You start to walk way from the tall standing stones you'd been visiting, toward a range of tall, snow-capped peaks not too far away, noting the increasingly stony ground coved by the slightly overgrown path you're on. Soon the path leeds uphill, and you find yourself at the base of the first mountain. You begin to feel a little nervous--You're simpley not dressed for deep cold, only for the slight chill of the late fall weather in the area. You pause for a second, then shrug. You've come this far, and the day is fairly warm. You'll be just fine if you continue a little further along. You continue your hike, pocketing a few interesting stones and a fossil of some kind of fish along the way, and soon the vegetation is nearly gone, leaving only a few short, twisted and wind-warped trees clinging to the stone ground with admirable detirmination. You stop several times to rest under different trees, now almost half way up the mountain, admiring the view.
It is during one of these short rests that you hear the faint and far off grumble of thunder. Surprised, you glance upwards, but the sky is still clear. You wonder to yourself what could be making the noise, then turn to begin your hike again. After a momment, you notice a great deal of movement a little way up the slope. Seconds later, you realize that it's the beginings of an avalanche. You swallow a paniced shout,, deciding that course of action would only make things worse, and franticlly look around for some sort of cover. There are a few boulders, and one of the scraggly trees nearby, nothing to offer you any protection....but there seems to be a darker shadow behind the tree that might be a small cave. You scramble over rocks, tearing the skin of your palms on a few sharp stones, and at last reach the tiny but deep cave.
You drop to your hands and knees, and crawl as fast as you can into the cave, the rumbling lound in your ears. The cave does seem to be very deep, even if it's short and narrow, and you keep crawling until at last the noise of the avalanche is dimmed down enough to be almost beyond noticing. You try to glance behing you, but the cave is very dark now--after all, you must have turned several corners, and besides, there's probabley a large amount of snow and stone in front of the tiny opening now. You sigh a little, realizing you can't turn around in the narrow tunnel, and that the exit's probabley blocked any way. Nothing to do but keep crawling then.
You continue on your way, twice planting hands and knees in puddles of some kind of ooze, causing you to make disgusted sounds and strange facial expressions. Eventually you come to a sort of crossroads. The tunnel branches to both the left and the right, with solid rock in front of you. To the right, the tunnel is still a tiny little track leading to darkness, although you can hear water running in the distance. To the left, there is some faint rustling and the tunnel seems to widen a little bit gradually, judging by the echos. Now you just have to decide what way to go....
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