explored approximately 21 km of mostly walking passage, first climbing down a wet flowstone cascade dropping to a pool

veins of crystal are visible in the walls, pulses of light moving through them in a definite direction, which i continue to follow. nodes of squat crystalline formations appear with greater frequency -- islands of green and red and white light fill the tunnels, slowly throbbing to a beat of their own

the fish are larger here, and fling their blind, eyeless bodies from stream to stream

the water is cool, and tastes sweet

I'm Seketus Reed, visiting professor from the underground city of Geodia. I'm a Doctor of Psychic Speleology and three-time winner of the Underground Psychic Ultramarathon Ironman competition.

I was on a date with Student Activities Coordinator @Ms. Hazeltine at the Spoonbender when she told me about the terrible situation involving your missing drum circle musicians and the strange crystalline cave system near the school, which I have officially named Vyzesillus Caverns.

I've got a great deal of experience rescuing psychic youth who have become lost in caves, and will be coordinating the rescue. Our team leaves at dawn!

It's hour number 112 since Operation Vyzesillus was launched. We're so deep in the cave system now that our only method of communication with my colleague and friend Dr. @Seketus Reed is via trained messenger rat.

"There you go! Good boy! Seketus will have a treat for you!"

"SQUEEEEK!"

Still no signs of @Cameron Vyzesillus, the Calebs, or any of the other students who were last seen playing their bongos in the upper chambers. Likely they were high out of their minds on some kind of fungus or cave gas. I'm looking for samples to take with us back to Geodia to add to my collection.

The throbbing phosphorescent crystals are, however, mesmerizing. They seem to react to the beat of our feet on the hard cold stone -- ripples of psychedelic greens and pinks fluttering through the tunnels. If there was some way to utilize this natural phenomenon to communicate with the upper chamber, it could be faster than trained rat.

"SQUEEEEK!"

Right now we're unpacking the rafts, as we've come to the source of a wide underground river. Time for some quick MRE and then we'll put in. Could this be an entrance to Agartha? The legendary city at the center of the Earth? The very one that Dr. Reed has been so hell-bent on discovering for these many years? I intend to find out.

"Falls ahead!" I yelled back to @Tom Karst in the second raft. I doubt he could hear me over the pounding roar of the tunnel, but he got the idea.

I also knew Tom was likely close to losing his shit, because he hates the water. He's nearly as built as @Seketus Reed, but thrashes and sinks when he goes under. I notice he's wearing double life jackets over his huge chest.

I look for something to lasso us to before we tumble over the falls. The tunnel is lit with the same crystals we've been seeing the whole way down -- great patches and veins running through the walls, slowly fluttering through blues and greens and hints of pink. There's a big protrusion of them poking up near the edge of this underground river. Like an electric glass cactus.

I nab it on my first throw. I tie the taut-line off on the cleat on the raft and it holds us tight. Nabi tosses another line to Tom.

"Let's take a look," says Tom. I can tell he's happy to get out of the raft, even if it's just to climb on a crumbly limestone ledge.

The roar of the falls grows louder and louder, bouncing off these crystal walls in a firehose of whitenoise and thunder. It seems to have a steady rhythm.

BA BOOM BA BOOM BA BOOM

Like a heartbeat? Or is that my own heartbeat.

The crystals are pulsing in rhythm with the beat.

BA BOOM BA BOOM BA BOOM

I turn to look at Tom. The crystals feel like they've begun to strobe, freeze framing images of Tom as he stumbles towards me, turns towards the wall, and falls backwards, splashing into the river.

Shit. Left all the rope on the raft. That was dumb.

I dive in after him.

Jesus, what's happened in my abscence? I was gone, working on mapping the cave. It goes deeper than I can sense, but I have a good idea. The deepest part is around 500 miles underground. This place is massive! Maybe if we keep drumming, we can descover more about what secrets lie within the Crystal Caverns.

I'm lost. I'll admit it. I don't know how to get out, and the cave keeps changing behind me. I can't hope to navigate it alone. All I have with me is emergency food and my drum. Water is plentiful, as I've found a river. Food isn't a problem, but it is finite. No fish in the river to replace my rations. All I can do is stay here and hope to be found. I'll play my drum to see if I can call someone to me. I can swear the crystals are laughing at me.

By my watch I can tell it’s Friday the 13th on the surface. But underground there’s no sun or moon to keep track of days and nights, which is why we use the Gee-org calendar when we’re down here. In which case it’s 1/5th Jeerimpf, Tk-Tka Josen 9, 7646728.7.

@Tom Karst and I went over the falls together, and I was able to drag his blubbering mass out of the churning pool. He’s busy pulling his act together now. We’ve got no equipment or supplies, so it would seem that attempting to scale the massive crystal cliff back up to the rafts is our only option. Incredibly dangerous without the proper gear.

The Gee-org calendar wasn’t our invention. We got it from the Gee-orgs — the generally secretive and inscrutable humanoid reptilian race that inhabits the Hollow Earth. We’ve made contact a few times over the years, and they’ve been instrumental in a number of our previous adventures. Like The City of the Singing Spires, Shadow Hole, and Remy’s Repto-humanoid Rebellion.

That’s how we learned about their calendar, which measures the passage of time through perturbations in subtle energies.

It’s also when they gave me the Membranophone, which is small enough to keep around my neck. More of a souvenir, I've always figured. But they said that if I play it in a time of need, they can find me.

ba boom ba boom ba boom

I heard another drum! I thought I would be running in circles until I starved, but someone else is here! I just need to follow the sound of the drum, and play my own in responce. I just hope we can get out of here alive.

"Ooof! Sorry Larissa."

"No problem, Tom."

It's been 23 surface days since we were taken in by the Gee-org. One of their scout packs responded to the signal from my Membranophone, and surprisingly quickly too. They regularly patrol the upper reaches of the Earth's crust, but that's a lot of territory, when you consider the entire planet. Either they just happened to be nearby, or they'd already been tracking us. Or maybe just because they can move so incredibly quickly. They skitter like skinks through the caverns and tunnels, and to see a group of them moving in a pack can be quite disconcerting.

"Doh! Excuse me, Tom."

"Not at all, Larissa."

They've put @Tom Karst and I in a kind of pill-shaped palanquin and are hauling us deeper down into the earth. They say we'll travel faster this way, rather than with Tom and I on foot. But it's a bumpy ride.

"Ooops! My bad!"

"Not your fault! These safety straps are worthless."

We've often wondered, back at our Liminal Spelunking HQ in Geodia, if the Gee-org had some technological system for transportation beneath the surface of the earth. Like carts in a mine, or boats to ride the underground rivers. But we've never found evidence of any such---WOAH!!!!

SWISHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

It’s been a couple of months here in the Gee-org city network, and I’m still not used to the air pressure. Or the heat. 

The old rule of thumb is the temp goes up 15 degrees for every mile you go down, and the air pressure goes up a heck of a lot more. The Gee-org must have some way to mitigate that, because I reckon we're a lot deeper than that here.

Turns out Agartha isn't just a single city--it's a great network of city-states, running throughout the Earth's crust like a vein of diamonds. Great blocks of apartments and promenades, temples or offices or great meeting halls, streets and passageways all carved out of living rock, and lit with bands of glowing crystal so natural you can almost forget you're miles underground.

@Larissa Crufts has been loving it here. Like she was born to it. She's always off to the market with her new Gee-org friends, or visiting one of their many scientific institutes. She’s taken to wearing the native Gee-org costume of a single colorful sash, which may be suited to the native reptilian form of the Gee-org, but is mighty revealing on Larissa. Though I imagine it's a lot more comfortable than my khakis and flannel in this heat.

Tonight we were at one of their magnificent fountain parks--geothermally powered water shooting nearly half a mile up into a mighty cathedral of stone--where we received mind-pictures from the nightly broadcast of the news-teller. The mind-pictures included images of a small number of human youths who had recently shown up in another branch of their mighty city. The images were blurry, but it appeared to include one with pointy ears and three that look exactly alike.

We'll be leaving to investigate following the next rest period.