A massive egg-like boulder protrudes above the cave’s entrance, pregnant with the potential to fall. Hair-like roots cling and dangle around it, dripping water that pools then runs into the cave. Cold light and chill air stream under the rock, following the water into this vast cave—warmed by torchlight, smelling of smoke, and filled with the rush and gurgle of moving water.
Strands of web flutter in the wind, which streams into the cave with the sunlight. Their silent movement has an odd echo across the expansive interior, as spindly shapes slowly move across the ceiling in the shadow of stalactites jutting down like fangs. Their numbers are hard to judge, but you see moving shapes as big as cats.
Shadows and light dance over the rough floor, thrown across the chamber and up the walls by torches ensconced in stalagmites. They reveal a great gap in the floor spanned by a sturdy bridge of stone. Somewhere in the dimness below, a great subterranean river flows. You spy signs of past travelers strewn about the cave: discarded and broken weapons, barrels tucked against the walls, and bones, shining brighter than the weapons’ rusted steel in the torchlight.