You
have accomplished great things and travelled to fantastic places
during your time on earth. News of your skill has spread far and
wide. Now your services are required to help defeat the Titans. You
have been summoned by the great god Zeus to descend into Tartarus,
slay the she-dragon Campe and free the Cyclopes so they may forge a
thunderbolt for Zeus.
This
is not a task to be taken lightly. Tartarus is as far beneath Hades
as heaven is high above the earth. As a place so far from the sun
and so deep in the earth, Tartarus is hemmed in by three layers of
night. It is a dank and wretched pit engulfed in murky gloom. A
bronze anvil falling from heaven would fall 9 days before it
reached the Earth. The anvil would take 9 more days to fall from
Earth to Tartarus.
Tartarus is a place where
sinners are sent and you will encounter many challenges along your
way.
The
listed coordinates take you to the position where the bronze anvil
hit the earth, and the cache lies almost directly below your feet.
However, unlike the anvil, you will need to make your way to the
cave entrance of the cave at S34 06.819 E018 26.493 on the side of
the main path where you will descend into the black abyss below.
You will not have any GPS reception inside the cave so please
follow the directions below.
The
horizontal entrance slopes down into a large chamber. A passageway
leads off to the left. There may be water underfoot. Follow this
passage and it will swing back slightly to the right. The
passageway then becomes narrower and continues for about 25 meters
before arriving at the pit. The pit drops about 5 meters below the
path and about 5 meters above it. You have reached
Tartarus.
Whatever you do, do
not descend into
Tartarus or you will never return. However, you hear the shouts of
the cyclopes in a switchback return tunnel to your right. Enter
this parallel tunnel and proceed about 5 meters until it starts to
widen. You swing your torch around and you see the orb-eyes
descending further into the ground below. Do not follow them, but
retrieve the sacred thunderbolts from the cache on the left hand
side.
Success, you have found what
you have been looking for! These thunderbolts, which will become
Zeus' main weapons, were forged by all three Cyclopes: Arges added
brightness, Brontes added thunder, and Steropes added
lightning.
You
now have two options, to return the way you came (a choice for mere
mortals), or return to the surface via the tunnel you see in front
of you. This is a narrower but more exciting route and contains a
corkscrew that you will need to negotiate.
Start
off to the right and ascend into the tunnel up on the left. There
is only one way back and you will arrive back next to the heart on
the wall.
Do not
attempt this cache alone.
Take two torches per person.
Wear old clothes or an overall.