In recent runs, I am not finding 40 dark gold ore without a LOT of digging around the crystal caves. Is it intended?
FYI there are no ores or rooms that are totally separate from other rooms, so digging deep into terrain is pointless.
Yeah. Learned it the hard way! Looks like there is usually a hidden room somewhere not too far from normal walls.
Finally on the last corner…
I nearly always bring a scroll of magic mapping for this quest because there often is a small separate room somewhere on the map where the last couple dark ores are found. I find it very tedious and food/health intensive to blindly search for the room. I mostly only skip the scroll of magic mapping when I’m very overpowered or have strong sustainability.
I found more than 40 on my first runs but it wasn’t easy…, then I tried to fight that big crystal, consumed all my food (and horn of plenty) and nearly died. I like how challenging it is to be honest!