Daily earnings limit? And Skull Cavern

To your first question that really isn't that much gold when selling those gems. Just fyi I have seen people sell stacks of shards and be fine. 2nd question is they only worry about getting to the next floor or holes. Holes can drop you a random number of floors from 3-15. People know that the chances of iridium increase greatly every 10 floors so they just bomb a spot and take ladders or just use stacks of stone to staircase down. You shouldn't be on a floor above 100 for more then 10 sec or so IRL time. Also only go on the luckest days and luck boosting foods help.

 

New visit, bringing bombs mentioned above and a bit more stone (1300-ish). Made stairs on infested levels, and those round ones with little stone, nasty mummy floors, and in despair a few times after 3-4 bombs didn't find anything. Despite being a very lucky day, I had to remove practically every single piece of stone on a handful of floors. More stone would obviously help, but I'm trying to do this without choking on cheese.. err stone.

Got to level 84 this time, and got away with 90 iridium ore (by far my biggest haul). Didn't find a Prismatic Shard, but then the chance for that is pretty low. At this point I don't really need all this ore, but it's fun to go down there and see how deep I can go more-or-less "naturally".

Fell asleep on level 84 as I jumped in a hole just before, and couldn't find the way up - I wanted to fall asleep outside. Not sure if items were lost as I have no idea exactly how much I had. The serpents are a nasty lot, but by now the slimes can't hurt me, so that is good. Went through 40 bombs, but it's certainly faster than the pickaxe.

 

I got to 25 once for the quest then kinda just wandering around the upper levels. Then I got a iridium rock on my farm's quarry and got another prismatic shard...4th one this file. So don't really need to go into the Nasty Cave too much now. Hate those mummies and serpents.

 

Sounds fortunate with the shards. I've come across 3 mystic stones in this game, two in the quarry, and none have got me a Shard
Around 10 gem nodes too. Usually get aquamarines or topaz, so I doubt the chance is equal for what you get. Probably weighted towards less valuable minerals.

Much of the game feels a bit stale to me now, however, so it's fun to go into the Skull Cavern and have a challenge, both in terms of combat and going lower. Just wish we had more time really. The best part of the game is definitely in the beginning, say the first year. At least for me.