Cavers, come on!

Hey there, StarNet. My name's Barry Bateman, and I'm a spelunker (a caver, for those of you in the know). I thought that maybe these forums would be a great way to meet a few fellow cavers and share our discoveries. I'd like to start the discussion off with a very, very recent cave I dove into, and ended up finding some very cool stuff.

First off, a bit of backstory. A friend of mine, a fellow caver, told me about a little tip he got about some sort of mining operation on a world in the X Sector. Now, I almost always say no to caving around that area, considering the stuff that resides in X. However, I guess his words managed to get to me, and before I knew it, I was packing up and prepared to go on a solo(!) excursion into this cave that may or may not even exist.



...Except it did. I arrived on the planet and, after a short hike, found the entrance to the cave itself.



It quickly turned narrow and went down at a steep angle, but that's hardly something to worry about when you do this for a living. However, as I made it to the end, my eyes rested on something that significantly strengthened my desire to head deeper. Dotting the walls of the cave, I saw bits of metal, slowing turning into full-fledged metal plates as I trudged deeper. At this point, I came to a remarkable sight.



No doubt about it. That was obviously a former elevator shaft, and, from the looks of it, there was no question that this cave was, in fact, an abandoned mining operation. My heart raced with the possibilities of what I could find inside. Old, rare mining equipment, maybe? I've always enjoyed exploring these types of places regardless of potential treasure, but a little economic boost never hurt anybody. I rappelled down the shaft...



...Only to come to a large, empty chamber-type room full of sand. Just how long ago was this operation abandoned? If it was too long ago, I'd be far too late to find anything of interest. Not to mention that, in a large, dark room such as this, I was worried about being surprised by some animal. It goes without saying that some of the fauna on this planet was less than friendly, and usually the worst ones lurk in caves such as this. Doubly so since animals moving in might have been the reason they packed up and left in the first place. What I see next doesn't make me feel much better about this trip.



It was a camp! Not just any camp, though. This one looked fresh. It couldn't be any older than a few months to maybe a year, which means another caver got here before me. This was only supported by the neat, straight path right behind it. My heart sunk. If another caver really got here before me, they definitely would've snatched up all the good stuff. Still, even if there was no chance for treasure, I pressed on deeper. I at least wanted to see the cave to its end. Who knows, maybe the last caver missed some stuff I can still nab?



That path quickly led to another steep, cramped passage downward like at the entrance of the cave. After going down, I fell into a smaller chamber, this time filled with gravel. It wasn't noteworthy, but what was on the other side of the chamber was.



A tunnel with even more metal plates like the elevator shaft! At this point, I didn't take much time to note my surroundings, as I was much more focused on a faint light at the other end of the tunnel, which lead me to...



'Lo and behold, this. Now I realized that the last part of the tunnel had to be part of this former building, just overtaken by sand and dirt. This room, however, was still mostly intact. There were a few tables with nothing of interest on either one, and a few monitors above. One was broken, the other had no signal, and the one intact screen was one labeled "SEISMIC MOVEMENTS." It looked to be much better condition than the other two (if that weren't obvious) and was covered in blinking, solid, and pulsating blue lights, plus one or two red ones and a bunch of broken-out ones. I definitely couldn't tear a screen off of the wall and haul it back up with me, so I thought that, despite how cool this discovery was, I would be leaving the cave empty-handed, that is, until I looked in the corner. In the corner appeared to be a small audio logging device, handheld. I went over to inspect it and, to my surprise, it worked!

It only had one log accessible on it, and I have included the file itself for anyone interested. (WARNING, LOUD, ABRASIVE NOISE!)

http://vocaroo.com/i/s0MpUfCImUEZ

This was... something, I guess. I mean, the log itself is just the sounds of some heavy mining machine (way too loud) and some static from a TV (probably the TV in that room). Yawn. The least I could get was some miner talking about his day. This was just boring.

My camera ran out after this, so I'll have to tell you what happened next, and this part is rather hard for me to talk about, but here goes. On the way out, I saw a smaller entrance in the same chamber of gravel from before. Ducking my head and going through, I found something that made me instantly regret my trip. It was a corpse. The corpse of caver, to be exact. I could tell from the equipment. I didn't get much time to look at exact what did him in before I had to in the corner and give up my lunch, but, in my experience, a cave dwelling animal probably got him. At first I thought he could have gotten trapped and starved to death, but his pack, a fair bit away at the other side of the small room, contained some food (now expired, but most likely not when he died) and a functioning grappling hook construction, so he couldn't have gotten trapped at all.

I had turned to leave when I saw something that almost completely turned my mind about this trip around. On the far side of the cave, near where the pack was, there appeared to be drawings on the wall. Etchings, even! There was some sort of ancient, primitive civilization here, a long ways before the miners even arrived! I was so excited my mind almost discreetly and temporarily deleted my awareness of the corpse in the room so I could study them. There were four etchings. They each looked to be of a humanoid, and were etched with some sort of sharp, chiseling instrument, as is the case with most of these.

I'll now describe each one to the best of my abilities, according to my journal:

• The first was a skinny-looking, simply drawn humanoid. The only defining feature was some sort of vague headdress it had on.
• The second was more detailed, to the point where I could see that it was a female, and had tied-up hair. The details end there, however.
• The third is the most curious, in my mind. It does not have as many features as the previous two, and instead is a larger, more blocky-looking humanoid. Looked to be drawn by someone different than the first two.
• The fourth, however, made me the most excited. There was a NOTICEABLE jump in quality from the previous three, so much so that, not only could I tell that it was a male, but I could tell what race it was: an Avian, to be exact. So this culture either were Avian, or interacted with them significantly. The avian itself appeared to have long hair pulled into sort of a tapered, spiky look with faint hints of ruffled feathers.

Quickly after getting those down, a horrid smell filled my nostrils as I noticed the corpse again, thus signaling for me to get the hell outta dodge. It's been about a month since I went down there, and the thought of the corpse has prevented me from going back down, but I am currently planning on heading back soon. I know that there's more down there, and, as unfortunate as it is, if that dead guy is the only other person who's been in here since the abandonment, then it's my duty to get back down there and see just what else I can find.

That's the end of my caving story for now, have you guys got any caving stories of your own you'd like to share? Maybe some good finds?

 

I'm keeping the location under wraps until I'm sure I've explored it fully. Partly because I wouldn't want anyone encountering danger in the parts I haven't yet explored, and partly because I'm greedy and I want whatever fantastical treasures lay within.

I usually avoid bodies of water for two reasons in caves. One is that, in the darkness, you never know if what's in there. The second is that I've yet to bother to pay for Cave Diving training, and without the proper training you'll easily die in an underwater cave.

-BB

((Wasn't actually expecting anyone to get that, well done))