This piece by @inbabylontheywept is extremely cool. Don't read it if you are claustrophobic or fear caves, BTW. This perfectly depicts several concepts, but specifically, what it's like to crawl through a cave.
💬 18 🔁 341 ❤️ 511 · Kartchner Caverns · The first time I traveled to Tucson I was in a car full of zooted children. I would've preferred b
My mother is a retired English teacher. I would love to share this story with her, but she would probably throw up, despite the excellent storytelling. She has had a remarkably similar experience.
My father loves caves.
He always has, since going through them as a boy scout and with his favorite uncle. When my brothers and I were kids, he would take us into a local cave that is actually a tunnel, though it gets very small in the middle. We didn't always go all the way through, but I've been through it. It requires crawling in your belly at one place.
My mom will not go all the way through that cave.
When my parents were first married, my father took my mom to the Ozarks and they went spelunking in one of his favorite caves. They got lost in the cave.
For hours and hours; I think it was at least 12 hours of trying to find their way out.
My mom has told me fragments of that experience: climbing a freezing waterfall, singing nursery rhymes to herself to keep calm, having to "go" in the cave, pushing through a narrow crevace single file, and the creeping fear.
My father was having a whale of a time.
I'm a bit surprised that they stayed married after that. I'm even more surprised that she would accompany us into any cave after that. I think maybe she didn't quite trust him with the three of us kids when we were little. We explored several caves, and even went to Meremac Caverns several times, though Papa sneered at the idea of paved walkways, tour guides, and having to pay money to go in.
Many years later, after I was an adult, but my brother was a late teenager, Papa woke him up early one weekend morning and said, "Let's go caving!"
When I came for dinner, I asked my mom where they were and she said they'd gone spelunking. "Oh yeah? Who is going with them?" I felt a little bit left out. If I'd known they were going, I'd have dug out my knee pads and light sources.
"It's just the two of them," she said with a grimace.
At this point I had actually done real spelunking with other groups and had learned the rules; three light sources, and four people to a party, for example.
"Two!?! How is (brother) going to carry Papa out if he gets injured?"
My mother just sighed and shrugged.
"No, you need two to carry and one to get help. What the FUCK, Mom!?!"
"Well, *I* wasn't going to go with them!"
They were expected back after supper. They didn't get home til after midnight. No one had cell phones back then, so we waited, fear and hope warring inside us.
*****
Cut to my brother's take on this story.
He and Papa drove out to the site (about 3 hours) hiked to the cave with their gear, and went in.
This was, in fact, that same cave my father had gotten lost in with Mom all those years ago. Papa was now pretty sure he knew the way through.
Almost immediately, Brother has to do a #2. (Three hour drive that started at sunup.) So Papa told him to "go over there and bury it." He handed him the folding shovel. Brother didn't have anything to wipe with. Papa didn't, either, so Brother used his socks. He thought he was so clever.
They spent hours in the cave. It's a living cave, with beautiful formations, crystal pools, strange caverns and the like. Mineral smells and creatures peeping at your light (or blind to it) in the water.
They climbed the waterfall. They pushed through the crevasse.
They got lost.
This is a cave that swallows time. It's a world of its own, a faerie ring leading Underhill in the midst of the Missouri Ozarks.
Eventually, Brother started to pester Papa about the way out. It was late, and they were hungry, having eaten their lunch and snacks. He had just spent several hours climbing, crawling, and walking in wet shoes with no socks. He was tired and crabby. "Can we go home now?"
Papa couldn't remember the way. He started saying things like, "Let's try this way."
Brother saw evidence of other cave visitors. Occasional caches of cans or wrappers, and markings on the walls.
There were yellow arrows painted on some of the walls. At one junction, Papa pointed one way and Brother pointed in the direction of the arrows. "Ok, let's try that way, then."
Using the arrows, Brother got them safely out of the cave.
They drive back home, after dark and feeling like they had been gone a hundred years. There was silence in the truck.
"Papa, weren't we supposed to get home right after dinner?"
"Yeah." He chewed his beard a little bit. "But we were kinda lost there for a bit."
A few miles go by.
"Why didn't we just follow the arrows?"
"What Arrows?"
***
This is a true story. I've avoided any embellishment, though it happened long enough ago that I may have misremembered some details. I do remember being scared for my brother and my father, and my mothers same fears. I remember my brother telling me his story. And I know that my father to this day will swear that there weren't any markings in that cave.
The elemental magic forms that Merida's arrows take through the four magical charms of Earth, Fire, Wind and Ice in the video game version of Pixar's Brave.
Earth: The charm powers up Merida/your bow and sword with earth magic, it can bring extra damage to root and flying monsters, it can even use its magic to make objects grow. You get it from the witch so Merida could break Mor'du's cures and have a fighting chance with the monsters.
Fire: The charm powers up Merida/your bow and sword with fire magic, it can bring extra damage to wood and ice monsters, it can even use its magic to burn objects. You find it in the first ruin in one of the forests Merida comes across on her journey, after she has her first run in with Bear Elinor before she dashes off.
Wind: The charm powers up Merida/your bow and sword with wind magic, it can bring extra damage to rock monsters, it can even use its magic to lift objects into the air. You find it in ruins near the sea.
Ice: The charm powers up Merida/your bow and sword with ice magic, it can bring extra damage to fire monsters, it can even use its magic to freeze and cool objects. You find it on a shrine in a land frozen in ice.
These arrows were used for magical practice by Zinnia Toller, a well meaning but not terribly talented artificer, they are a smorgasbord of salvaged arrows from her adventures with her party kept in an enchanted quiver.
The arrows are magical, and do 1d8+(roll on chart below)
There are 5 Goblin arrows, 8 Halfling made arrows, 6 Elf made arrows, 10 Kobold arrows, 4 Aarakocra arrows, 2 arrows made with Iblis fletching, and 15 common Human made arrows. The quiver is roughly constructed from broadly stitched together from bark and hide (Zinnia isn’t terribly crafty either), with arcane runes carved in its mouth. It holds 50 arrows.
