Originally posted by Chaoslink:

Btw, you don’t need to kill Bonemass to get silver. While you won’t find every silver node in the mountains, there’s often plenty of silver nodes that are exposed and visible without needing the Bonemass item. You should still want Iron armor for dealing with wolves, but if you’re incredibly careful and build protective shelters when mining silver, you can get it without fighting Bonemass. He’s actually an optional boss really. Search enough different mountains and you can get all the silver you’ll ever need without touching Bonemass.