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Digging deeper

The way down gives more than ore now. Break natural rock under the land and now and then you strike something: a geode, a find for Bram's cabinet, or a burrow with a wild animal asleep in it. Keep digging without stopping and you build Momentum. Your minimap always says how far down you are.

Digging under the meadow: Momentum 11 on the left (+11% dig), a geode cracked open, and 38 down on the minimap

Why dig deeper

Everything the depth gives, in one place: the deeper you are, the stronger the Grown and the better what they leave.

Where	Rows under the old floor	The Grown	A great one pays (a common Grown's experience)	Deep runes	A strike, about once in
The caves	above it	your region's level	7×	none	240 blocks
The Twenty: the Ember Sea to the Still Dark	0 to 2,047	your region's level + 10, and 1 more for every 32 rows	7×	tier I	190 blocks
The Grey Fold to the Echo Wells	2,048 to 4,095	(the same rule, up to level 300)	7×, 9× from 2,560 rows	tier II	190 blocks
The Blackwater Steps to the Wormways	4,096 to 6,143		9×, 11× from 5,120 rows	tier III	190 blocks
The Glass Canyon to the Burning Stair	6,144 to 8,191		11×	tier IV	190 blocks
The Bloodroot Tangle to the Threshold	8,192 to 10,239		11×	tier V	190 blocks
The Descent: the Bone Gardens to the Clockwork Under-city	10,240 and down	level 300, and Might: each band's Grown are born stronger	more with the Might, about 17× at the floor of the world	tier VI	150 blocks
The Crystal Cathedrals and below				tier VII	150 blocks

Deep runes drop from the Deep's Grown (1.5%), its elites (6%), every great one of the Deep and a quarter of its chests. The materials of the Twenty's bands and their great ones' trophies are in The Twenty; the Grown and the Might of the Descent in The Deep.

How deep you are

On the minimap. Under the land, its upper right corner says how many rows down you are: 412 down. That is the number the Book of Delvers keeps, counted from the land above your feet. A ★ beside it means you are as deep as you have ever been.
On the world map. Press M: your mark says you · 412 down, and the card beside the map says it too, with your best.
Deeper than ever. On a trip down, the moment you pass the best depth you had when you set out, the screen says so: Deeper than you have ever been. It only counts on your own trail (see The Delvers).

Strikes

From 12 rows under the land, every block of natural rock you break may strike something. The deeper you are, the more often:

Where	A strike, about once in
The caves (above the old floor of the world)	240 blocks
The Upper Deep	190 blocks
The bands below it	150 blocks

In the flow of a long dig (Momentum 25 or more) strikes come half as often again. A strike shows with a burst, a word over the spot and a line in your chat. Everyone near sees it.

A geode. The rock cracks open and spills what it held:
- In the caves: crystals, copper, iron or mythril ore by depth, and some gold.
- In the Upper Deep: crystals, embersteel ore or voidglass shards, and more gold.
- In the bands: crystals, voidglass, the band's own ore, and about ten Grown's worth of gold.
- Now and then, an egg: a mottled egg in the caves, a deep egg in the Upper Deep, an ancient egg in the bands. See Farm animals.
A find, for Bram's cabinet (below).
A burrow. You break into a hollow, and a wild animal of the deep is curled up asleep in it: a stonemole from 30 rows down, a stonemole or a lanternback in the Deep. Feed it its food to tame it. The deeper the burrow, the better its stats. See Wild animals.

What a strike drops is yours (and your group's) for 15 seconds, as an area pick's is.

What does not strike:

One roll a swing: an area pick or a miner's charge strikes no more often than a plain pickaxe.
Never in a town's ground, a dungeon or the Skyreach.
Never on what someone built, nor on ground that grew back over a hole a moment ago.
A block you put back and dig again strikes nothing. The game keeps the tiles you dug in the last hour.

Bram's cabinet

Bram, the old miner at Aldhearth's well, keeps what delvers bring up out of the rock. Every part of the way down has three finds of its own, 39 in all:

the caves;
the five strata of the Upper Deep (the Ember Sea, the Hollow Roots, the Choir Caverns, the Still Dark, the Grey Fold);
the seven bands below it.

Bram's cabinet: the caves' shelf full, and finds from the Ember Sea, the Hollow Roots and the Choir Caverns

A find you don't have goes into his cabinet. The chat tells you which it is and how many of its shelf you have.
One he has already, he buys: 25 gold in the caves, 120 in a stratum, from 300 to 1,200 in the bands.
A full shelf brings an egg: a mottled egg for the caves, a deep egg for a stratum, an ancient egg for a band. And it stays with you as +1% mining speed for every full shelf, +13% for all thirteen (the character window, I, lists it under Collections).
Titles: the Collector (Uncommon), for filling the caves and the five strata; the Curator (Epic), for filling all thirteen.
Open it from Bram's menu (Bram's cabinet: your finds) or from the Journal (J), on the Delvers tab.

Momentum

Keep breaking rock and you build Momentum, a counter on the left of your screen (under where the Rush shows).

A Delver's pasty (a farm dish) keeps Momentum 2 seconds longer between breaks, and gives you 2 more light in the dark.

Each block you break soon after the last one is a step: within 3 seconds, plus the time the block takes to dig.
Each step is +1% mining speed, up to +20% from 20 on.
From 25 on, strikes come half as often again ("more strikes").
The counter flashes at 25, 50, 100, 250 and 500.
A pause ends it. The counter shows how long your run was, and goes.

It counts natural ground only (rock, dirt, ore, the Deep's stone), not what someone built. It is yours alone and is not kept when you log out.