#boys explore pogtopia babeyyyy

[seaswalllow]

concept below :P

snippet one is mostly establishing format, snippet two, though... ;]

--

> User: E@>>J registered.

> Audio components active. Visuals active.

The camera's screen flickers. It is held in a surprisingly steady hand, although its wielder is excitable- and loud. As the pixels resolve themselves into a grainy picture that steadily sharpens, you can make out grass underfoot.

Shadows flicker on the edges. They resolve, too, into the shadows of two other boys.

> User: EF33@ registered.

> User: C2?3@@ registered.

The voices of all three fade in.

> "-did you bring the extra flashlights? Batteries? Snacks?"

The camera-holder scoffs. From your angle, you can see him dig the toe of a scuffed sneaker into the earth.

> "Yes, I did. Water, too. I'm not an idiot."

Speculative noises arise from his companions. He pans the camera up aggressively, zooming in on the shorter one who makes direct eye-contact and shrugs.

> "You're excitable."

The taller one seems more careful with his words. This earns another aggressive- relatively over the top- scoff.

> "And you're a bitch, Ranboo. Ranboob."

> "Well now that was just uncalled for-"

Ranboo's protests are overlapped by the camera-holder walking forward, and beginning to talk.

> "Let's get going! It'll be nighttime by the time we get there, and you'll want to go back because you're a little bitch-"

> "Because we don't want to break our necks-"

The camera is snatched amidst the argument; the camera flips enough for you to see that it is the other boy waving to you.

> "While they argue, we'll keep walking. We're walking down to this ravine that Tommy had found."

As he speaks, he briefly pans over to the boy arguing with Ranboo, before returning to the path in front of them. In front of you, the woods loom. This close to the edge, sunlight dapples the floor.

The boys overhear him, and their arguing seems to cease. Tommy speeds up to walk in front of the camera.

> "Tommy, is there anything that you wanted to tell us about the ravine?"

> "It's haunted, bitch."

This draws a yelp from their companion. Tommy's expression twitches with a barely concealed smile; neither the camera holder nor Ranboo seem as amused. The camera holder skirts around a tree, and you watch as a squirrel scuttles past.

> "What do you mean, haunted? Tommy, what do you mean haunted?"

> "There's no way that it's haunted. You're trying to get a spook out of us."

Ranboo and the camera holder's complaints overlap. Tommy waves a hand dismissively at the camera.

> "Take a look and find out, Tubbo. There's supposedly a sad little man who wanders around the place, playing with the lanterns-"

This time, the camera pans up again to Ranboo, who shakes his head at it.

> "This is going to end so badly."

> "It'll be fine! Just don't pussy out and run off on your own!"

A huff sounds from behind you. Tubbo pans the camera around to catch more of the forest; here, the undergrowth sprawls wildly about the floor, and it nearly trips Tommy up. Birdsong grows fainter, and fainter, and Ranboo rubs at his arms.

> "Should I turn the camera off until we get there? I'll save its batteries."

> "We brought extra, it'll be fine!"

> "Besides, if we end up getting murdered in the forest, at least someone can stumble onto the camera-"

> "Someone's just gonna leave the camera behind, right-"

The three boys' arguments overlap each other, but Tubbo does not shut the camera off.

--

Tommy brings the group to a stop in front of a hill. From behind Ranboo, you can't see why they've halted; when Tubbo pans the camera around, you can see the cave entrance.

The sunlight hardly reaches you here, thick as the canopy is. It doesn't stretch much further into the cavern.

Tommy pulls out a torch, and flicks it on. Ranboo does not follow suit; Tubbo does.

> "So this is the ravine. It goes down a passage, and then supposedly opens up."

> "I still say this is a bad, bad idea. We are going to break something, we are going to get murdered-"

> "We'll be fine. We're three big men, we can take whatever bitches try to jump us. I'll just flex- and punch them-"

> "And break your hand."

Tubbo sounds amused; Ranboo has hesitantly taken out a torch and flicked it on.

> "You go on then, bossman. You want to show us this badly, you go first."

> "Fine! Fine."

Tommy steps into the cavern; the camera is panned down to note that the floor dips down immediately within the entrance. He forges on, further, gravel crackling underfoot.

The party pauses at indentations in the floor, scrapes around it- Tommy pokes it with a foot. The camera zooms in on it.

> "Looks like somebody hollowed out this place at least a little. Did you say that this place was manmade?"

> "Well, somebody had to have found it if there's a fucking ghost here."

> "If there's a ghost here, then someone died, and we shouldn't be here at all!"

Tommy does not answer, having moved on. Tubbo only pans the camera to Ranboo- your view bobs, presumably from a shrug.

> "Come look! I found the way down, look at how cool that is-"

The camera just catches Tommy sliding into a crack in the wall, and beginning to make his way downwards. Tubbo follows. He makes a surprised sound, and points you at the stairs.

The very clearly manmade stairs. They are unevenly hewn out, and although Tubbo doesn't slip, you can hear Tommy swear up ahead as he grabs at the walls for support.

> "Definitely manmade."

Ranboo's voice does not sound terribly excited with this revelation. Tommy has stopped firing back particularly acerbic retorts- Tubbo silently zooms in on his white-knuckled grip on the torch and doesn't say another word.

> "How deep can this go? We've been in here for what feels like hours-"

The camera jerks up sharply at Tommy's loud swear, and you come to an abrupt stop. Tommy steadies himself for balance on the floor, and the camera peeks around him, Ranboo whistling under his breath.

The three beams of light play over the expanse yawning below them; pathways arch, thin and winding, between the cavern walls. Tommy's light lingers over a lantern, rusted and long-burnt out, before it wanders further down to the floor. Below them, something clicks, once, twice, three times. A rock, presumably, hitting the floor as they enter the path.

Ranboo's, meanwhile, explores the pathway that sprawls in front of them and follows it down. The camera flicks between both, before Tubbo starts cautiously following the path in turn.

> "So somebody clearly was here. They spent lots of time here if this wasn't- natural."

Tubbo's light flicks to a wooden pathway, rotted through.

> "No way all of this was natural, bossman."

Distantly, Ranboo can be heard muttering under his breath. Whatever it is, it is worried; but it's too quiet to be distinct.

By now, Tubbo is halfway down the path. Closer to the ravine floor, more cracks can be seen in the walls.

As one of their lights wander across the walls, Ranboo clears his throat.

> "Guys. Guys, are those- what is that in the walls? Buttons?"

Tubbo hops the last distance off, and wanders closer to one. The camera, grainy as it is in the low light, zooms in on one of the little square mechanisms. It's wood, and oddly smooth, despite the rot that's wormed its way in.

> "Sure seems like it."

> "You should press it."

Quick as a flash, Tommy comes up behind him, and presses it. Other than a gentle click, despite Ranboo's scandalized hiss, nothing happens. It pops back into place.

> "Next question: why're there so many of these?"

> "Someone was bored, probably."

Tommy's peeled off again, turning in a circle. Tubbo zooms the camera in on a crack in the wall.

> "Is this an actual cave system?"

Tommy moves ahead of him, peeking into the crack. Crack is inaccurate- more like an opening, oddly tall enough and spacious enough for two of them to fit through comfortably.

> "...This isn't a fucking cave."

Tommy disappears into it, and Ranboo hovers outside. His attention is drawn somewhere deeper into the ravine- Tubbo zooms in on him.

> "Shadows got to you?"

> "I thought I saw something."

Even in the low light, Ranboo's troubled expression is easy to make out. Tubbo swings the camera around to follow where he stares. The torch cuts deep enough to come across the other wall- not a single thing moves.

Tubbo swings the camera back to Ranboo.

> "Here, you follow Tommy, and I'll go behind."

> "For you to spook me too?"

Nonetheless, Ranboo does follow Tommy in. Tubbo pans the camera a last time down in the direction he was staring in- nothing. A rusted lantern swings in a breeze.

Odd, that. A breeze in a cave.

The view lingers on it, and when it's pulled away, seems grainier than normal.

> "This is an actual room. This isn't a cave. Someone made this room."

Tubbo zooms in on more scratches in the side of the wall. Some of it looks like somebody was hacking away at the walls. Others...

> "What, someone hacked out this room, and went- hold up, hold up. What the fuck is this shit on the ground?"

Their footsteps don't echo here, muffled by what appears to be softer ground. As multiple torches are pointed down, Ranboo crouches down, and pokes at it, before taking a handful. Dirt trickles through his fingers.

> "Did someone just- just haul down some dirt to shove into a random cave room? What kind of- who made this place?"

None of the others have answers for him; Tubbo crouches as well, and digs his hands deeper. He does not meet stone anywhere underneath.

> "It goes deep, too. Wonder why."

Tommy ducks out of the room; his footsteps echo as his feet meet stone once more.

> "There's more further down the hall. There's- guys. Guys, come look."

This time, his confusion sounds tangible.

The camera is lifted back up to eye level, as they follow his voice, into another room.

> "That is very clearly a bed. That is a bed. That is a table. And a chair across the room. Did- there was somebody living down here."

> "Tommy, what kind of ravine did you take us into?"

Tubbo takes the camera closer to the bed. Most of the fabric is long gone, eaten away by moisture and insects. The wood creaks as he reaches out a foot to nudge it.

The table is in no better condition. Tommy attempts to lean on it, only to jump away as it creaks.

> "They're definitely not here. Right? Why would you even live down here? How?"

The camera bobs with Tubbo's shrug.

> "Maybe this was like... someone's secret base."

> "In the middle of a ravine, in the middle of the forest?!"

> "I didn't say it was normal!"

> "We should leave."

Outside, the lantern chains gently scrape together, again. Ranboo jumps, and Tommy shoves him with a shoulder.

> "Calm down. Whoever was here is clearly long gone- and if we see a ghost, we have some cool footage!"

> "Or we just- don't mess with them because we don't know what would've killed them down here."

> "But ghosts, Ranboo. Ghosts!"

By now, they're ducking out of the room. Ranboo continues to look back behind him; Tommy continues to walk further into the ravine.

Above them, the wooden pathways creak, and all three freeze.

The torchlight reveals nothing.

> "You've already gotten enough footage."

For all of Ranboo's efforts, Tommy keeps going, poking his head into cracks and walking up roughly hewn stairs.

> "Bossman, Ranboo might be right. It's time to go, we spent a good part of the day already."

Tommy's grumbles float back up to you, but he rejoins not long after.

It's at this point that they begin maneuvering back.

The footage is fuzzier than ever. Tubbo hums, disgruntled, and the view jostles; presumably as he lightly smacks it.

> "Something wrong?"

> "The footage's gone all weird; it's even shittier than before."

> "Give it here."

The camera switches hands; your view sweeps across the ravine ceiling, faintly catching four shadows. Tommy flips the camera over, presumably examining it by torchlight.

> "That's weird. Maybe the lighting's got to it. Or maybe it's the ghosts."

A faint thud sounds, Tommy letting out a huff.

> "Don't fucking- elbow me, you're like double my height-"

> "Don't try to freak us out!"

> "Okay, let's go, boys."

Tubbo's interruption breaks up the bubbling argument, as he takes the camera and starts back to the path. The view is slowly panned around them.

> "Nothing now, see? It's just you freaking out, Ranboo."

> "Or maybe whoever it is heard that we're leaving."

Ranboo is vocally displeased with the idea of Tubbo's suggestion. Tommy only snickers.

No other banter is picked up.

> "Look, there's that weirdass bridge again. It won't hold my weight, will it?"

> "No, definitely not, Tommy. It's been God knows how many years."

The camera sweeps back to face Tommy, who has a single foot gently testing the weight of the bridge. Ranboo hovers nervously to the side.

Behind Tommy, on the film, through the increasing static, a faint figure pulls itself up from where it was dangling its legs over the side. The camera freezes where it is.

> "Tommy. Tommy- are any of you seeing this? On the bridge?"

The figure pauses. So do the boys- they look at the bridge, and then back at Tubbo.

> "There's nothing there. See?"

The flashlight plays over the bridge, passing through the figure watching them. Faintly, a trenchcoat can be made out. A tattered sweater.

> "That- Ranboo. Come here. Look."

Gravel crackles to the side, and a sharp intake of breath can be heard; presumably as Ranboo approaches.

> "Tommy, get away from the bridge. Get over here."

Tommy moves towards the camera. The figure stops moving towards Tommy.

> "Oh, what the fuck. What the fuck."

The camera zooms, slightly. With three torches now focused on the figure, more details of the patches on the coat emerge. The man wearing it- he's folding his arms, staring them down.

From further down the bridge, a fourth voice echoes.

> "Hasn't anybody taught you boys not to play on rotting fucking bridges?"