Hi
I'm doing some research for a fantasy novel I'm writing. I wonder if you'd mind helping me get some of the details right?

The novel is set in a world where the sky is completely blanketed with debris from a comet. The people in the novel have retreated to a cave system high in the mountains until the weather recovers (in about 10 years time).

I'm wondering about things like whether they would get any sunlight for vitamin D? Would one of those skylights do the job, even with the debris cover in the sky?

If I set it in a lava type cave, would they have a dirt-ground area to sleep on? Or would an erosion cave be better? The soluble ones are damp, aren't they, and that wouldn't make a conducive living environment.

What kind of food would they have, given that external animals aren't going to venture there much due to the terrible conditions outside?

I know they'd have cave rats, salamanders, lots of bugs and bats (can you eat bats?) But what about anything with vitamin C in it? Does anyting besides mushrooms grow inside a cave?

I'm thinking that to avoid some of these survival problems for my characters, the caves could be set high up in the mountains which could peek just above the cloud cover, so that the cave skylight could provide real sunlight (just in one tiny area of the cave). They could potentially grow a little food there. Is that realistic?

Any help you could give me would be much appreciated.
Regards
Alinta Thornton

no way could they survive 10 years by foraging within the cave........not nearly enough food and absolutely not nutricious enough to lend to survival...............growing food within a cave is possible, water power powering generators which generate lite which grows stuff.........that would be possible......batsproviding guano (fertilizer)..........meat would have to be rabbits raised within the cave fed the veggies raised via generators, the generators would have to be very large......water forms caves and all caves have some water somewhere within them......

james looked past the black furry shape to the smooth muscular outline of jills thigh.......the brite light of the growing area yielding a vision that distracted james from the business of rabbit harvest.....his mind wandering to a more primal harvest interest........

ahem....... ....anyway, i would think that sunspot activity and the generation of solar blasts and such would lend more to hiding within caves....or ufos streaking cross the skies and blasting anyone foolish enough to venture outside a cave...... :shock:

i definitely did not mean to imply that ufo's are dangerous or negatiave in any way or fashion.........

There are various blind fish and white shrimp that I have heard live in underground streams. And I have seen greenery growing in popular caves which I guess survives on the constant passage (daily) of cavers lamps. Good luck with the book - maybe you could post us a chapter to enjoy on here when your done.

Thanks for your comments (and those who replied offlist). Apparently surviving from just what's in a cave isn't very realisitc. Since it's a fantasy novel, I'll just invent something for my characters to live off.
Thank goodness I can!

Anyway, thanks for your help.