Mining Guide: Mine Floors, Ores, Monsters, and Survival

Unlocking the Mines

The Mines sit at the northern tip of The Narrows and start closed, shut down after the earthquake that damaged Mistria. Early on you will get a letter from Eiland asking you to help convince Errol to reopen them. Errol relents with one condition: the town must reach Town Rank 10 (Stone) first. If the gates are still shut for you, the fix is not a quest item - it is renown, so keep shipping museum donations, completing requests, and restoring the town.

Inside the entrance cavern (the Ground Floor) you will find a dragon statue that works like Caldarus' shrine on your farm: it trades essence for Mining and Combat skill perks. Floor 1 always spawns without monsters, so your first descent is a safe tutorial.

Mine Layout: Biomes, Elevators, and Ladders

Progress is floor by floor. Ladders down appear randomly when you break rocks or kill monsters, and each one takes you exactly one floor deeper. Climbing a ladder up always returns you to the Ground Floor, not the previous floor - and going back to the Ground Floor resets the mine's floor layouts. Once you reach a floor ending in 5 or 0 for the first time, the elevator links it to the Ground Floor permanently, which is how you skip back to your deepest checkpoint each trip.

Every 20 floors is a distinct biome with its own ore, gem, monsters, fish, bugs, and artifacts:

Elevator floors have fixed layouts and never spawn treasure chests. You can jump gaps and swim through water on many floors; swimming into a whirlpool teleports you to its paired whirlpool on the same floor, which often shortcuts past monsters. One quirk worth knowing: you need a watering can to navigate parts of the Lava Caves, and splashing a Lava Cat with it petrifies the creature.

Ores, Gems, and What to Bring Home

Mineral nodes drop the biome's ore or gem, with a chance at Perfect variants. Cracked rocks on the walls also yield biome ore when struck. Plain rocks everywhere drop Stone, Peat, Sod, and Clay, and with the Ore-riginal perk (mining tier 1, 25 essence) those plain rocks occasionally drop the biome's ore too - a strong early buy that makes every floor pay out.

Ingots feed the tool ladder. A Copper Pickaxe (Blacksmithing level 4, 1,000t shop price) is the minimum for breaking boulders, and each tier also widens the charged swing: Copper hits 3x1 tiles, Iron 3x3, Silver 3x6, and Gold a huge 6x6 area. Since the Gold Pickaxe only needs 4 Gold Ingots, rushing pickaxe tiers is the single biggest mining speed-up available.

On what to keep: smelt most ore into ingots for tools and crafting, but stash one Perfect ore and one Perfect gem of each type before you sell anything - the museum's Metals of Mistria and Gems of Mistria sets want all ten perfect variants. The Perfect Pick perk (tier 5, level 60) raises perfect drop rates if you are still hunting them late-game. Also hold onto monster parts; Monster Fangs, Shells, Cores, and the rest feed mid-tier crafting and furniture recipes.

Monsters and Combat Basics

Monsters live only in the Mines, and each biome recolors the same families: Saplings, Rock Clods, Ore Clods, Mushrooms, Enchanterns, Stalagmites, Essence Bats, Mimics, and - deeper down - Flame Spirits, Lava Cats, Void Cats, Flying Tomes, Rock Stacks, and Living Gryphon Statues. Kills raise your Combat skill and drop materials at steady rates: a typical pattern is a 70% common drop (Sap, Stone, Glass, ore) plus a 30% monster part (Fang, Shell, Horn, Core, Wing, Powder, Whisker, Block), with a 5% chance at that monster's cosmetic hat. Ore Clods are quietly one of the best ore sources in the game since they drop biome ore 70% of the time.

The only weapon type in Early Access is the sword. Combat perks from the mines' dragon statue are worth the essence: Guardian's Shield (10) reflects your first hit taken each day, True Strike (20) adds critical hits, Jump Attack (15) turns leaps into area attacks, and Well Armed (15) lets chests drop biome armor and weapons. Later tiers add Perfect Prefix (doubled weapon infusions), Sure Strike (stacking damage buff on kills), and Friend-Shaped (pet skins from monsters).

If your HP reaches zero you faint and wake up in the Clinic. You keep every item and every tessera - the only real cost is that the day ends immediately. Treat fainting as a wasted afternoon, not a catastrophe.

Stamina, HP, and Survival Tips

Two bars govern a mining run. Stamina drains with every pickaxe swing and sword slash; HP drains when monsters connect. Food restores both, so pack a stack of cooked dishes before any serious descent - raw forage works in a pinch but cooked meals restore far more per slot.

The mines themselves offer emergency relief. Rare fountain floors have drinkable water that restores 20 HP and 20 stamina once. Dragon Priestess offering statues grant a blessing of 25 HP, 20 stamina, or 10 essence depending on the statue, and the What an Offer combat perk (45 essence) bolts an HP and stamina regeneration buff onto every offering. Both floor types are marked by the icon beside the floor number, so learn to read it at a glance.

Practical discipline for deep trips:

• Eat at roughly half stamina, not at zero - running dry mid-floor with monsters around is how faints happen.
• Bank your progress: once you crack a new elevator floor (15, 20, 25...), consider surfacing so tomorrow's trip starts there.
• After the Stone Refinery story quest, the Teleportation Chalice warps you from the mines back to your farm for 10 essence per use - the cleanest escape when you are loaded with ore and low on food.
• Remember that surfacing resets floor layouts, so finish any treasure room before you leave (see below).

Special Floors, Chests, and the Stone Refinery

Beyond normal floors, the icon by the floor number flags special rooms. Treasure rooms (unlocked by the Treasure Hunter perk, 20 essence) spawn a chest, a ladder, and several ore nodes - and once a treasure room generates on a floor, it persists for the rest of the day. Surfacing and re-entering resets the mines but keeps that room, so you can farm it repeatedly until nightfall. Locked ladder floors hide a lever you must flip (usually under rocks) before the ladder opens. Arena floors lock the ladder and force you to clear every monster for a chest. Ritual Chambers (Lost to History perk, tier 4, 155 essence) appear at most once per day, never in the Upper Mines, and their central urn drops Ritual artifacts and pieces of the Dragon Cleric outfit.

From floor 2 onward, treasure chests spawn in wooden, copper, silver, and gold rarities containing tesserae and biome ore; the Treasured perk (45) improves spawn rates and Fantastic Finds (tier 3) removes wooden chests from the pool entirely.

Finally, the Stone Refinery story quest adds a refinery to the entrance area. It crafts Essence Stones - the fuel for magical tools like the sprite statues - and other stone-based materials, and it is what unlocks the Teleportation Chalice. The Refined Rockery and Break One, Get Two perks (tier 4) shave 10 minutes off refinery recipes and occasionally double the output, respectively.

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