This guide tells you how to kill Freddie Merchcury/Merchantry, the ubiquitous shopkeeper on every level, and not die in the process.

The guide assumes a certain level of familiarity with the basics of the game -- how to move and attack, what weapons can hit which spaces and for how much damage, and so forth. Experimenting in Bard mode is a good way to get a handle on this without having to deal with the pressure of time.

This guide is currently up to date for version 0.384.

There are two good reasons to bump Freddie off:

• All items in his shop on the current level become free.
  
• Freddie drops the Crown of Greed when killed, which is available nowhere else. This headwear doubles the value of all gold you acquire, at the cost of draining one gold per beat.

The crown is by far the most useful item in the game for scoring purposes, and you need to acquire it early on to have any reasonable shot at the leaderboards.

One disadvantage of killing Freddie is that his shop will be empty (of him and of items) for the rest of the current game. If you're seriously playing for score, though, you probably weren't planning to buy much from him anyway, and the gold walls will still be present for you to dig or blow up.

You might think that the best time to kill Freddie and get the crown is in level 1-1, as soon as possible. However, there are a few issues to consider first:

• You might not have the resources to take him on in the first level. Going after Freddie with a normal dagger and one bomb is simply suicide.
  
• The items in the first shop are generally weak and inexpensive. By waiting a level or two, you can potentially get a much better set of freebies.
  
• The crown consumes one gold per beat. Compared to later levels, earlier ones are about the same size, and take as long to traverse, but contain much less gold. If you pick the crown up too early, it may actually be a net drain on your profit for the level.

My general rule is, if level 1-2 has a shop item I really want (e. g. Ring of War, Bomb spell, golden flail), or spawns a red dragon (so I can save a bomb), that's where I kill him. Otherwise, I wait until level 1-3.

Killing Freddie after 1-3 isn't recommended. You miss out on doubling the gold from the first boss, and you'll have to deal with his ghost (see below) along with the starting crush of zone 3 monsters.

Freddie is a little different than the other inhabitants of the crypt. He spawns in a neutral state, in which you can't hit him with your weapon. Trying to move into him while he's neutral will just break your groove chain. There are currently three ways to turn him hostile:

• Catch him in the explosion of one of your bombs.
  
• Hit him with a Fireball spell or scroll.
  
• Lure a red dragon into breathing fire on him.

If you aggro him with your own actions, Freddie will run toward you and try to kill you. If a red dragon hit him, he'll run away from you, but will attack you if you commit a hostile act against him. Once he's hostile, you can hit him with your weapon like any other monster.

As an attacker, Freddie is a formidable foe. He can move orthogonally or diagonally, like a Deep Blues queen (get it?), once per round. Unlike most fast multiple-HP creatures, he does NOT get knocked back by normal attacks. I'm not sure how much damage he does, but it's "enough". Assume any hit from Freddie will kill you unless you have glass armor, the Crown of Teleportation, or the Shield spell.

Freddie takes four damage from a bomb, five from red dragon breath, three from your Fireball spell, eight from the Fireball scroll, and standard damage from your weapons. He has nine HP. Killing Freddie before he kills you requires one of these strategies:

Two bombs plus one weapon attack are enough to kill Freddie. The most efficient way to pull this off is:

• Lay two bombs in succession just to the north of him.
  
• Move two steps to the left or right. On the 2nd move, the first bomb will detonate, and he'll move adjacent to you.
  
• Attack him at the same time at the second bomb explodes.

This method is safe, reliable, and requires no exotic gear, but it does expend two bombs. Every bomb you don't use to blow up a shop corner comes at the opportunity cost of 100 gold, and you'll likely find more shop corners than bombs. A more frugal strategy is:

Lure a red dragon into breathing on the shopkeeper. This will deal five damage, so that you can finish him off with a single bomb.

The hardest part of this strategy is getting the dragon where you need it to be. Red dragons move every second beat, chasing after you. If you get on a horizontal line with one, it'll start charging up its breath. The next beat, it'll fire an infinite-range fireball in your direction. You must move vertically to avoid it.

Red dragons can dig through most materials, including shop walls, but not granite. You may have to lead the dragon around any granite deposits in the middle of the level. Once you get the dragon into the shop, get it moving vertically towards the shopkeeper's row, and position yourself on the other side, so Freddie is between you and the dragon. Step out of the way at the last second, and the dragon will blast Freddie.

Once Freddie is hit, he'll flee from you, and generally get snagged in a corner of his shop, where you can easily drop a bomb diagonally from him. If you don't have or want to use a bomb, you can kill him with weapon attacks. This will require something that hits diagonally, e. g. a broadsword, as he'll move away whenever you get him lined up. Be warned, however, that Freddie can attack diagonally, and is easily capable of killing you in one hit. If you're using a broadsword, you need to deal four damage in a single hit, which requires either glass, or fully-charged obsidian and the Ring of Might, Ring of War, or Karate Gi for extra damage. With a whip, you only need two damage, provided you make the first hit at the edge of weapon range. With a flail, damage is irrelevant, as the knockback will keep him pinned.

It's possible to make Freddie flee his shop entirely. If he runs onto a spike trap, he'll die and drop the crown, but you'll have to deal with the trap to retrieve it. If he falls down a trap door, his goods on the current level are free, and he'll be alive and neutral in the next shop.

With certain particular equipment, it's possible to kill Freddie more easily:

• Hit him with a bomb, then a weapon attack dealing at least five damage. A glass weapon will do if you have +damage equipment. A good rapier will also work, if you make sure to catch him at range 2. Caution is advised.
  
• Hit him with a bomb or fireball, then use the Freeze scroll or spell. This will buy you ten turns, easily enough to kill him with a normal dagger.
  
• As above, but with the Shield scroll or spell. This is even easier, as you don't need to worry about the bomb blast -- just do a back-and-forth step after laying it, then activate the shield just before it goes off.
  
• With a source of knockback (a flail or the Ring of War), alternate hitting and sidestepping (think the Deep Blues king). Freddie will never touch you.
  
• The Dagger of Frost will freeze him in place, as long as you get the first hit.
  
• A Potion or glass armor will save you from his first hit, and provide you temporary invulnerability for one more beat, if you want to finish him off in melee range. Not recommended for the loss of resources.
  
• The Crown of Teleportation will block a hit and teleport you elsewhere, where you might be able to kill Freddie with a ranged weapon when he hunts you down. Or you could end up back in his shop with no chance of escape.
  
• With Leaping Boots or Boots of Speed, you may be able to pelt Freddie with a ranged weapon while staying ahead of him. Watch out for monsters in your path.
  
• A Fireball scroll will leave Freddie one point from death, making it one of the most efficient ways to kill him.

After you kill the shopkeeper, his ghost may appear on a later level. You'll know he's there because of his obnoxious wail which doesn't stop until you kill him. He'll be visible on the screen regardless of your line of sight to him, like a wraith. He moves like the living shopkeeper, except that he can phase through any material except granite. He also kills you in one hit. Once you kill the ghost (he has only one HP), he won't reappear for the rest of the current run.

The ghost generally spawns four levels after the shopkeeper dies (so e. g. 2-2 if he died on 1-2), but if you kill him late in the game, he may show up in 3-3 if he would otherwise not appear at all. All the zone 2 levels start you in a nearly empty room, and you should be able to dispatch him with few distractions (sometimes you have to move a bit to lure him around interior granite deposits). In Zone 3, you generally have monsters coming after you right away, and things can get hairy if he reaches you when you're fighting for your life. Another good reason to kill him early if at all.

Spëncrë, for supplying a simple two-bomb strategy that replaced several paragraphs of instructions, and clarifying when the ghost appears.