Cave Diving (Not Even Once)

Just once. You can stop any time you want. Your headlamp is the only light down here, and the noise knows how much trouble you're in. You start floating at the entrance and swim at your own pace. Further in, a few openings let daylight down into the water. Surface at one and you can breathe, but your tank never refills: bank what you carry, multiplied by how deep a way out it is, or dive on. The entrance pays x1. The far side pays x8. Run out of air and you lose everything you were carrying. A CAVE TO LEARN Side passages make it a maze: dead ends that hold pearls, an air chamber, a loop that can cave in behind you, an eel's lair, and a spring that surfaces somewhere nobody marked. A guideline trails behind you so you can find your way home, until a rockfall buries it. Fish scatter from your lamp. Eels in the walls watch before they bite. And past NO WAY BACK, the cave comes down behind…