Mining and smelting

Ore runs in lodes: boulders with the metal showing in the rock. Hold a pickaxe and double-click one to work it. Each swing that comes away clean drops a lump of ore into your pack, and a vein that has been worked out goes back to plain stone for a while.

Iron comes first. Copper, silver, gold, steel and black steel each need more Mining before the pick finds anything in them, and the skill rises by swinging.

Smelt at the smith's furnace in the village: double-click it, choose an ore and how many lumps go in, and light it. The fire cools on its own and the bellows throw heat in; keep the needle inside the bright band as it drifts. The share of the smelt spent in the band is the share of lumps that pour as bars.

Double-click a vein

start or stop mining (pickaxe in hand)

Double-click the furnace

open the smelting window

Space

pump the bellows while the fire is lit