapter 18: Balack's Cove

Go to Cape Clawed and buy an Antique Lantern (94,000 gold) from the General Store. You can now craft Balack's Lantern with the following recipe:

Note that any extra Dragon Embers may be smashed into Fire Salt; however, keep one, you'll need it later.
Go to the Jungle of Dread. Arm the Clockapult of Time or Gorgon Trap, and use Gouda.
You will attract the Swarm of Pygmy mice, which drops Vanilla Beans.
This is used to make a new cheese; the Vanilla Stilton cheese. There are two recipes you can use, depending on if you have the Super Brie to make Magic Essence with:

15 Vanilla Beans + 15 Curds & Whey + 15 Salt + 15 Coconut Milk = 15 Vanilla Stilton
5 Vanilla Beans + 15 Curds & Whey + 15 Salt + 15 Coconut Milk + 15 Magic Essence = 15 Vanilla Stilton

You can now hunt in Balack's Cove. There are three types of traps you can use here:

If you're aiming for Balack the Banished, use a Forgotten trap (Ancient Box Trap), as it is most effective against the Liches.
If you're here to get points (the mice here give a lot), use an Arcane trap (ACRONYM).
Shadow traps are less than ideal, but can be equipped as "insurance" against the Pygmy mice if you will be away when the tide comes in.

The Balack's Cove has three states, viewable from a special toolbar that appears in the area; low, medium, and high tide.
During low tide, there will be no Riptide mice; they are common during medium tide, and during high tide you will only catch Riptide Mice.
The Cove runs on an 18-hour, 40-minute cycle. Low tide lasts 16 hours, followed by 1 hour of medium tide, then 40 minutes of high tide, then 1 hour of medium tide again, before going back to low tide.
The MouseHunt Timer is useful for predicting the tides.
If you catch a Riptide Mouse, you will be washed back to the Jungle of Dread. Be sure to check your location, to avoid the Swarms of Pigmy mice stealing your precious Vanilla Stilton!
Unlike the Forbidden Grove, this location is never "closed"; you can travel back right after you catch a Riptide mouse. However, this is not recommended, especially during high tide.
If you prefer to stay in Balack's Cove through medium and high tide, you can unequip your cheese (by selecting the cheese you're already using through the camp page; a red DISARM should appear as you hover over it). This prevents you from catching any Riptide mice.
Or, you can craft Empowered Anchor Charms with 1 Flawless Orb + 1 Scrap Metal + 40 Charmbits; equipping these gives you a small power bonus, and you won't be affected by catching Riptide mice. This option can be quite expensive though.
There are many new mice here; most notably:

With these loot items you can now craft Vengeful Vanilla Stilton cheese. There are again two recipes:

1 Bottled-Up Rage + 1 Raisins Of Wrath + 1 Pinch Of Annoyance + 1 Vanilla Bean + 1 Curds & Whey + 1 Ionized Salt + 1 Coconut Milk = 1 Vengeful Vanilla Stilton
1 Bottled-Up Rage + 1 Raisins Of Wrath + 1 Pinch Of Annoyance + 1 Vanilla Bean + 1 Curds & Whey + 1 Ionized Salt + 1 Coconut Milk + 3 Magic Essence = 3 Vengeful Vanilla Stilton

It is recommended that you use the second recipe if you have Super Brie to spare, as the loot items can be pretty tough to acquire.
This cheese is used to attract the Balack the Banished mouse. Arm the Ancient Box Trap, and cross your fingers.
Good luck, you'll need it! And again, beware the tides!
You need to be Lord/Lady to enter the next area. Meanwhile, you can go back to catch the mice you missed, or try collecting the ingredients and crafting the following powerful, but hard-to-acquire trap components:

Molten Shrapnel Base

The power of the Monolith base, and the luck of the Aqua Base combined! The downside is its Extremely Stale cheese effect; but that just means more Stale Cheese to use, right? The recipe is as follows:

Heat Bath

1 Heat Bath Blueprints (available from the Dragon's Chest; you may have to open a few before seeing one!)
36 Coal (loot drop in Catacombs; again, could take a while!)
6 Scrap Metal (loot drop in Catacombs)
2 Launcher Parts (get 2 Net Cannons from S.S. Huntington II, and smash them; total cost 1,328,000 gold)

You need at least 24.8 million points to craft this weapon.
However, you will get even more powerful Hydro weapons once you get to the Slushy Shoreline, so if you're short on gold, you may want to skip crafting this.

Using Ancient cheese instead of Radioactive Blue in the Catacombs increases the proportion of mice which drop the Scrap Metal and Coal you need.
Additionally, you may also want to try catching a Silth mouse at this point, which will come in handy. (You only need to catch it; you're not looking for a loot drop.)

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