He moved the rocks from in front of the little cave entrance on his platform and stood back listening for a minute trying to hear if anything was coming. If the noise of moving the rocks had attracted any attention he wanted to know, he doubted it but had already decided if he was going to do this he would take it slow and always err on the side of caution. Once he was happy there was nothing about to come out he sent the badgers in ahead of him. It was a slow crawl through the tunnel, the main reason being that the skeletal badgers needed to move slowly or the noise would be too much drawing all sorts of unwanted attention. When they came to the end of the narrow tunnel Gar realised he had gotten the ordering wrong. With the four badgers in front of him he couldn’t see out to assess the larger cave there was also no room to pass the badgers and get closer. he considered just having the badgers go out into the larger cave to clear his view, with the word caution still in his mind Gar took the few minutes to back right the way out.
The second time he sent Bodger in front keeping the other three badgers behind him. Another slow crawl along the tunnel before he was back at the entrance to the cavern, with only Bodger in front of him and Bodger was lying as close to the ground as it could. Gar could see into the cavern as far as his dark vision allowed. He was feeling a little impatient after his double trip to get there, he wanted to just go out and keep moving, and still he waited and he watched only moving once he was sure that it was clear. He sent Bodger out first then he crawled out after; he didn’t stand staying crouched low as the other badgers followed him out. With some more room to look about Gar could see a shape moving just outside his dark visions range off to his far right. Gar slowly shuffled forwards just enough, he didn’t have to move far to bring the creature into range of his dark vision. With it in site observe worked on it.
“Cave snail level 5”
It was the same kind of snail as he had seen in that cave before orange skin, standing nearly as tall as Gar was and twice that in length, a large brown shell on its back. Seeing no need to tango with the locals Gar decided his group would head to the left, they would follow the wall round. Gar was about to set off when he remembered something he had almost forgotten he needed to mark his exit. He pulled the end of the rope out of his bag and cut a small section off then he placed it to one side in the entrance to the tunnel back to his base then trapped the end under a stone, it should remain undisturbed not drawing any attention while allowing him to identify his exit easily enough.
That taken care of Gar started moving to his left following the walls round. He kept Bodger a few paces in front with B1 a few paces behind, B2 and B3 spread out to his right keeping the wall tight on his left. He moved slowly to keep the noise of the badgers down stopping when snails came close. The snails all seemed to either not notice him or they were just ignoring him, Gar was perfectly happy with either case. He was startled once when he failed to notice one of the snails until it was almost in touching distance. It was coming straight down the wall Gar had his whole group stop perfectly still as the snail passed just in front of Bodger seemingly not fussed by them at all. He continued round the large cave until he reached back where he had started, he had passed by three tunnels off from this cavern other than his original entrance. Two of the three tunnels seemed to angle down while the third angled upwards although between the limits of his dark vision and the twisting of the tunnels he couldn’t see particularly far into any of them and with none of the floors in this place being particularly level he wasn’t sure how much difference what he could see would make. Despite all that with no better reason to pick one tunnel over the others Gar headed back round to the tunnel that had a slight upwards angle, he might just get lucky.
Coming to the entrance to the correct tunnel he only had to crouch slightly as he moved into it. The tunnel was much wider than it was tall at about four meters across Gar rearranged his groups formation to better work for this tunnel. While he remained in the centre he had Bodger stay behind him while B1, B2 and B3 moved a few paces in front of him then spread out in a line across the tunnel, like this they continued on into the darkness. Even after a couple of minutes walking the floor was still angling upwards ever so slightly. Gar could feel the smallest spark of hope in his chest he wasn’t going to let it catch into a fire on something as small as a few minutes of walking up a slight incline, he was still too fragile to deal with starting a fire of hope only to have it extinguished. He pushed thoughts of escape and the surface from his mind this was a journey for adventure and exploration that is what he would focus on. The tunnel he was traveling along took twists and turns while remaining singular with no junctions or side tunnels. The walls where stone that shifted between browns and greys as he travelled, smooth under Gars palm while slightly damp when he move closer to the wall to touch it. The only thing breaking up the monotony of the tunnel was the occasional stalactite most of which reached all the way to the floor such that he had to go around them.
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Gar had slowly sped his group up from the slow crawl of a walk they had been doing to what could be considered a normal walking pace. The lack of any signs of life beyond regular insects since he left the cave with the giant snails and the seemingly endless tunnel made this reduction in caution a necessary and relatively safe move. Gar kept walking he was further away from his base at that point than he had been at any point since he arrived in this world, still he kept going.
Eventually the tunnel split the left side curved off while the right continued on straight. In the tunnel to the left the roof got lower as it went so Gar decided to follow that one in the hope it would dead end soon and he could get back to following the other path without leaving an unexplored section behind him. Moving into the new tunnel Gar went from a slight ducking of his head right down to a crouch. Realising he was in no position to fight like this he had the badgers spread evenly round him and move slightly closer so he felt safer. Even so he pushed onwards he could feel it inside of him the slight excitement, the curiosity of what was around each corner, the joy of the unknown. This was what he had hoped for adventure and the weight that rested on his heart lifted slightly.
Gar came to a stop the badgers stopping at the same time he had heard a noise. It was hard to tell as noise echoed off the stone walls and the skeletons where making enough of it to make it difficult to hear a quiet noise. With everyone stopped the badgers where absolutely silent and Gar listened, just faintly he could hear light quick footsteps coming from ahead, well at least he thought it was from ahead the cave made sound difficult to track. The ceiling was still getting lower it wouldn’t be much further until Gar was moving on his belly to get through, it was not ideal for a confrontation. With that in mind Gar listened, the creature or creatures must have been quite small to be moving so quickly in these tight tunnels, unless it opened up suddenly which Gar didn’t think was likely. The noise came again and Gar was sure there was more than one of whatever these creatures where, not lots more but defiantly more than one.
He wasn’t quite ready to call his expedition quits just yet so figuring whatever was there was quite small. So in a moment of recklessness he had Bodger and B1 charge forwards as fast as they could. They made a lot of noise in the narrow tunnels and soon disappeared out of sight. Then they stopped and Gar listened. He could hear nothing the sound of whatever had been there was gone it was all quiet. Gar waited like that for a while listening for any signs of anything returning. Hearing nothing Gar started a slow crawl forwards stopping and listening every couple of meters. It wasn’t too much further before he had to stop.
He had come to a shallow hollow a little bowel like dip in the rock the roof so low he could not get all the way in. There were several cracks in the rock walls too small for even the badgers to fit into but obviously large enough for whatever’s home this had been to escape through and he was certain it had been somethings home. He could see a nest of dried moss, a corner which he strongly suspected was the toilet and a series of stones that looked precisely placed even if he could not figure out why. He backed out his curiosity burning with questions satisfied he had reached the end of the tunnel and there was no way he could go any further in that direction.
He returned all the way back to the junction, he wanted to go on his spirit for adventure ignited by his recent discovery but he knew it would be all too easy to lose touch of time in these tunnels he already had no idea how long he had been in there so he would return to base. All the way back he made a concerted effort to memorise the twists and turns the tunnel took and much sooner than he expected he was back at the cave snail cavern. After his earlier experiences there he wasn’t too worried about the snails so he continued walking across the cavern normally although he still made sure to not get to close to any particular snail. Into the short tunnel then back outside. It was somewhere in the late afternoon he couldn’t tell exactly when, certainly later than he had hoped although earlier than he had feared.
The first thing Gar did upon leaving the cave was going to his fire pit and pick up a couple of old coals, even though they practically turned to mush from the rain he could make them work for his purposes. Moving into his shelter he crushed the coals into a paste in his hands then started using his finger to draw on the cliff wall. His old map had long since been washed off the cliff outside by the rain so he was making a new one inside his shelter, starting with marking out the twisting tunnels he had just explored. He moved quickly and methodically marking in the curves before he could forget them, making sure to mark on the turn off and the other tunnels he hadn’t taken.
“Cartography levelled up cartography level 2”
Once all he knew of the caves was done he moved on doing his best to recreate his map of the outside before adding to it, more details and even adding what he could remember of the ants cave. Even though it was rough and nothing was to scale Gar was happy with the end result it would be a good guide for him especially as he explored more tunnels.
