Copper Ore

Copper is the first thing the earth gives up. It lies so near the grass that a beginner with a borrowed pick may come home with a little of it, green at the edges and of small account, and no miner boasts of copper. Yet the smiths ask after it every morning. For with coal in the fire it becomes bronze, and it is in bronze that every apprentice learns to hold a hammer, and there has never been a year when the smiths said they had enough.

Details

• It lies on every level of the mines, from the first room down, in an ore deposit, and coal is often beside it.
• It takes a mining pick and Pitter (Mining) at level 10. Below that level the ore is destroyed as it is dug.
• A deposit holds only a little, so a load of copper is the work of many walls.
• Copper ore and a lump of coal are smelted into bronze ingots, which Pitter (Smelting) can do from level 1.