Delving
Delving is the skill of descending into caves beneath the world. Each biome has one cave that opens once the biome is fully cleared, and delving into it grants Delving XP alongside cave materials, gems, blueprint sheets, and rare best-in-slot unique gear. Delving also governs the Excavation panel, where you spend Dig Site Maps to run fossil digs.
Delving levels run from 1 to 99. Higher levels unlock deeper caves and more Excavation dig slots.
How delving works
[edit | edit source]A cave run resolves much like an expedition: it uses the same combat math (your gear plus your companion party against the cave's difficulty), fleeing works, and injuries can occur. But there are two important differences:
- A light fuels every run. Each cave burns its own crafted light, spent whether you win or lose — the Torch that opens the Sunlit Grotto is only the first rung; every deeper cave wants a tougher light crafted further up the same Crafting bench (Pitchwood Brand, Bogfire Lamp, and so on, up to the Deeplight Lantern for the Amber Door — see Cave lights below). Unlike an expedition, the entry cost is paid the moment you step in.
- Cave injuries hurt double. An injury from a cave takes about 60 minutes to heal, twice as long as a surface expedition injury (about 30 minutes). Cave difficulty sits between a biome's patrol and its Guardian.
Cave wins do not advance biome-clear progress and cannot defeat Guardians — clearing is done through Expeditions. Caves are purely a reward activity.
Caves and level gates
[edit | edit source]Each cave requires the biome to be 100% cleared and a staggered Delving level.
| Cave | Biome | Delving level | Difficulty | Inputs | Interval (s) | Outputs | XP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sunlit Grotto | Grasslands | 1 | 30 | Torch | 9 | Stalactite Chip ×2; Glow Moss (30%); Rough Garnet (10%); Glowworm Lantern (0.2%) | 14 |
| Rootway Hollow | Redwood Wilds | 10 | 70 | Pitchwood Brand | 9.6 | Stalactite Chip ×2; Glow Moss (40%); Rough Garnet (12%); Cavern Charm (0.2%) | 26 |
| Drowned Cavern | Murkwater Swamp | 20 | 100 | Bogfire Lamp | 10.2 | Glow Moss ×2; Cave Pearl (30%); Rough Garnet (14%); Flickerfang Spear (0.2%) | 38 |
| Echoing Deep | Cavern Depths | 30 | 130 | Sporelight Lamp | 10.8 | Glow Moss ×2; Cave Pearl (35%); Amber Resin (30%); Deep Sapphire (12%); Gloomglass Shard (5%); Mosslit Crown (0.2%) | 50 |
| Cinder Vault | Scorched Badlands | 40 | 170 | Brimstone Flare | 11.4 | Cave Pearl ×2; Amber Resin (30%); Echo Shard (25%); Deep Sapphire (14%); Emberheart (5%); Emberglass Idol (0.2%) | 64 |
| Tidewrack Cave | Coral Shallows | 50 | 195 | Brinewick Lantern | 12 | Cave Pearl ×2; Amber Resin (30%); Echo Shard (30%); Deep Sapphire (15%); Ember Topaz (10%); Pearlscale Vest (0.2%) | 82 |
| Glacier Hollow | Frozen Wastes | 60 | 220 | Rimeglass Lantern | 12.6 | Echo Shard; Cave Pearl ×2 (40%); Amber Resin (30%); Ember Topaz (11%); Gloomglass Shard (6%); Blueprint: Frostbound Barding (4%); Stalker's Greaves (0.2%) | 97 |
| Ashen Gallery | Ashen Peaks | 70 | 260 | Coalheart Lantern | 13.2 | Echo Shard ×2; Amber Resin (30%); Cave Pearl ×2 (30%); Ember Topaz (13%); Blueprint: Wardstone Bulwark (4%); Aegis of the Deep (0.2%) | 116 |
| Skyvein Chasm | Skyreach Plateau | 80 | 310 | Stormglass Lantern | 14 | Echo Shard ×2; Amber Resin (30%); Ember Topaz (15%); Sky Opal (14%); Glowstone Talisman (0.2%) | 150 |
| Vale Abyss | the Sundered Vale | 90 | 380 | Voidwick Lantern | 15 | Echo Shard ×2; Amber Resin (30%); Sky Opal (26%); Gloomglass Shard (8%); Blueprint: Wardweave Leggings (4%); Fang of the Depths (0.2%) | 200 |
| The Amber Door | the Sundered Vale | 95 | 450 | Deeplight Lantern | 16 | Echo Shard ×2; Stalactite Chip ×2; Amber Resin (50%); Sky Opal (40%); Gloomglass Shard (12%); Abyssal Amber (10%); Blueprint: Wardweave Leggings (6%); Echo of the First Warden (0.2%) | 261 |
Percentages in the Outputs column show the chance of a bonus drop per winning run; unmarked items are produced every time. Interval is the base time before speed bonuses; Inputs is the light each cave burns (see Cave lights below). Every winning delve also rolls the shared reward layers covered under Rewards below — Expedition Set pieces, Arena Artifacts, and Dig Site Maps — which work the same for every cave and so aren't repeated per row.
The Amber Door is an eleventh cave — a deeper Sundered Vale site that opens only once you hold The Sigil (the Chronicles reward), on top of the level and light requirements above.
Rewards
[edit | edit source]Every winning delve rolls several loot layers:
- Cave materials (common) — Stalactite Chip, Glow Moss, Cave Pearl, Echo Shard. Common crate filler with decent sell value.
- Gems (uncommon) — Rough Garnet, Deep Sapphire, Ember Topaz, and Sky Opal, tiering up by depth; pure Amber income.
- Unique gear (rare, about 0.2% per win) — an uncraftable piece from every cave (eleven in all, one per cave). A dry streak is capped too: 400 winning runs at a cave without its unique guarantees the drop on the 400th. See Caves for the full list.
- Blueprint sheets — Glacier Hollow, Ashen Gallery, and Vale Abyss each drop a forge blueprint sheet at 4% per win (Frostbound Barding, Wardstone Bulwark, and Wardweave Leggings respectively); the Amber Door offers a second, 6% chance at that same Wardweave Leggings sheet.
- Expedition Set pieces — the biome's set pieces drop from caves at roughly 0.8% per piece per win, faster than on patrols.
- Arena Artifacts — a biome's cave is the only source of its Arena Artifact (about 1.5% per win), the key required to challenge the Arenas. A dry streak is capped: if the artifact hasn't dropped in 20 winning runs, the 20th guarantees it.
- Dig Site Maps — caves are the best source of a biome's Excavation map (about 3% per win).
Cave lights
[edit | edit source]Every cave needs its own light before you can delve — burned on entry, win or lose, and a delve cannot start without one. Lights are crafted on a Crafting ladder that runs alongside the caves themselves: the Sunlit Grotto's plain Torch comes from fernwood, fiber, and resin at Crafting level 5, and each rung after it leans more on the cave materials the deeper caves themselves drop (stalactite chips, glow moss, cave pearls, echo shards), so a good run helps restock your own next light. A fresh save needs a little Crafting (to level 5) before its very first delve; from there, each light's Crafting level sits below its own cave's Delving level, so the ladder never locks you out of the next rung. Every recipe yields several lights per craft (six, except the Deeplight Lantern's three). See the Inputs column above for exactly which light each cave burns.
Excavation
[edit | edit source]The Excavation panel lives on the Delving page. Spending a Dig Site Map starts a real-time dig that delivers fossils, Delving XP, and rarely a creature skull. The number of dig slots you can run at once grows with your Delving level. See Excavation for details.
See also
[edit | edit source]- Caves — the eleven caves (including the Amber Door) and their unique gear.
- Excavation — fossil digs, also run through Delving.
- Blueprints — what the forge blueprint sheets caves drop are for.
- Weather — a Storm boosts Delving yields.
- Battle Log — the after-action report every cave run keeps.
