level B5 · the bottom of the caverns · nothing to do
Arlesglad Caverns, level B5
Stay Frosty
A quiet place to chill, literally. Chill as in calm, not cold. Down here the temperature is the one thing you never have to think about, because it never moves, and nothing else in the room moves either.
68°F20°C
All year, at the bottom. It said this before you came in and it will say it after you leave. Read off the National Park Service’s weather page for Carlsbad Caverns on 2026-09-26.
Why it is always the same down here
The caverns are named after Carlsbad, so this room keeps Carlsbad’s number. The National Park Service’s own words for the lowest point of Carlsbad Cavern are that “this lowest point remains a more constant and warmer 68°F (20ºC) and closer to 100% relative humidity”. The rooms above move a little with the seasons. This is where the moving stops.
The air down here is close to saturated, so the rock is damp, and the only light that gets this far is the handrail’s. It does not arrive as a lamp. It arrives as a small point in every bead of damp on the wall, and that is all the light there is.
Who it is for
Anybody whose body does not keep the temperature a building assumes it will. Plenty of us run hot, run cold, or only find out we were too warm once it is already too much. Our own Interoception entry lists temperature among the signals from inside the body, and says that when our attention is taken over we may not notice them at all. In here there is nothing to notice. It is the same on the way in, the same while you are here, and the same when you leave.
That is the whole of it. This room is not treatment and it is not a test of anything. Nobody here is going to tell you what it will do for your bodymind.
What never changes in here
- The temperature. 68°F (20°C), and it was that before you came in.
- Nothing moves, at any setting. The dial on this page still works, and it changes nothing in this room, because there is nothing here for it to change.
- Nothing in the room makes a sound, and nothing is waiting to play. The CB stays upstairs: if you are signed on to it, the radio does not come down this far.
- There is no clock. Nothing on this page knows what time it is or how long you have been here.
- There is nothing to press. No button in the room at all: only links out, and the guild’s marker on the floor if you want it.
- The room counts nothing and keeps nothing. Not your visits, not your time, not that you came.
- It is not for anything. Not a cold plunge, not a reset, not somewhere to recharge. You do not have to come out better than you went in.
Through the door at the back: Stay Breezy → A hall full of fans, for anybody who loves moving air and the noise it makes. The fans in there make a sound when you switch them on. Nothing in here does.
The temperature is the National Park Service’s, and the room says where it came from on the thermometer. Carlsbad Caverns is a real national park and not affiliated with Stimpunks. Credits are in the liner notes.
Job marker — a thermometer lying on the floor
You have found a job marker. The Adventurer’s Guild is a shopfront on the street, and it posts jobs that send you round these rooms. Take the code below to its board and that job is done. Nothing here is scored, nothing expires, and one is a perfectly good number of jobs to do.
The job: The bottom of the caverns
Before the code: Every page on this street has a dial that turns the motion and sparkle up and down. What does it change in Stay Frosty?
Hint 1
It is in the second item of the list called What never changes in here.
Hint 2
The dial works. The question is what it finds to do.
Last hint
Nothing moves in that room.
Give me the answer
The answer is Nothing. Nothing. The dial still works on that page, and it has nothing to change there, because nothing in the room moves at any setting. That is a sentence on the page, so the room's own tool refuses an animation, a transition or a transform in its stylesheet rather than trusting the dial to reset one.
Taking the answer is a real way through this, not a lesser one. Nothing is watching and nothing is written down.
Quest code: STEADY
That is the one.
Nothing. The dial still works on that page, and it has nothing to change there, because nothing in the room moves at any setting. That is a sentence on the page, so the room's own tool refuses an animation, a transition or a transform in its stylesheet rather than trusting the dial to reset one.
Quest code: STEADY