Delve battles represent adventurers navigating an uncharted, labyrinthine space. In a delve battle, the map is composed of multiple tiles marked with icons. These icons interact with delve cards and are used as reference points when additional tiles are revealed. The adventurers move through the delve, exploring new rooms, unlocking caches, and gaining skyshards—pieces of crystalized Magicka that are used to track the party's progress.
During a delve, adventurers explore the battle map by interacting with the hexes of the map. When an adventurer explores a hex, they draw a delve card and reveal a new tile to connect to the map. As tiles are connected, the map expands, and additional connection hexes open up to explore.
This action is only available during delves. When you perform this action, you count the distance to an explorable hex in sight. If it is equal to or less than your Stamina, you trigger an exploration on that hex.
Skyshards () are fragments of Aetherial Magicka that fell to Nirn. You can find them scattered across Tamriel, especially in hidden places. They are represented as icons on some delve cards, which identify the tile revealed by that card as a skyshard location. A delve is fully explored when all of its skyshards have been revealed and gained. Unless the encounter specifies otherwise, 3 skyshards are required. This can be any combination of skyshard icons gained on faceup delve cards or facedown delve cards treated as skyshards.
The party must fully explore the battle map by gaining all required skyshards. The default number of required skyshards is 3, although the encounter may specify a different amount. The encounter is failed if the party does not gain all of the required skyshards. This is the most common objective for delve battles found in guild quests.
Traps represent harmful mechanical or magical effects. They appear in red boxes on many delve cards.
The party must fully explore the battle map by gaining all required skyshards—by default 3—and then successfully retreat. If the party retreats before fully exploring the battle map, the encounter is failed. Unlike other objectives, the party gains XP from each skyshard it acquires in the delve—up to that delve's required limit— so long as the entire party is not defeated, in which case no XP is gained. This is true even if the party retreats before it has gained all required skyshards (see Retreating from Battle).