Mining is one of the more lucrative craft skills, but also one of the most mind numbing. Its given rise to many phrases through the history of Dark Age and Dark Age II such as “Don’t whine, mine!” amongst people saying they’ll never touch an ingot again.

Ingots are almost a second currency in a world dominated by metal work. Smiths and tinkers use them extensively and even tinkers need them for metal scales and studs. As a miner, you will never find a shortage of someone wanting to buy ingots, but you may find a shortage in your own patience to mine their orders of 1,000, 2,000, or even 10,000 ingots.

Most characters who take mining are also smiths or tinkers. Mining in itself, while a possible business, generally doesn’t attract that large of an audience because there aren’t amazing creations to it. You gather ore. You gather more ore. And then.. some more.

• Tool: Pickaxe

The primary job of mining is to gather ore from mountains. This can be done with a pickaxe (crafted by smiths), though be warned you will likely break your pickaxe after so many uses, so carry quite a few, or repair them with .repair if you have any skill at smithing. The mountains in the world all have different ores in them that wont be revealed by the staff. In general, all mountains carry iron ore, coal, stone, and marble.

To begin mining, have your pickaxe in hand, double-click it, and select the base of a mountain. You will begin mining away receiving messages about how much ore you’ve gathered. The following is a list of some of the ore you can find throughout the world:

• Stone
• Iron
• Coal
• Marble
• Silver
• Laurata
• Thalium
• Allurium
• Daeris
• Acanthus
• Autumnalis
• Zephyr
• Viridium
• Drakestone
• Aedem
• Starmantle
• Pure Starmantle
• Caedium
• Naragin
• Tarnum
• Helin
• Adenium

There is also a rumor floating around about an ore without a name!

The locations of these ores have to be found out in game. You may ask other miners though they likely will keep the locations a secret. Your options after that are try to make friends with one of them, join a guild that knows the secrets, or do it the fun (and hard) way and just look all over the world. Some ores are known to exist but still can’t be found!

It is possible to mine for one type of material rather than for everything that exists in a mountain vain. Use .minefor and you will get a list of all known ores. Select one and you can mine for that item only.

• Tool: Shovel

You can gather sand with a shovel. This is used to make glass which can be used to make bottles, all through mining. To work sand you will need tongs and glass blowing pipes. Sand can be found on beaches, the desert, and sometimes in random patches over the world.

• Tool: Shovel

Clay is used to make pottery and can either be made from sand and straw using mining or by gathering a shovel and mining for clay inside a cave. The latter is far easier and far less expensive, though the two methods result in different types of colors. Clay from the ground is an earthen brown while clay from sand is an off white.

Once you have the required amount of ore to make an ingot (which you can learn about from .craftinfo mining) you can go smelt the ore into an ingot. You’ll need tongs and an forge which can be found at most craft halls or near mining camps. For any ingot other than iron and cold iron you will need coal to be mixed in with the smelting process.

• Tools: tongs, forge (round forge)

Ingots are used by Blacksmithy and Tinkering to make a wide variety of weapons, armor, and other metal items. You can determine the quality of a stack of ingots by using the skill Special Lore.

• Tools: tongs, glasspipes, forge (round forge)

Glass is used to make bottles and glassware.

Aside from mining up ores, miners can craft pottery, glassware, and cut gems. Look at the .craftinfo menu for more information. For pottery you’ll need a potters wheel and to be near an oven. Ovens can either be those you cook from or fireplaces.

Mining is the easiest skill to get started at. Grab your pickaxe and run for the nearest mountain range and start picking away. Once you gather a good lot of ingots you can easily sell them in town to support yourself or future craft skills. This guide suggests taking mining in companion with another metal skill such as Tinkering or Blacksmithy or you may find yourself with little motivation to mine other than the chance for earning a good deal of money. Believe me, this luxurious idea wont last long after you’ve mined for a few weeks.