Excavation
Excavation is a discovery you can run into while actively mining ore in the prison mines, including the Netherite Mine. When an Awakened Artifact appears, swap to your brush, uncover it, and follow it across the mine. It ends with a timed scramble to recover its scattered pieces.
Getting your brush
Your first discovery gives you a free Excavation Brush. If your inventory is full, the brush is reserved for you and arrives when you free a slot. You can also use /excavate brush in the prison mines to claim your first brush.
Keep it: the brush is unbreakable and reusable. If you lose it, replacements are in /shop > Pickaxes.
How to excavate
- Find the artifact. Watch for the discovery message and the marked suspicious sand or gravel under the artifact.
- Hold right-click with your brush. Aim at the suspicious block and stay within reach. Keep brushing until its progress fills. Swinging your pickaxe will not uncover it.
- Follow it. The artifact flies to a nearby spot. Let it land, then brush the new block. Follow and brush it through two stops.
- Recover the pieces. When it shatters you get a reward straight away, and it scatters into six marked pieces. You have about 9 seconds after they land to brush as many as you can.
The mining HUD shows your current step, brushing progress, and the countdown during the scramble. Only the player who made the discovery can brush and claim its pieces.
What the pieces hold
Each scattered piece is one of three kinds of find, and you choose which pieces to go for:
| Find | What it gives |
|---|---|
| Jewel Seam | A jewel or a handful of shards |
| Crystal Nest | Shards, and rarely a pet |
| Buried Engine | Ancient Energy, and rarely an offhand |
Shards and jewels come at the tier of the mine you found the artifact in.
A Buried Engine pays Ancient Energy by mine:
| Mine | Ancient Energy |
|---|---|
| Coal | 100k |
| Iron | 200k |
| Lapis | 400k |
| Redstone | 700k |
| Gold | 1.1m |
| Diamond | 1.7m |
| Emerald | 2.5m |
| Netherite | 3.5m |
Collecting and leaving
Recoveries go into your inventory when you finish brushing, so leave space before you start. If a finished piece asks you to free space, clear a slot and right-click it again before it expires. You can also look at a fully brushed piece and use /excavate collect.
Stay near your discovery until you finish. Running too far away, changing worlds, disconnecting, dying, or letting the encounter expire ends the excavation. Anything already recovered stays yours; unfinished or unclaimed pieces disappear. Use /excavate cancel to abandon your current find.
Enchanting your brush
The Excavation Brush can be enchanted in the Wormhole like a pickaxe. Charge it with Ancient Energy, then drop it in.
- Its first enchant is Efficiency, up to V, for 20% faster brushing per level. Faster brushing means more pieces recovered in the scramble.
- Each roll costs 10m energy times the brush level you are buying: 10m for level 1, 20m for level 2, and so on.
The brush tooltip shows its current level and upgrade progress.
Use /excavate in game for a quick reminder of the controls.
Version history
v4.0.2
- Brushing no longer spams protection warnings.
v4.0.1
- Excavations now scatter six pieces to recover.
v4.0.0 (Map 4)
- New: Excavation finds while mining: the Awakened Artifact, Jewel Seams, Crystal Nests and Buried Engines. Brushes are in
/shop> Pickaxes. - A Buried Engine pays Ancient Energy by mine, from 100k in the coal mine to 2.5m in the emerald mine and 3.5m in the netherite mine.
- The Excavation Brush can be enchanted in the Wormhole. Its first enchant is Efficiency (up to V, 20% faster brushing per level).