💎 The Mine: Floor by Floor

Twenty floors of dark, patient rock sit beneath the corner of Tara’s farm, and every one of them keeps something worth carrying back up. This page is the full survey — what each floor holds, how the locked doors open, and what to do with a bag full of ore. For the gentler overview (and its companion pursuit, foraging), start at Mining & Foraging.

🌱 Spoiler-light, as ever — the mine touches the island’s oldest mystery, and we’ll point at it without pressing it flat.

Opening the mine

The mine entrance beside the farm starts the game collapsed. “Hey, I remember this mine!” Tara says. “It looked way less run-down when I was seven.” Bring Parker wood and stone for the quest Don’t Take Mines for Granite and he’ll shore it up early in the story — after that, the way down is yours.

How the deep behaves

• One key per floor. On nearly every floor, the key to the next level down is hidden inside the ore nodes — keep swinging and it will turn up. The mine rewards the thorough.
• Two locked exceptions. Floor 14 ends at a fancy door with a note on it — “I have the key to this door. I will return it when the time is right.” The Deep Mine key comes through the coven’s questline, so if you’ve hit that door, the way forward is story, not stone. Floor 20 is the bottom; there is no key because there is no further down.
• Every floor has clay patches to dig and loose stones to break, whatever else it offers.
• Gem rocks are a gamble — a gem node can give up its gem, or coal, or plain stone, or some mix of them.
• Floor 20 hides a fishing pool — yes, really. Pack the rod (Fishing).

The pickaxe ladder

Every upgrade comes from Natalia at the blacksmith, and every one pays for itself in saved energy — the true currency of a mining day.

smelt, upgrade, descend, repeat — every ore run ends at Natalia’s door 🔨

Floor by floor

Iron runs the whole depth of the mine; the richer metals and gems join in as you descend.

Shopping-list view, for when a quest sends you down for one thing:

The gem finders

Three curious devices wait on floors 15, 18, and 20 — dowsing engines that light up whichever stone on the floor is hiding a gem, sparing you the guesswork. Each must be repaired with enchanted silver wire (5 for floor 15, 10 for floor 18, 20 for floor 20 — the deep one drives a hard bargain), and each run of divination burns 5 coal. Once you’re gem-hunting in earnest, they pay for themselves fast — especially over floor 20’s diamonds.

Chests and the miners’ letters

The chests scattered through the mine hold recipes, powered gems for the craft — and on floors 15 through 19, letters left behind by the workers of the old Fairhaven Mining Co., one per floor. Read them in order and a picture forms of why the company shut the mine and left in a hurry: keys going missing, strange small figures glimpsed in the dark, machinery sabotaged overnight…

🕯️ We’ll say no more here. If you’ve met the island’s more hidden residents, you already know who was minding the deep. If you haven’t — collect all five letters and enjoy the shiver.

What the haul is for

Quests that send you digging

The mine threads through the island’s errands from the first week to the wedding ring:

• Don’t Take Mines for Granite — wood and stone so Parker can repair the entrance.
• Oh, the Iron-y — Natalia’s first smelting lesson.
• A Questionable Supply Chain — the mayor wants wood, stone, and iron ingots.
• Pot, Meet Kettle — copper for Natalia’s soup kettle.
• A Natural Alloy — silver ingots for Francis’s wedding bands.
• This Rock is Mine / Get a Lode of This — Giva takes a scholarly interest in the bottom floors… and the coven has opinions about that.
• Tying the Knot, Fairhaven Style — iron and gold ingots for a wedding ring of your own (Romance).

field notes: descend with an empty bag and a full stomach 🥧 — swing at every ore node until the key drops, dig the clay on the way past, and never walk out of floor 20 without checking the fishing pool 💎