Search for the 1000 Meter Chamber

Rishi opened his eyes and looked at the six exits from the chamber of possibilities. One lead to the surface, three others lead to small caverns above this chamber and were fully mapped by old man Bob without him taking a step in them.

Rishi chuckled, "Bob," he thought. "His name is Bob."

The first of the two remaining openings were small and each was roughly 15% mapped by Rishi. But he didn't know that because he didn't know how big the caves were. Rishi had spend most of his time on the left cave because it felt as if it lead in the general of the 1000 meter chamber. Rishi had made a mistake: the left cave system was considerably larger than the right cave, but would not lead to the 1000 meter chamber. Bob had never entered these caves, but knew where each could lead.

"He wants to keep me busy huh?" Thought Rishi.

Rishi pointed to the left cave and said, "Eeenie meenie miney moe," changing the cave at which he pointed with each syllable he spoke. "catch a rishi by his toe, if he hollers let him go. Eenie meenie miney moe."

His finger rested now on the right cave, as he knew it would, so he knelt down, squashed himself flat and squeezed into the narrow and low corridor. For almost 100 meters, this tunnel was just big enough for him to get through. There it opened again into a four door chamber of possibilities.

Rishi had explored three of the four caves. He had not found the end of any of them but today was special. It marked the first day of his third year at the cave and he had saved this new tunnel for today.

He had stood up long enough to stretch and then squashed himself sideways into the tall narrow slit which was made when the stone cracked and separated. His geologist mind told him this crack was new, certainly less than a thousand years old. It was actually less than thirty years old.

As he squeezed down the cave it became more and more narrow. To the extent that he was unsure if he could continue forward without risking being stuck or not being able to get out again. He decided to go forward anyway.

He attempted to place his sideways foot farther on the path but found to his surprise that there was no floor. He had come to a precipice.

He was very wedged into that rock but he felt himself lose his balance and start to sway toward the bottomless crevasse. He attempted to put his foot back up and catch himself but there was no way to bend it to accomplish that task. He attempted to grab hold of the stone but his hands could not get leverage without the ability to bend an elbow out.

Rishi slowly slid off the edge of the precipice. As he fell the slit widened and he began a free fall.

"Well. I guess that's it," thought Rishi, "time for me to check out. You'd think Bob would have seen this coming. Perhaps he did..."

Rishi began accelerating downward into near total darkness. This cave had little or no algae which explained why he couldn't see the ledge he fell from.

For a few seconds he scraped the wall but then he felt a room open up around him.

"How far would he fall?" He thought to himself.

At that moment he felt smooth stone brush him from the left. He found himself rolling onto it until his back was downward against the surface.

The smoothness didn't last and soon he was scraping along coarse lime stone.

It was pitch black in this chamber.

As he plummeted feeling the burning of his skin flaking off from the sandy surface of the rock he noticed that the wall he brushed was slowly changing angle.

After a few more seconds he noticed that he was sliding along an decline of perhaps 45 percent and the rock was still leveling out.

He had just enough time to wonder if he would get lucky when his feet struck a large stone causing him to flip over and land on his face.

He rolled over and felt himself slide to a stop.

"Anything broken?" he thought.

"All systems in pain, but operational," replied another part of his mind.

Looking around he realized there was no algae.

"How am I going to get out of here?" Rishi thought.