The Cursed Mine has often been the go-to method for obtaining wealth on Skelril. However, it's long history of profit, does not make it any less effective, and it certainly doesn't make it any less threatening.
Perhaps the first thing you will notice while mining in the Cursed Mine is that the ore doesn't drop onto the ground, and instead you obtain stacks of it in your inventory. The second thing you will likely notice, is that seemingly just as quickly as you obtained the ore, it disappeared!
To be profitable while mining at the Cursed Mine, you must be able to out mine the ore drain rate to the point where you have enough ore to escape without losing all your profits.
In addition to the challenge of overcoming the drain rate and escaping with a sizable sum of ore, the player must overcome additional hostilities of the mind. The first thing an acutely aware player will notice is that their food more rapidly depletes, and they are occassionally pointed.
As if that wasn't bad enough, the Cursed Mine is also, well, cursed, and it's haunted by a variety of figures which have passed away there -- don't worry, we won't let it steal your soul too. Some of these ghost are malevolent, and only wish to cause you trouble in your attempts to gain large quantities of wealth. One of these ghost, Dave, has become very well known for his malicious actions, and terrible tricks. Any player that mines at the Cursed Mine for a significant amount of time will certainly learn of Dave, and his many tricks sooner or later. That said, other ghost, such as Casper, are much friendlier! You have a 50/50 shot at encountering a good ghost or an evil ghost. This chance can be reduced to 50/25 respectively if you equip yourself with full Ancient armor.
Ghost will spawn -- generally -- some distance away, and rapidly charge the player. When a good ghost hits the player, something good happens, when a bad ghost hits the player, sometihng bad happens. A ghost can be avoided by killing it before it has a chance to hit you.
Caspher the friendly ghost, is actually a friendly ghost (who would've thought?!). Caspher regularly gives the players some bread or when he's feeling particularly generous a collection of valuable ingots and gems.
COOKIE is obsessed with cookies, and well, as you may have guessed, regularly hands them out.
John a maker of fine leather jackets is happy to share his work, and regularly provides the player with brand new leather jackets.
Tim is a bit mysterious, we don't really know how Tim does it, but Tim will occassionally teleport all items on the ground in the mine to the player, along with an assortment of valuables.
Dan similar to Tim posses a mysterious power, "the sparkling touch." Occassionaly, Dan will award this power to the player. When Dan awards the sparkling touch if the player holds nothing in their hand, they will be given a random stack of valuables.
Note: This can work multiple times, scroll across (or make empty spots on) your hotbar to get the full benefit.
Capn' Dave is Dave's pirate split personality. Pirate Dave fires ye old cannons, and attacks the player with rapid fireball attacks.
Pyro Dave is one of the most deadly of Dave's split personalities. Pyro Dave causes a series of gas explosions resulting in a great deal of pain and fire.
Note: Pyro Dave is only encountered while mining diamonds.
Alchemy Dave is Dave's chemically inclined split personality. Alchemy Dave loves to throw random potions on the player until they die.
Note: Alchemy Dave is only encountered while mining emeralds.
Para Dave is Dave's sky diving split personality. Para Dave is very excited about sharing his love for sky diving, unfortunately Para Dave always forgets to give the player a paracute.
Famished Dave is Dave's unsatisfiably hungry split personality. Famished Dave will continously steal all of the player's food (even the food they've already eaten!).
Friendly dave is Dave's primary personality. Unfortunately, despite the name, friendly Dave is no friendlier than any of Dave's other split personalities and will light the player on fire, throw them around, and dump out their backpack.
Goerge is a pyromaniac that regularly lights players on fire "by accident" for fourty-five seconds.
Simon is a prankster that regularly drops large quantities of sticks near miners.
Ben takes after his older brother Dave, while not leathal he is quite irritating and will constantly dump out the player's backpack.
Merlin is a might wizard... Or at least, he thinks he is. Merlin will attack the player with a barrage of strange effects.
Hallow... The entity of evil... Fortunately for the player, Hallow leaves his interactions in the cursed mine to his minions. Any encounter with Hallow will result in a hoard of blazes appearing.
The legionnair is an associate of Hallow that brings an army of hell hounds to attack the player.
The cursed mine has a few speciality mines with additional mechanics to be aware of.
The Emeralnd mine is one of the more valuable mines, however, the player must operate the pump mechanism. Unfortunately, for unknown reasons there's an infestation of blazes that can only be suppressed with hundreds of gallons of water per second, and the dang pumps just won't stay on by themselves.
To operate the pumps the player must press the marked buttons at the bottom of the Emerald mine on the wall. There's additionally a trip wire on the way down that triggers the pumps to help the player get going.