Closing Location Before First Exploration

[tisfido]

My character started her turn at the Cavern. The Cavern had previously been depleted of cards but was not closed, so on her turn she closed the location and moved to a random other location as directed by the "When Permanently Closed" rule. My question is can she now use her first free exploration at the new location or did she have to expend it before closing the Cavern?

Regard,
TiSfido

[First World Bard]

She had to expend it before closing the Cavern, I am afraid. The turn occurs in phases, and the closing a location phase happens after the explore phase. This means that once you close an empty location, you can no longer explore, even by using a blessing or ally.

However, if you defeated a henchman that lets you attempt to close the location, you are still in the Exploration phase. If you can move to another location (such as by using a Potion of Flying), you can continue to explore.

[Michael Klaus]

What Bard said and I'd like to add that you can refer to the backcover of the rulebook

The rules wrote:

Turn Overview

Advance the blessings deck.
Give a card to another character at the same location (optional).
Move to another location (optional).
Explore the top card of the location deck (optional).
Try to close a location if it doesn’t have any cards (optional).
End your turn—apply end-of-turn effects, expend mythic charges in
excess of the scenario’s adventure deck number, then reset your hand
by first discarding any number of cards then discarding down to or
drawing up to your hand size.

And if you had a potion of flying, like bard said, you could move in your move step (or try to move, wasn't the Cavern a location with movement restrictions?) and go back to the Cavern after your exploration to try to close it before you then end your turn. But if you wanna play safe you would have to forgo your exploration.

[Frencois]

Some allies like the Pteranodon also allow you to move and explore.

So it could even be possible in a single turn starting in the empty open cavern to do :

Move step : move to location A

Explore step : free exploration of location A, encounter and defeat henchman give you opportunity to close A, close A
Play Pteranodon to move and explore location B, encounter and defeat henchman give you opportunity to close B, close B
Play Potion of flying to move to cavern

Close a location step : close cavern since it's empty

You can close multiple locations in a single turn as long as you respect the order of the steps (and play the required cards).