You decided to head north and see what is inside the cave. Before leaving pack some food cubes in your backpack. While the cave will be dark your wristwatch has a light on it so you should at least be able to see somewhat.
You set off down the northern trail just as the sun was rising over the treetops. You could fully see the sun while in the clearing. The tree canopy was rather thick and it became rather dark as you got further down the trail to the cave.
After several miles, you finally arrived. The cave mouth was a lot bigger than you were expecting. You thought it must have been giant to see it from that far away. Now, that you are there though it is at least eight times your height. It is also quite hard to tell how far deep it goes.
One thing is for certain the computer was sure it did not connect to the massive underground cave system that is on the west side of the moon at the other landing site. The computer however could not have been 100% sure since it could only see so far down into the moon’s surface.
Before heading into the cave you decide to take a break in what sunlight that would get through the forest. There ended up being a stump of a tree that ended up providing an amazing sitting spot. You looked around for signs of wildlife but never found any. You were not expecting to find anything as this entire moon seems to be rather barren of anything other than plant life.
After you felt rested it was time to go into the cave. Once you got into the cave your wristwatch’s light turned on. It almost seemed to be guiding a safe path forward into the cave. There seemed to be some steep drop-offs and even holes that you could not see the bottom of. So you decided to take things extra slow.
It was otherwise a normal-looking cave with stalagmites and stalactites densely covering the cave itself. This place must have seen a lot of water over the eons it has been around. Perhaps there is a water table above you feeding into the natural beauty of this place.
The rocks in the cave were quite dark. They even stained your clothing somewhat if you happened to brush against any of the surfaces of the cave itself. It had this dewy musky smell to it.
It did not take long to notice just how slanted the cave ceiling was. Not even half an hour in there and you could barely stand up anymore as the cave shrunk more and more in height. You were however hoping at some point it would open wide open again.
There were a couple of tight passageways to get one from a chamber of the cave to the next. Thankfully they were not the kind of risky tight spots where you felt like you had a chance of getting stuck. It was almost like this cave was shaped like a glove to your body size.
For one thing, you were going to need to take a shower after exploring this cave. At this point, you were covered from head to toe and everywhere else possible. A thick layer of muck starting to apply to your shoes that would take some scrubbing to get off them.
You were expecting the cave to have a lot more different paths to take. There however only seemed to be the one. After many hours of not finding anything you ended up hitting a dead end. Since there were no other possible ways to go around this dead end it was time to call it and head back out.
On your way out you would often take a moment to take another look down the giant pit holes. While it was tempting to want to try and descend one of them they were far too steep. You are also all alone out here without any chance of a rescue so taking the risk was not worth it.
You also did not have any rope and since the trees, you run into at this point were just pine. It seemed like your chances of trying to make your rope at some point would be a rather moot point. There were also no signs that anything ever tried to go down the holes you found in the cave so after a while the thought of even trying to work out a way to do so simply vanished from your thought.
After a lot of walking, scraping your knee on a rock, and some swearing later. You found yourself back outside of the cave. While it was not even late afternoon yet you decided that was enough of an adventure for the day.
You slowly walked back to the spaceship. At least there you could get a nice hot shower and a change of clothing. You would then spend the rest of the day just enjoying the local nature. Checking out the other paths would be far more of an adventure than you have in terms of remaining daylight.
Despite doing nothing else for the day it ended up going by quite quickly. Before you knew it the night was starting to show up as the sun dipped below the trees. Feeling quite exhausted you felt the few extra hours of sleep going to bed now would be worth it.
You settled in for the night not waking up even once as the systems of the ship did their regular nightly maintenance that can create a fair bit of sound depending on what the ship systems were being purged or tested.
Content is written by @Enjar of @Enjargames. AI artwork was created using Playgroundai.
