The air shifted unnaturally around the opening of the cave, a cold breeze ebbing and flowing its way at all times. It was almost as if the cavernous maw was breathing, a sentient creature just waiting to gobble up naive adventurers.
While this world had unusually large creatures, magic crystals, and floating words, Oliver was doubtful that a giant rock monster would spawn in the sunlight biome and wait to crush him. He took the chance and stepped foot into the large cave, a shallow stream of water slightly trickling down the bottom of the stony archway.
The crustacean armor he wore gave him good protection against the wind present in the cave, but did very little for the drop in temperature. He guessed it was barely above freezing temperature as the water had not formed into ice but his breath fogged slightly in front of him.
The cave bent to the right and then a sharp turn to the left brought him to a wider section, the ceiling sloping gradually upwards and the walls carving away into a rocky, water logged hallway. The light progressively dimmed as he went deeper, he might have need to go back to camp and pick up a torch if his surroundings kept getting darker.
A few more steps into the cave gave him a rather helpful surprise. Normally, he would have not been able to see in this type of environment but two key features aided his vision greatly. The first was his newly leveled up scavenger class. Level 5 had seen his physique and reflexes sharpen immensely, his combat prowess clearly reflected that fact. His ability to see in darker environments and use his other senses to the fullest had also increased dramatically. He was nowhere near the level of a cat or other nocturnal animal, but he could see clearly up to 15 feet in front of him in low level lighting.
The second helpful feature was the presence of softly glowing, green fungi and mosses. The damp environment was perfectly suited for the moss to grow in, it fed off the light of the glowing fungus and in turn was eaten when it died. This symbiotic relationship between fungus and plant gave rise to a bio-luminescent cave that could have been inspired from a Spielberg movie. All this information was also provided by the scavenger class, knowledge of organisms was fun but it wasn't the most useful in this context.
Oliver kept his wits about him as he made his way further into the cave. The sounds of dripping stalactites distorted around him as the rock walls bounced the sound waves everywhere. Combined with the sound of running water, it was extremely difficult to locate any irregularities or movement up ahead.
The cave stretched on for a great distance, the walls often changing and turning as they followed the ancient flow of water. The width of the cavern would also vary wildly as huge chambers would open up and then squeeze into narrow passages that forced Oliver to shimmy through. The latter resulted in his armor being coated with phosphorescent spores from the cave's flora.
Giving a guess as to how much time had elapsed since his entry into the cave, Oliver believed he must have walked through the cave for upwards of 30 minutes until he finally came to what appeared to be a dead end. The ceiling sloped downwards until it connected to a very large puddle that gradually got deeper.
Initially, this dead end was quite a bummer as Oliver had psyched himself up to go explore this "dangerous" area. But after a bit of investigation and some time spent examining the cave a bit further, he noticed some lights moving in the water at the far end of the cavern. Not only were they moving but they also seemed to be originating from the other side of the wall.
Oliver had gone spelunking twice when he was a teen, mostly just playing around caves with his classmates. He remembered a cave where the boys would dare each other to dive under the water with a flashlight in a plastic bag. Apparently the cave continued further on after the abrupt cut off and the only way to access the next chamber was to dive underneath. It was actually his classmate Anna who grabbed the flashlight and dove in when all the boys were too chicken to go in. She had reported that on the other side of the cave wall was just more cave and she did not feel exploring it alone was a good idea.
Sadly, Oliver had no choice but to explore this cave by himself and started to wade into the frigid cave water. He grit his teeth until he got to his waist and then had to spend a good two minutes just adapting to the cold. The water rose up to his belly button at the deepest, the channel under the wall did not seem to get much deeper than that and there was only a faint current.
Oliver dipped his head into the water to get accustomed to the glacial temperature and not go into shock when he went under. If his friend could do this when they were 14 then there was no way a grown adult who survived a plane crash couldn't! The water stung and cleared away any trace of fatigue he had left over as his heart began pumping faster to warm him up.
Taking a deep breath, the pilot dived under the rock wall, keeping one arm ahead of him to feel the ceiling and another to guide himself along a wall. The ice cold water ate up his energy and he had to fight the urge to turn around and go back up. He edged forward and felt to see when the ceiling would give way to a new chamber but all he could feel was rock, with no space to breathe.
His lungs were burning as he pushed forward a bit faster, making sure not to hit his head on the low channel roof. A strong enough knock on the head here could render him unconscious and almost assure his death. He didn't fight two giant arthropods to only die to a shallow puddle of water.
His hand reached out further and further, desperate for some kind of edge to pull himself towards. With lungs that were as empty as could be, he touched a smooth corner and felt his hand emerge out of the water. Being as careful and as quick as possible he lunged towards the opening, hoping it wasn't just a small hole where he would bash into the stone ceiling.
Oliver broke through the surface of the water taking in a huge puff of air. He inhaled violently as he felt his throat tighten from the lack of oxygen. After a few moments to stabilize, he looked around at his new surroundings. He had emerged in the corner of a small lake. Larger than the one near his camp but still not huge. The wall curved upwards like a cathedral ceiling, it was extremely vast and very well lit.
The presence of the mushrooms and moss lit up the ceiling and walls just as they had originally, but there was a few other living beings in the room that illuminated this area even more. Over the water and along the walls were gliding slugs that gave an intense bio-luminescence. They had many folds that waved along the bottom of their bodies, propulsing them throughout the cave. They had many eyes which were at the top and side of one end of their body, these were differentiated by darker green spots. Underneath their "head" section, rows of bony looking protrusions came out, they used these bizarre teeth to scrape off the fungi and moss, only eating a little before moving on to the next patch. The scavenger class informed Oliver that these teeth were known as radulae and were as hard as diamonds. Again, cool information but rather useless unless Oliver pursued lapidary hobbies in the near future.
The slugs came near Oliver to inspect him, gliding over gently before looking at him and turning around. Seems they were only interested in moss or fungi, though one of them did start cleaning the armor on his back from all the spore. Oliver quickly shooed off the hitchhiker.
Dredging himself out of the water, The crab-armored Canadian shivered from his sudden emergence. He also had not brought anything to make a fire with, nor was there any wood around here. He decided to keep the wet clothes on, his body would heat it up slowly, and it was better than being nude under his plate armor.
Oliver wandered around in the truly massive antechamber, not seeing any additional tunnels. The ceiling also did not contain any hints as it was only covered with flora and fauna and not much else. He kicked the ground in frustration, ripping off a good chunk of the wildlife as he did so. He sighed thinking he had frozen his butt off underwater for no reason other than to find glowing sea slugs.
Looking down, Oliver found the first clue that something strange was afoot. The stone underneath was perfectly smooth and black, as if polished by a janitor in some old school building. The surface reflected the green light surrounding it, giving an alien type look. Oliver bent down and observed it closer, seeing his reflection wearing the ridiculous crab helmet.
After moving a bit more moss from the onyx surface, he saw an unnatural line cut into the stone. He followed the engraving for a good two meters before he realized it was curved towards the center, as if the line was a giant circle.
Oliver then walked a few feet towards what he deemed was the center and brushed away more moss. A few slugs had gotten interested in his activities as he was uprooting their food, they quickly would eat any of the vegetation or mushrooms tossed their way.
He found more lines, smaller and tighter circles with less of a perimeter, he was headed the right direction. He also found bizarre shapes like runes and geometric figures engraved within one another, they seemed to follow the circular pattern dictated by the lines. He kept up his investigation as he tried to determine where the smallest circle was, where a reward could be hidden.
It was barely perceivable in the dim light, but a small bump in the ground could be distinguished as Oliver headed to where he guessed the center was. He kneeled over the terrain deformation and moved aside the flora covering it a small dome the size of a hand could be seen, it was surrounded with the most intricate patterns he had seen so far. The dome itself was completely smooth and seemed to be detached from the black surface the rest of the engravings were found on.
Trying his luck, Oliver pressed his hand onto the dome and pushed down. He felt it sink into the ground a little bit and then rise back up when Oliver stopped pushing. This thing needed a lot of force to activate. He used his full weight and pressed down with all his strength, hearing the low rumble of moving stones as he did so.
After going into the platform until it was at the same level, Oliver heard a click and then felt a sharp pain pierce his hand.
Swearing, he pulled his hand back and looked at his bloody palm. A short blade had popped up out of the button and stabbed him. Blood stained the machinery and the drops ran down the dome and into the platform. The runes began to glow an ominous blue that seemed ethereal in nature.
In fact, all the lines he had uncovered began to glow this same colour, projecting their shapes above their actual engravings. The glow began to spread as the lines hidden beneath vegetation activated as well, the moss and fungi slowly fading away from the entirety of the platform. The sea slugs who had been watching Oliver began to flee as the strange magic grew brighter and stronger.