Nature for Everyone Paths are a pride of the municipalities maintaining them: not-too-steep ramps, helicopter rescue clearings, unobtrusive shelters, inviting ablution blocks and binoculars to get a better view in scenic areas are just some of the amenities they wish to offer. And in caves like these, mini-museums, free maps, art murals and protection from rain are just some of the nice things they can have. The one in this cave, Corner M3K9 Cave, has a cozy and messy mix of all these things, meant to look like a child having just played with them for anyone walking past it.
For a brief moment, one of the things Corner M3K9 Cave has is an entrance to what Kellen has nicknamed the Labyrinth. That only lasts until he steps out through it, upon which it quickly fades away.
Kellen doesn’t even glance at it as that happens though. He’s busy enough getting used to the sudden change from the rich, dense magic in the Labyrinth to… none?
There is, indeed, nothing remotely similar to the strength of the magic that Kellen felt in the maze. He finds himself at the entrance of a cave in the middle of the woods, full of supplies strewn out across the floor, although looking around reveals small, well-organized shelves where they're also kept. Quite a few maps are easily visible, to name one thing.
The lack of magic feels as strange as its excess within the Labyrinth was -if not more. Still, he pushes the sensation to focus on his environment.
Kellen frowns a little at the supplies on the floor and nods at the shelves, much preferring the order of the later. He quickly notices the maps and examines one, curious to see where he is and whether he can understand the language.
The map shows a quite detailed depiction of the surrounding area, together with a map of the wider area in one section and a very simplified map, covered in straight, colorful lines, in a corner of the second map. It looks like the third map covers a significantly larger area than the 2 smaller maps.
Although he already knows that this is not his world (if he had any doubts before stepping through the doorway, the lack of magic got rid of them), he’s still interested in whether this place looks similar to any that he knows. Something else that might be useful would be a town. He knows that there is some sort of civilisation because of the supplies in this cave, and contacting people -assuming that they aren’t hostile and can communicate with him- should be helpful.
It looks like a cave, and the woods outside look like woods, any differences being subtle. Kellen would find that there's a rather inviting path between the trees, heading down, the same way as a river on the map that ends past what looks like the outskirts of a city.
Since the vegetation is mostly recognisable, as much so as can be expected given his very basic knowledge of plants, he feels a bit more confident on the people being similar to him.
He appreciates the path since he’s not great at following maps and begins walking down it as soon as he’s done looking around. Are there any people in sight?
He sees a woman pushing a baby in a stroller, heading up the path he's going down. She waves at him, but doesn't pay him much attention.
He politely waves back at her and decides against taking to her. For one thing, she doesn’t seem interested in him and, in addition, she probably wouldn’t be able to help. So, he just walks past her and continues to follow the path
It takes a fair bit before the forest thins out, and Kellen can see super-tall buildings rising from a sea of modest trees and ponds on grass cut to be perfectly, immaculately straight. There are people of all ages playing, including quite a few swinging foam swords at each other.
The contrast between the tall buildings and the sword-fighting confuses him before he remembers that ren faires exist and some people probably do this back at him too, although it’s certainly less common. What hasn’t surprised him so far is that the people look like him, which is probably just due to human anthropocentrism.
He slows down on his jogging as he gets closer to the other people, now listening in case he recognises the language. His typical low-level magic usage allowing him to hear them despite the remaining distance.
The language is totally unfamiliar to Kellen, sounding nothing like any language he's ever heard!
He's quite sure he'd be able to replicate the phonemes, yes. There's only a few people communicating with signs.
That’s good, he thinks. And if it ends up giving him trouble, the signed language might work too. He’s still not excited about being unable to communicate, though!
A few glances turn to Kellen, but people don't pay more than a few moments' attention.
He waves at some of the people but decides to continue towards the buildings. He’s hoping to find someone who seems like the right person to talk to, atlhough he doesn’t know what that looks like.
Unfortunately, nobody seems to stand out much. There are some people who wear small rectangular on their clothes, in various colors and sometimes in 2 different colors, but mostly they just wear various forms of athletic clothing or brightly colored short skirts.
Why doesn’t anyone look important? That makes things unnecessarily harder! He knows that this train of thought doesn’t make much sense but still, he just wants a way back! He’s never asked to travel between dimensions and isn’t happy about it happening. His sister would probably be enjoying it more… and let’s not think about that, missing his family doesn’t help him focus.
After some more internal grumbling and woe-is-me’ing, he settles on just approaching the first person he finds that doesn’t look very busy.