Anonymous: You see a golden pedestal with a book on it! Now don’t be absurd the Maya didn’t have…  … is that a codex?  Is it made out of gold?!  This is the one tiny little bit of fancy knowledge you possess, and holy batman you just hit the Maya archaeologist jackpot, an intact, in situ Mayan codex! And it’s made out of gold?! HOW DO YOU BEGIN TO EXPLAIN HOW AMAZING THIS IS?!  You don’t explain, you just run around in circles screaming hysterically. You’re so busy letting the room know how stoked you are about the codex (which, incidentally, are usually made from tree bark and are usually not even remotely yellow in colour, let alone shiny) you fail to notice the bird hovering above the altar, which is somehow mysteriously lighting the room.  What comes next?
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Anonymous: You see a golden pedestal with a book on it!

Now don’t be absurd the Maya didn’t have…

 … is that a codex?

 Is it made out of gold?!

 This is the one tiny little bit of fancy knowledge you possess, and holy batman you just hit the Maya archaeologist jackpot, an intact, in situ Mayan codex! And it’s made out of gold?! HOW DO YOU BEGIN TO EXPLAIN HOW AMAZING THIS IS?!

 You don’t explain, you just run around in circles screaming hysterically. You’re so busy letting the room know how stoked you are about the codex (which, incidentally, are usually made from tree bark and are usually not even remotely yellow in colour, let alone shiny) you fail to notice the bird hovering above the altar, which is somehow mysteriously lighting the room.

 What comes next?

Anonymous: Fortunately you are wearing a glow in the dark watch. It’s not much, but it’s enough to allow you to spy a lever a few inches from you. You pull it and a loud creak sounds in the near distance. You’re better prepared for sudden, total darkness than you were last time and waste considerably less energy freaking out than you did before. Instead you press down the light button on your watch, and that obnoxious green screen lights up. You see the lever not far from you and, out of desperation, you pull it—before realizing that maybe the skulls on it mean something—and there’s a heavy creaking as something great and heavy begins to move. You crawl to your feet, and a sudden bright light blinds you. Okay wow you knew that part of the wall looked out of place. You’ve got essentially no choice now but to move forward.
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Anonymous: Fortunately you are wearing a glow in the dark watch. It’s not much, but it’s enough to allow you to spy a lever a few inches from you. You pull it and a loud creak sounds in the near distance.

You’re better prepared for sudden, total darkness than you were last time and waste considerably less energy freaking out than you did before. Instead you press down the light button on your watch, and that obnoxious green screen lights up.

You see the lever not far from you and, out of desperation, you pull it—before realizing that maybe the skulls on it mean something—and there’s a heavy creaking as something great and heavy begins to move. You crawl to your feet, and a sudden bright light blinds you.

Okay wow you knew that part of the wall looked out of place.

You’ve got essentially no choice now but to move forward.

goaquatic: You gloat over the dead spiders for a moment, maturely holding your victory dance to only a few moves and a fist pump. Then you use the light of your torch to examine the walls, hoping to find a doorway. tobeaparagraph: Now that I have vanquished my arachnid foes, I will continue to walk down the hallway, away from the direction of the first room. Maybe I will get closer to the columns and see if I can identify what era/civilization they are from using my fancy learning! IT WAS PREVIOUSLY ESTABLISHED THAT YOU HAVE NO FANCY LEARNING God it’s like you’re trying to take control or something here. But you do look around at the architecture for a moment as you wander the halls aimlessly. If you didn’t know better, you’d think the whole place was pieces together from like, fifteen different buildings, dynasties even… Oh wait, you have no fancy learning so you don’t notice this. otherlonelypeople:  You continue down the hallway in a state of mortal terror post-spiders and note a dim light coming from between two columns up ahead and the faint sound of something moving. Assuming it’s your group you hurry down the hall only to trip on something. You fall flat on your face - instant nosebleed - and your torch rolls out of reach past another column, throwing you into more significant darkness and shadow. The sound of movement stops. … And now you’re back to pitch black all over again. Now what?
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goaquatic: You gloat over the dead spiders for a moment, maturely holding your victory dance to only a few moves and a fist pump. Then you use the light of your torch to examine the walls, hoping to find a doorway.
tobeaparagraph: Now that I have vanquished my arachnid foes, I will continue to walk down the hallway, away from the direction of the first room. Maybe I will get closer to the columns and see if I can identify what era/civilization they are from using my fancy learning!
IT WAS PREVIOUSLY ESTABLISHED THAT YOU HAVE NO FANCY LEARNING God it’s like you’re trying to take control or something here.
But you do look around at the architecture for a moment as you wander the halls aimlessly. If you didn’t know better, you’d think the whole place was pieces together from like, fifteen different buildings, dynasties even… Oh wait, you have no fancy learning so you don’t notice this.
otherlonelypeople:  You continue down the hallway in a state of mortal terror post-spiders and note a dim light coming from between two columns up ahead and the faint sound of something moving. Assuming it’s your group you hurry down the hall only to trip on something. You fall flat on your face - instant nosebleed - and your torch rolls out of reach past another column, throwing you into more significant darkness and shadow. The sound of movement stops.
… And now you’re back to pitch black all over again. Now what?

seventypercentchanceofscience: I walk into the next room and there is a long tunnel. Also lots of spider webs but thanks to my sip of Brave-Water, I can deal. I torch the spider webs away and continue down the hall You enter a hallway, full of mysterious columns and intricate ceilings. You hold your torch higher to examine them, but its light doesn’t reach that far. Your mouth is gaping open at the sights around you while you try to peer into the darkness, so before you see the spider webs you’ve got them in your mouth, and you’re trying your damnedest to spit them out. After you stop choking to death on sticky spider excretions, you admire how the light from your torch makes them glitter. Aaah. Isn’t nature beautiful? Oh OH GOD OH SWEET MERCIFUL GOD WHY DID IT HAVE TO BE SPIDERS You didn’t think there with this many spiders in the universe, let alone the amount that is about to eat your face. You think actually you may just lay down and die, because they have the numbers and you’ve just committed a faux pas on the level of declaring war on Russia, for all you know there’s a million spiderbabies in your stomach and these bad mothers are coming after you to get them back, or maybe they’ve gotten a taste for human flesh and they’re going to lay all their eggs in you and keep you alive until they’ve hatched and their young will feed off your small intestine and kidneys, or maybe they will form to create arms and legs and turn you into their Spider Queen oh wait no that is absolutely preposterous and maybe you should actually react to all these millions of spiders… The water in your water bottle is not actually Brave-Water, but you manage to handle the situation with the grace and calm it deserves. When the spiderwebs settle, you stand the victor. This is the absolute worst thing that could ever happen down here, and nothing will happen that could top it.
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seventypercentchanceofscience: I walk into the next room and there is a long tunnel. Also lots of spider webs but thanks to my sip of Brave-Water, I can deal. I torch the spider webs away and continue down the hall

You enter a hallway, full of mysterious columns and intricate ceilings. You hold your torch higher to examine them, but its light doesn’t reach that far.

Your mouth is gaping open at the sights around you while you try to peer into the darkness, so before you see the spider webs you’ve got them in your mouth, and you’re trying your damnedest to spit them out. After you stop choking to death on sticky spider excretions, you admire how the light from your torch makes them glitter. Aaah. Isn’t nature beautiful?

Oh

OH GOD

OH SWEET MERCIFUL GOD

WHY DID IT HAVE TO BE SPIDERS

You didn’t think there with this many spiders in the universe, let alone the amount that is about to eat your face.

You think actually you may just lay down and die, because they have the numbers and you’ve just committed a faux pas on the level of declaring war on Russia, for all you know there’s a million spiderbabies in your stomach and these bad mothers are coming after you to get them back, or maybe they’ve gotten a taste for human flesh and they’re going to lay all their eggs in you and keep you alive until they’ve hatched and their young will feed off your small intestine and kidneys, or maybe they will form to create arms and legs and turn you into their Spider Queen oh wait no that is absolutely preposterous and maybe you should actually react to all these millions of spiders…

The water in your water bottle is not actually Brave-Water, but you manage to handle the situation with the grace and calm it deserves.

When the spiderwebs settle, you stand the victor.

This is the absolute worst thing that could ever happen down here, and nothing will happen that could top it.

goaquatic: Call out to see if the rest of the group is nearby and can help! You spend a very long time waving your arms around and yelling, but to no avail. You just scream yourself hoarse and work yourself into an even worse panic than before, so you dig through your backpack for your water bottle, hoping it will calm you down. seventypercentchanceofscience: Flick on your lighter and look around Anonymous: If i light up my lighter what do i see? tobeaparagraph: Take a small sip from your water bottle to help yourself calm down. Then take out your lighter and turn it on to get a look at your surroundings. After enough time passes and your heartrate is back down, you remember your lighter and fumble around in your backpack until you’ve found it. You flick it on, and light comes to the dusty air around you. You’re in a small room, which leads into a presumably bigger room, and there are two gold wall sconces with torches in them on either side of the door. If you were a real archaeologist instead of just a wannabe, you could probably give a very long speech on the style of those particular torches. All you have to say about them, however, is that they’re very pretty, a sign of your stellar education thus far. You take one of the torches—the other one is stuck—and light it, and you go through the next door… What do you find there? Use either the submit (multimedia encouraged!) or ask function to enter your answer.
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goaquatic: Call out to see if the rest of the group is nearby and can help!

You spend a very long time waving your arms around and yelling, but to no avail. You just scream yourself hoarse and work yourself into an even worse panic than before, so you dig through your backpack for your water bottle, hoping it will calm you down.

seventypercentchanceofscience: Flick on your lighter and look around
Anonymous: If i light up my lighter what do i see?
tobeaparagraph: Take a small sip from your water bottle to help yourself calm down. Then take out your lighter and turn it on to get a look at your surroundings.

After enough time passes and your heartrate is back down, you remember your lighter and fumble around in your backpack until you’ve found it. You flick it on, and light comes to the dusty air around you. You’re in a small room, which leads into a presumably bigger room, and there are two gold wall sconces with torches in them on either side of the door.

If you were a real archaeologist instead of just a wannabe, you could probably give a very long speech on the style of those particular torches. All you have to say about them, however, is that they’re very pretty, a sign of your stellar education thus far.

You take one of the torches—the other one is stuck—and light it, and you go through the next door…

What do you find there? Use either the submit (multimedia encouraged!) or ask function to enter your answer.

Q:Feel around the wall on either side of the door to see if there's a switch that will open the door again! /practical archaeology 101

tobeaparagraph

You only manage to ram your fingers into the door accidentally because you can’t see where it is, and then scratch your hands up on the brick looking for a catch or a switch or anything, really. You rock back and forth and whimper to make yourself feel better. That doesn’t work either.

You are a young, up-and-coming archaeologist whose love for your discipline is exceeded only by how terrible you are at it. You have in the past blamed this on repeated watchings of Indiana Jones and an overall lack of real world experience. To remedy at least the latter flaw, you have enrolled in a field school, and it is your first day!

You will be excavating in a small corner of a possible village site (everyone just keeps saying “possible” or “probable” all the time…), but for the first day your teachers have decided to show you the temple grounds. During the tour, you have to run off for a little Port-a-Potty trip, and you manage somehow to lose them by the time you get back. You figure they’ve all gone inside, so you climb the steps and pull open the door.

It’s surprisingly heavy, and the air inside smells moist and foul. You step inside anyway, squinting in the dark, waiting for your eyes to adjust.

You think you feel something shift under your foot, and the door swings closed behind you with a thud. You try to push it back open again, to no avail. You’re stuck, and it’s pitch black in here.

What do you do next?