The Down Deep
Twisting, dark, and abyssal.
Overview
When the Fifth Floor broke, so too did The Daybreak Mountains. Their slopes crumbled, revealing gaping mouths of darkness; holes into the heart of the mountain. The interior of the mountain had been shown to be a hollow maze of passageways and antechambers. The roots of The Great Tree crisscrossed through the caves, squeezing through tight gaps and clinging to walls of massive openings. These caves came to be known as the Down Deep.Geography
There is currently only two known main entrances to the cave system, on the slopes of the Daybreaks. The first is on the southern slopes of the Daybreaks, at least a mile away from the walls of Stone Castle Invictus. The second is more to the east of the Castle, and much closer to the walls. For this reason, the southern cave entrance is favoured by the denizens of Branch, the city within the boughs of The Great Tree.
Immediately upon entry, the first impression of the Down Deep is how dark it is; light from the surface openings seems to die off mere steps into the cave. The intensity of the darkness does not grow the deeper as one goes, as one would expect -- instead the strength of the darkness rises and falls in seemingly random areas. This is due to the prevalence of Dark Root; a root that clings to cave walls, and blankets the surroundings in darkness.
Into Darkness
The system of caves is split up into a series of hallways, crevasses, antechambers, and massive rooms. Due to the oppressive darkness within, losing one's way within the caves is deceptively easy. This fact has led frequenters of the cave to claim that the walls themselves will shift while one is inside; the entrance to a room will inexplicably be missing upon return, forcing the explorer to find a new way out.Take sight of this map o' here. Rrk. Now don' go lettin your bark be seen anywhat's near them red X's. Thems where I heard the ringing of metmen. Thems where I know I'd be gettin felled if I stayed for too long. The metmen have rooted themselves all over down here, so we's gotta keep sight and sound of where's they might be, rrk?
Pardon me as i scream with joy but JESUS CHRIST! This article is indeed truly a formatting and content masterpiece! The way you deliver the content with your amazing prose, voice and formatting skills is simply wonderful! I truly loved this article! First off, i really REALLY need to compliment the formatting here. The way you used embedded images, block links and columns to deliver content into bite sized yet interesting pieces is just amazing! It definitely allows for a lot of detail , both technical and otherwise, to be put into this article and yet be so interesting! You did an amazing job there storm! Secondly, i would love to compliment the artwork here! It just blends in so well with the CSS and combined with that, sets a tone for this article that is incredibly difficult to imitate. The artwork and CSS itself gives this article a cave-y atmosphere and with your amazing writing, makes me almost feel like i was in this cave myself! Last but not least, the content itself was just amazing! Caves have always been my jam ( i visit too many caves in my life lol) and i have always loved visiting them myself! Now coming to the critique part! Firstly i dont have much to say for the formatting but you could use a quote at the very beginning too! It will blend in spectacularly with the vignette and make this article even more interesting to read! As for the content itself, i had a few questions! 1) Have there been any large scale expeditions here by the inhabitants of the tower? What were its results? 2) What other flora and fauna besides the dark roots and rodents can be found here? 3) Are there any legends or myths related to this location? What are they? I really tried my best to leave as good of a comment as i could in as short a time period as possible. I apologize if my feedback was in any way bland or second rate and you are free to discard it even. I wont mind at all! Still, i really loved this article due to the spectacular effort you put into each part of this article! Congrats storm and keep up the amazing work!
Hey Blood! Thanks for the MASSIVE comment! I always love getting these, and delving into the questions people have. Plus it's always super nice to see what they liked about it :) I had a lot of fun letting my inner Qurillion loose with this one, writing about caves! Glad you enjoyed them! Lets answer these questions: 1) Large? No. There's been a lot of small-scale ones from citizens of the Great Tree, but no large ones. The people of the Fifth Floor are too broken, reduced to primitive versions of themselves, to be able to plan anything large. The Fifth Floor is quarantined from the other floors of the tower as the result of war -- but perhaps if the quarantine lifts, there will be a large scale expedition? 2) Clockwork moles! As well as other various rodents of the biological variety. I've left it fairly vague so far, but there's a lot of room to fit others in. I'm thinking some good ol fashioned worms and centipedes. Nothing overly big or dangerous -- I want the danger of this place to remain the darkness, and the tainted water. There is, however, a source of the tainted water in the deep. But that's a secret. Muahahaha >:) 3) Not really, nope! It's a mostly unexplored system of caves on a floor broken by war. The people that would tell legends or myths about it are too busy trying to reassemble the parts of their minds, hide from corrupted clockwork, and make a living on branches of a massive tree. You left a great comment, and it's always appreciated! Thanks again Blood.