With rope, wedges and hammer done the final piece of equipment he needed for the climb was something to attach him to all of it, a harness. Getting one of his shorter lengths of rope Gar started experimenting leaning heavily on his knot working skill to try and work out a secure and comfortable harness. The first iteration was poor, simply a rope around his waist with a loop at the front to thread rope through or to tie onto. The next iteration went round his waist and between his legs that was not an experience Gar wanted to repeat, hanging from that crushed things uncomfortably tight and still pulled in his waist. He had to try numerous variations to ensure it could tighten where necessary and spread out where his weight sat when he was hanging by it, all while still allowing freedom of movement.
“Knot working levelled up knot working level 4”
The final version went round his waist then round the top of each thigh with a second band on each leg just above the knee. It also had straps that went over each shoulder then back down to the waist with cross straps between them front and back. At first he had tried to make it all adjustable and easy to get on and off, the task got much easier when he gave up on those ideas realising they weren’t necessary. The harness was made sized specifically to him and he literally tied himself into it. Over all it was a relatively comfortable design that didn’t stop any of his movement, he had even tested it by hanging from the wedge still stuck in the wall.
While he still had it on he added a few wire loops along his right thigh to act as a holder for his hammer as he climbed. Feeling good about his set up he slipped his hammer into the loops and started climbing to properly test it out. He had to make a few minor adjustments to the sizing to comfortably enable full motion when climbing while still holding him secure. He also found his hammer stayed in place as long as he didn’t end up all the way upside down and while the hammer did come out smoothly it took careful placement to get it back in which seemed like a fair trade off particularly as the wire kept the hammer in line with his leg as he climbed making sure it stayed out of the way.
Gar spent the rest of the day doing small chores and tasks, nothing stressful it was time to relax. He made some more writing sticks, refilled his water barrel, copied his map onto his wall, tidied up his stuff so it was a little more organised and then he had an early night.
The rain had started up again at some point in the night and by the time Gar awoke it was nothing short of a full blown storm with thunder and lightning and pounding rain. When he had woken up enough to register it Gar was surprised by how he had managed to sleep through the racket. He decided it would be safer to skip his morning climb he wouldn’t even attempt his escape climb in that kind of weather so there was no point in risking it then.
Instead he gathered up his supplies and headed underground away from the storm. Hoisting his pack he made a run for the cave entrance ending with something between slipping and a dive into the small cave entrance. For once Gar was happy the only clothes he had where a pair of trousers because even in that short dash he had gotten soaked and skin dries quicker and easier than clothes.
He had been thinking about where he would go the previous day, he could go back to the hole and continue widening it or exploring the tunnels near there see if he can find a place even higher up. Well the storm meant it was too wet to work on the hole and while he could have explored the tunnel near there, there was another option. There was still one more tunnel off the cave snails cavern that he had never gone down so for all he knew there might be a route all the way to the surface down there. He wouldn’t know unless he looked so he was going to take the day to look, he had already decided that unless he found something promising he would only spend a single day on it. With a way out becoming more and more viable he was more and more reluctant to spend time on other things.
As he entered the new tunnel he was back to full caution badgers formed up around him moving slowly to keep the noise down. It was only a short tunnel before it opened up into another large cavern, except in that one the floor had a distinct downwards slope. It was filled with the cave snails with even more of the moss and fungus they seemed to eat everywhere.
Having grown accustom to the snails ignoring him Gar got a shock when crossing the cavern and one of the snails looked directly at him and seemed to splutter at him. Gar couldn’t say he had any experience with snail body language but he was sure that one was giving him a warning. Not wanting to cause any trouble with the previously docile snails Gar backed up keeping an eye on the snail warning him whilst being more aware of the snails around him. Gar was unsure what was going on, what made that particular snail different to the others.
It wasn’t what Gar had intended to be doing it was however important enough to be worth investigating, he had to pass snails every time he went in or out of the caves if something made them aggressive he needed to know. Turning on observe Gar started looking the snail over, he hadn’t paid much attention to the snails since he had decided they were docile. From what he had seen this one didn’t look any different same rough size same colour there didn’t seem to be any obvious sign of injury. Perhaps he had been wrong about it being an act of aggression perhaps it was sick or something else, although Gar didn’t think so even after they had backed off until the snail was only just inside the limits of his dark vision it was still watching them its eyes moving independently, between Gar and the badgers. Perhaps if it wasn’t the snail itself it was something about its surroundings. It was sat in the middle of a rather large and thick patch of fungus, looking closely he spotted the cause. He probably would of overlooked it as some kind of mushroom except his observe had labelled them.
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“Cave snail egg level N/A”
What had appeared to be another fungus growing in the patch were actually eggs and there were a lot of them, little brown balls about the size of a golf ball. The more he looked the more he realised how many there where the entire patch of fungus was covered in them. It seemed far too many for a single snail even one of the cave snails size. Could it be that the cave snails where communal and that patch was some sort of nursery with eggs from a whole group of snails? Gar was interested but wasn’t going to spend the days needed watching the snails to find out, he had realised the cause for the snails aggression and his mistake. He had been about to walk right across the egg patch.
Gar moved on again cautiously making his way round the patch all while keeping an eye on the cave snail and where it was at. As long as he and the badgers didn’t get too close to the patch the snail seemed content to just watch them. Gar decided to leave observe on after that to help him pick out any more egg patches. The decision also had added benefits.
“Observe levelled up observe level 5”
Gar spotted a couple more egg patches as he made his way around the room. That cavern was much larger than the original cave snail cavern, it was also different in that unlike the original that had the caves coming off it spread out around the room, this cavern had four tunnels leading off it other than the one he had come in through and all four of them where near the far side from where he had entered and where right next to each other.
He was split between exploring the tunnels and staying in the cavern to find out more about the snails. Previously he had just thought of them as moving and eating and hadn’t considered them further. Having been shown how obviously wrong that was he wanted to find out more another part of him wanted to explore further and fill out his map. In the end it wasn’t really a decision he had made up his mind from the start while he wanted to study the snails they offered no chance of escape while the tunnels did even if it was only a small chance.
With the four possible tunnels all having a downwards slope and with no other reason to pick one over the other he fell back on his old plan and picked the left most tunnel. He walked cautiously along the tunnel, it was much taller than it was wide and gave Gar an odd feeling of being very small. The first time it happened Gar wasn’t sure what it was, to his right the wall didn’t look right, he moved closer to investigate but was moving very slowly ready for something to jump out at him. It was only when he was right on top of it that he recognised what it was. The wall between the tunnel he was in and the one next to it was only maybe a meter thick he was looking at a hole between the two tunnels. As he continued on he saw more holes some bigger some smaller, some large enough he could fit through them. It was only when the wall on his right ended after a couple hundred meters that he realised what was going on.
It wasn’t a wall at all and it wasn’t two separate tunnels it had been a line of stalactites and stalagmites that had grown from floor to ceiling then joined to the ones next to them. The holes hadn’t been where rock had come out, they had been where it hadn’t filled in yet. It fascinated Gar and he went back to have another look at it, to look at the gaps, the size of the pillars and think about how many years it had taken to build itself. As he moved on he saw more and more colossal stalactites and stalagmites, none quite like the initial dividing wall. They were all things that now he was taking the time to look at and pay attention to where incredible, the century’s it must have taken for them to form. He travelled for several hours and the tunnel had opened up at some point along the way into a massive seemingly endless cavern that had been sloping down all the way, he was deep deep underground.
The other thing was the stalagmites had increased it was like walking through a stone forest they were so tall they disappeared into the gloom at the edge of his dark vision far above his head. He had no idea how high the ceiling was all he knew was occasionally if he looked up he would see just the end of a stalactite seemingly hanging from nothing over his head. It was an eerie place, Gar found it amazing and terrifying at the same time there were too many places to hide and the sound of dripping water was coming from all around him. He was keeping the badgers close out of fear of losing them in and amongst the stalagmites. At times his little group were reduced to traveling in single file between the great stone pillars.
It was when going between one of these tight spaces that Gar noticed it. In fact the space was tight enough that Gar had to turn to the side to fit through. Just above waist height on the stalagmite that he was facing was a carving in the stone. It was only a few lines and circles but it was distinctly done on purpose by some thinking creature and not just some accidental scratches. Gar copied it down in one corner of his map. He would have liked to have marked it on his map to find it again except he knew it would be like marking a single tree in a forest on his map, it would be of no use in finding anything and most likely just confuse things. Gar activated observe as he moved on, no longer just looking for any dangers or tunnels but also looking for more carvings.
