Caves

There are a few dozen caves on the map, and they're real ones, passages through the rock that you can walk a long way into. Most are limestone caves. Water working down the cracks in limestone for a very long time dissolves the rock away, and leaves winding passages that branch and now and then open into a bigger chamber. A good one has a few hundred metres of passage in it.

Limestone comes up where the low country starts climbing into the hills, on the flanks of the ranges, so that's the country to look in. The other kind is a sea cave, worked into the foot of a cliff by the waves. Those are short and wide, and end in a chamber.

From outside, a cave is a dark opening in a hillside with rock round it. Tap it and go in.

Bring a lantern#

Inside, you only see what your light reaches. With a lantern in your pack that's about 9 m down the passages; without one you're feeling your way a step or two at a time. Once a passage has been seen it stays on everyone's map, so the first people through a cave make it easier for whoever comes after.

Caves have stood for ages, so their roofs don't fall in. You can tunnel off one into the rock round it like any other tunnel, and once you're digging, the usual rules about soft ground and timbering apply to what you dig.

What's in them#

Nobody has been through most of them. The first time a light reaches a cave, whatever is lying in its chambers is there on the floor for whoever picks it up.

The first settler into each cave makes the Gazette, and it goes on the Atlas for everyone. Say which hills, if you like. It's more fun for the next person to find the mouth themselves.