Tonight, I finally started mapping the eastern end of the Yagziknian caves -- a previously existing cave system far below the surface of the land where the high school was built, which the newly constructed tunnels eventually ran into once they went deep enough.
I had most of these maptiles finished a couple years ago when I made the first short section of these caves that you reach (with a big open room and a sealed temple that you won't be able to get into until a while later), and even set up the random encounter battles for the area, but for some reason just... never ended up starting on the map itself.
Until now!
The cave walls and floor here are different-looking than in the Underschool Tunnels because I was aiming for making them have a bit more of a "limestone cave" kind of look to them, similar to the cave systems I've actually been in a few times (like Natural Bridge Caverns in southwest-ish Virginia, or Organ Cave in West Virginia.)
So in addition to having a different texture to them, things are more of a paler gray-beigey color rather than plain "dirt and rock" brown. There's stalactites here and there for decoration rather than just the occasional pile of rock. And, of course, there's water! Just like in the sewer map (an optional area, but it becomes accessible earlier in the game than these caves), there are parts where you have to climb down into the water and slosh around a bit to get to where you need to go.
There is actually a cave located maybe a mile or two from my old high school (which the one in the game is based on), but it's much smaller than the game's version... and as far as I know does not contain any sealed ancient temples, weird monsters, or hidden cities populated by alien refugees.
