Cave-In

[knux400]

As you walk, you start to stew. This job bites. Figuratively and literally. Everything you've heard up until this point made it seem like an easy job, especially for barebones since they're literally built for it. Granted, the Draw Crystal Corporation is nothing like the mines in the city, so you expected it to be a little more rundown than most places, but this is ridiculous. Complete and total ignorance of safety protocol. Has this happened before? How often? You know Ortho mentioned an incident when the batteries ran out on their horror detection equipment, and implied that there had been incidents before that, so... Every few months, you guess? That is... really not great. You're not sure how that figure compares to accidents in other lines of work, but it doesn't sound good at all.

It's all Mr. Stone's fault. Whoever he is. Ignoring regulation safety protocols like this is constantly hurting innocent people, and no one seems to be able to do anything about it. You wish you had taken some pictures of the elevator or something on your way down, but the photos of the rubble will have to do. When you get out of this stupid hole, you're going to roll up into a ball and throw yourself straight at his greedy face--

Calm down. Focus. You're not getting anywhere thinking like that. You look at the walls instead. There's no lights in here, or really any evidence that anyone's been here before at all. You're completely in uncharted territory. As for crystals... Well, you really couldn't care less about retrieving any at this point, but any information that helps you figure out where you are is welcome. There don't seem to be... any. At all. The mineshaft down here was littered with tiny crystal shards embedded in the floor, making the caves seem to sparkle. Here it's barren- nothing but stone. And the stone itself is rather odd, now that you think about it. There's cracks and crevasses all over the walls, ceiling, and floor- it looks as if it's about to crumble on top of you at any moment, but it doesn't. It just stays there, oddly still. The fluid from before seeps out of the cracks in places, collecting in puddles on the ground. Now that you look at it, it's pitch black, like the jaws from before. You can shine your flashlight straight at it and it doesn't light up at all.












This is a very, very long tunnel. You're not sure how far you've actually traveled given the many twists, turns, and bends, but it's been a long time. Close to an hour. As you round yet another corner, you spot some large piles of rubble not unlike the one you found yourself in. There's something metal sticking out of one of the piles.