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The Deep

Dig past the lava, through the old floor of the world, and the ground goes on. That is the Deep: stratum under stratum, each darker and harder than the one above it, with its own Grown, its own ore and its own light. It goes on as far as anyone will ever dig, a million rows down.

The old floor of bedrock is gone. Where it was, there is deepstone now, and you can dig through it. Only the Skyreach and the dungeons still have a floor you cannot break.

Getting down

• Dig. Below every land of the world (and every hunting ground) the rock goes on. The two rows where the bedrock used to be are deepstone.
• Deepstone needs an iron pickaxe or better.
• The lava band above the old floor is still there. Dig round it, come down where it is thin, or build your way through: a solid block goes straight into lava and takes its place (see Fire and fluids).
• The HUD tells you where you are: the stratum's name and how far down you are, such as The Hollow Roots · 1,240 down. The world map stays a map of the surface, with a line that says how deep you are.

The strata

Every 512 rows is a new band, and there are twenty of them before the Deep changes: the Twenty. The first five keep their old names (the Ember Sea, the Hollow Roots, the Choir Caverns, the Still Dark, the Grey Fold); the fifteen under them, from the Slag Galleries to the Threshold, are worlds of their own. Every band has its own family of Grown, its own material, a great one in its lair and a chronicle at the Delvers' Lodge in Aldhearth: all of it is on The Twenty.

• The Ember Sea: wide magma caves, black basalt, pools of lava. Embersteel ore starts here.
• The Hollow Roots: root tunnels running every way, roots hanging from the ceilings, amber glowcaps on the floors.
• The Choir Caverns: great halls, and the most voidglass anywhere. The walls ring when you strike them.
• The Still Dark: narrow, close and almost without light. Bring your own.
• The Grey Fold: the Wane has touched it. Abyss rock, and patches of grey stone that look unfinished.
• ...and fifteen more, down to the Threshold at 9,728 rows: see The Twenty.

Below the Upper Deep

The Twenty go down to 10,240 rows below the old floor. That is the Upper Deep, and it is only the top. Under it the Deep changes: seven bands, each twice as long as the one above and each a world of its own, sealed at its top with a layer of its own rock. The first is the Bone Gardens. See The bands below.

Some delvers went down there before you. In about one stratum in three of every region there is a lost camp of the Warden House's Survey, a hundred years cold, with its chest and a page of the Surveyor's journal under a bedroll.

Danger

The Grown get stronger the deeper you go. Their level is your region's level, plus 10, plus 1 for every 32 rows below the old floor, up to level 300. In the Deep a Grown's level past 150 is its pay, not its strength: one of level 220 lasts and hits as one of level 150 does, and pays as one of 220. Might is the Deep's slope: below the Upper Deep every band's Grown are born stronger than the last (see Might and temper).

• Every land has its own Grown of the Deep. They hunt: no grazers down here.
• They are born near your own depth, not up in the caves above you.
• Every stratum brings more of the bigger ones: Grown and Apex forms, elites and packs.
• Every stratum of every region has a lair, a great hollow with crystal in its walls. Something vast sleeps there and wakes when you come close (not while a lit Home holds the lair).
• A great one fights with moves of its own, telegraphed on the ground: a leap, a charge, a shockwave, a rain, a nova. Dodge them and hit it while it is exposed. Everyone who fought it gets a share of the spoils. See Great ones and how they fight.
• A great one pays far more than a common Grown, and more the deeper its lair lies: seven times a common Grown's experience up in the open world, nine times at 2,560 rows down, eleven from 5,120 rows down, and more again with the Might of the bands, about seventeen times at the floor of the world. In the Deep a lair is worth about what hunting is, its drops on top.

What you find

• Embersteel ore (from the first stratum). It needs a mythril pickaxe. Smelt it into embersteel bars at a furnace.
• Voidglass ore (from the third stratum, most of it in the Choir Caverns). It needs a mythril pickaxe and breaks into voidglass shards.
• Abyss rock and Wane-grey stone. Only an embersteel pickaxe breaks them.
• Deep glowcaps, amber mushrooms on the floors of the Hollow Roots (a few elsewhere). They are food: eating one heals you and makes you glow for 2 minutes.
• Deep lantern moss on the walls, which gives a little light.
• Ember seams in the Ember Sea strata: thin glowing lines of red in the deepstone and basalt. An iron pickaxe gets 2 to 4 ember dust from each, the dust of emberwork.
• Old chests on cave floors. The deeper they are, the better the loot.
• Strikes: now and then a block of natural rock you break cracks open into a geode, turns up a find for Bram's cabinet, or opens a burrow with a wild stonemole or lanternback asleep in it. The deeper, the more often. See Digging deeper.

What you make

• Embersteel pickaxe (Workbench: 3 embersteel bars, 2 sticks): the fastest pickaxe, and the only one that breaks abyss rock.
• Embersteel blade (Workbench: 2 embersteel bars, a stick): 52 damage.
• Embersteel helm (Workbench: 5 embersteel bars): 12 armor.
• Embersteel plate (Workbench: 8 embersteel bars): 38 armor.
• Voidglass lens (Anvil: 6 voidglass shards, 2 embersteel bars, 2 crystals): an amulet that gives more light around you and +5% critical chance.

Further down every band gives a weapon of its own, stronger the deeper it comes from: forged from the Twenty's materials at an anvil and from the Descent's ores at a Deep anvil, left by the great ones, given at the end of the long quest lines and sold by Vesna in the Delvers' Lodge. See Weapons of the Deep.

Deepstone, abyss rock and Wane-grey stone are building blocks too. Break one and you get a block you can put down again.

Tips

• Go down with an iron pickaxe, a stack of torches and food. A mythril pickaxe opens the ores, and the first embersteel bars make the pickaxe that opens everything else.
• Lava and water flow down into the Deep as they do anywhere. Open a lava pool's wall carefully: lava sets wood alight. A flow dries up once you cut it off from where it comes from, and a bucket carries a tile of either.
• What you build down there follows the same rules as on the surface: on ground nobody holds it fades after 2 hours. Set down a Home Stone to keep it, and see Home raids and defence before you make a Home deep down.