Random post with a cave...

[anest1s]

The tunnel turns and twists enough to quite disorientate you, but after some ten minutes of travelling, it opens out into another chamber. A pool of dark water is at its far end, ringed with boulders. A hunched figure is bent over one of the boulders; it appears to be scratching something into its surface.

The figure seems to be wearing no clothing, and its skin glistens wetly. It seems to have patches of black and white skin... and perhaps a fin.

There appear to be no tunnels leading from this cave.

What do you do?

Cheers!

"Hello."
I want to look unprotected, but if it attacks me I will hit it first.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

You can discern no patterns between the sounds you hear, but you realise that the hum from within the building is not quite constant: there are occasionally interruptions or changes of pitch and intensity. Musical it is not!

The architecture is not tuned: there's something inside the building making the sound rather than the building itself. The bat's head... nothing comes to mind.

What do you do?

Cheers!

After a quick twirl of my weapon, I alter the color of my clothing to a mottled pattern of black and ultramarine. I glide silently through opening- multistaff again at the ready, the tip farthest from my body radiating a soft green glow.

As I advance, I use the staff to illuminate darker regions, keeping it in constant motion, it's blurred path tracing the pattern of defensive katas that have become second nature to me- Crane's Sweeping Wings, Monkey's Distracting Paw, Falling Leaf Spin.

I head for the source of the hum.

 

[Harlander]

Inside the cave you see a large, deep pit, that shows signs of having recently formed. There is enough space on either side of the pit to safely cross the room and reach the tunnel on the far side. A pair of grooves in the dirt - somewhat shallower within the cave - reach from just outside the cave's entrance and lead directly into the tunnel. It is obvious that they were made before the pit was formed, but did they make the pit collapse? You're not sure.

Outside, the sky begins to rain fire. It illuminates a skeleton half-concealed by fallen rocks at the side of the cave.

What do you do?

Cheers!

I float near the rim of the pit, and detach another camera-drone from my e-suit's bandolier. Waking it with a quick shake, I check its feed on my helmet display before tossing it into the hole.

As the gouts of flame burst on the ground outside, I turn and stare, briefly enraptured by the spectacle. Though the infrared blaze outside would surely prove deadly even for my kind, the swirling colours remind me of the great storms of my home.

"Focus," I tell myself, forebeak clicking in irritation. Then, to my suit: "Log: I've found what looks like some kind of biogenic endoskeleton here. I'm going to examine it." I'm no xenobiologist, but any insight into the people who suffered, or even triggered, the ongoing calamity here, would be invaluable to our scientists.

I reach out with my front pair of tentacles, and carefully begin lifting the fallen rock away from the skeleton.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Inside the cave you see a large, deep pit, that shows signs of having recently formed. There is enough space on either side of the pit to safely cross the room and reach the tunnel on the far side. A pair of grooves in the dirt - somewhat shallower within the cave - reach from just outside the cave's entrance and lead directly into the tunnel. It is obvious that they were made before the pit was formed, but did they make the pit collapse? You're not sure.

Outside, the sky begins to rain fire.

What do you do?

Cheers!

It's raining fire? First things first, I need to get inside that cave - passing the large pit (and tossing a small rock into it to hear how deep it is). Next thing to do is pull out my phone, take a picture of the outside world - and use twitter to say where I am and check everyone else is seeing this.

 

[jbear]

After a short journey, you find a small side cavern from the corridor you've been following. From further down the corridor, you can hear the sound of hammering, but a short figure emerges from the cavern and pales.

"The Wanderer!" he cries, and begins, as fast as his stunted legs can take him, to scurry away.

What do you do?

Cheers!

I quickly cast a Slow spell on the creature with a wave of my hand and speaking the ancient fey word of power in dark gravelly voice: Sssloooowwdoowwn!

I then walk after the dwarf following him as he tries to futiley escape me curious as to how he saw through my Shroud, but even more curious to see where his short little legs will lead me.

What happens next?

 

[Janx]

The city has streets of metal, buildings of marble and crystal, and the city ends (as does the metal floor) with the pillars. Immediately thereafter is the grassy sward you're driving on (and the hill and the cave). Perhaps 100 metres is the distance from the city's edge to the beginning of the fiery zone.

Circumnavigating the city, you discover that the fiery zone is indeed surrounding the city at about 100m from the pillars/city edge all the way around.

Every city building you've observed has an animal head carved above its doors. The heads do repeat themselves. Cats, dogs, rabbits and bears seem to be the most common, but there are many others. They're not in any set pattern.

It takes you a good two hours to drive around the city's circumference - I guess that would put it at about 60 miles.

Your companions give a cheer as the hill and cave come back into view.

Interestingly, you don't seem to have used any petrol!

What do you do?

Cheers!

The guys' cheering breaks me out of my trance. Brent says, "Well, we're back at the cave. And we haven't used any gas. And we've driven 60 miles."

Paul adds optimistically, "And we haven't seen any dinosaurs or aliens"

"Yay!" cries Ned, "But seriously. We're still stuck here."

Having finished pondering what I've seen, I finally add, "Well, it looks like we're at some kind of reality focal point. There's a lot of realities focused around this cave, the city, and they all had that fire from the sky. Even the one with Hudson and Ripley going back to the ship to nuke it from orbit, as it was the only way to be sure. What's really interesting, is I didn't see us in any tangent realities. I did see a bunch of other people stuck like we are. Heck, we even passed one."

Brent disbelievingly adds, "so, while you were daydreaming, you supposedly saw other realities, including one from Aliens? How exactly does that help us?"

"Well they weren't literally from Aliens, more like that reality formed some time ago, when the movie came out, or somebody with a hint of talent saw into it, and wrote a screen play.

What's important is, I saw a multi-armed god symbol, a dwarves and stuff in the cave, the crystal pillars are wierd, and the animal heads on the buildings are thought to have some significance by somebody who's already on their way into he city. And there's the humming sound in the city."

Ned interjects, "how do you know that's what we'll find in our reality?"

I reply patiently, "Because. there's too many similarities. ruts in the path leading into the cave. Even that pit was recent, like perhaps whatever was pushed in, caused the collapse. Now there could be deviations here, but I think we might still get clues from the other realities."

Paul says, "well then, let's go into the city. That's where we were thinking of going anyway. And if there's humming, it'll comfirm the parallel reality thingy. Plus, it might be good to look for shelter before it gets late. Figure it was lunch time when we got to to the park, plus a few hours driving around. Better find a defensible position before it gets dark and the vampires come out."

Brent says, "sounds good to me, except the vampires. Assuming the time here is about the same, my truck says it's about 3 o'clock. We got at least 3 more hours before it gets dark. That's enough to enter the city, look around a litttle, and spot a building we can secure. Preferablly one with a garage for my truck."

So we go into the city. Examine a few buildings, listen for humming, identify a candidate building (small, few doors/windows), possibly able to park truck inside).

Does it look like this is a modern city, futuristic city?
Similar earth architecture?
similar traits for a city that supports cars (parking lanes)?
Are all the buildings of similar architecture, or do they vary wildly like in a modern city?
How tall are the buildings?
Are they all tall, or are the some short ones too?
Do we see any signs of life?
Do we see any signs that this city was designed for/populated by non-humans?
Do we seen any signs (advertising, warning, parking, etc), and what language?
Do we see any churches/houses of worship?
Do we see any stores or gas stations?
Do we see any signs of rioting or similar violence?
How long does it look like it was abandoned?