BELOW: CRAWL 03 (Patreon)

Desire: One’s ability to Perceive and Influence indirectly

That’s how it was described to me by the system. The way it’s defined according to whatever unknown criteria is being tracked by whatever the fuck this place is. Where Tyranny is the ability to outright command someone, to take control, and seems to extend even to myself and to SIN inside me, Desire is less clear. Perception and influence, both indirectly. 

So I gambled. 

Controlling the beast, or defeating it, both seem blatantly ridiculous. If all of those legionaries, clearly a further step into this whole hell-thing than I am, couldn’t defeat it, then even weakened, it would annihilate me. And commanding it? My scrawny ass?

I am a worm. To this place and to this demon.

But as I walk behind it, I think I made the right choice.

In the Home, the Masked Father only became obsessed with me after I showed that I could bring SIN out of my body and into the air. Apparently, that’s a prerequisite to transfer SIN from one person to another, which multiplies the amount that can be generated and funnelled into a single individual. The way he literally leapt at the chance to use me for that purpose makes me think that it’s even rarer than I originally thought, and genuinely valuable.

And it makes sense, doesn’t it? Take cannibalism. The first bite grants +15 SIN, while subsequent feeding varies rather significantly. If two people both cannibalize the same person, and one transfers that SIN to the other, then it’s effectively a double payday for the same act. It’s only efficient.

Mix that with my helpfulness and the absolute truck-load of Desire Aspect I poured into myself, I hoped it would be enough.

It took most of my newly acquired pool of SIN, transferred out of me, through the barrier of my flesh, through the barrier of its flesh, before the beast stood up and turned away, leaving me unharmed. When it started strolling away, I went to follow, and it… didn’t kill me. Which I’m taking as tacit consent to tag along and keep proving myself useful.

Its claws scrape at the walls and floors as it travels, limbs too long and with too many joints to make any sort of consistent pattern of movement, but constantly keeping the silence broken. It makes it a lot easier to remember to breathe, something I also hear the beast doing.

Two breaths, one gurgling and reedy, the other deep and low, follow us as we travel along the tunnels. 

I don’t know where we’re going. I don’t know if it even knows. But I will not go to another Home so soon after the horrors of the last one. Hearing it try to speak, making almost-words with its maw, was enough to convince me to gamble rather than follow the implications of the BELOW or risk it all with a whole new set of… people.

But I can’t be alone. 

I am a person. 

I am a worm. 

I am a scavenger, hunting through the bowels of hell. And if eating three bodies was enough to get me halfway to my evolution, again, then following alongside a predator seems like a good call.

This place will not break me. I will not surrender to it. I will decide for myself what my SINs are, and what I am willing to do to make of this hell an empty place of nothing. 

Scritch, scratch, scritch, scratch.

It makes a constant sound as we walk. It seems confident in where we’re heading, though I don’t see any markers ahead, even with my newly-enhanced Desire. Which reminds me– my sheet has had some changes. 

HUNGERING GHOUL: LOWEST TIER

THAUMIEL

SIN: 25

ASPECTS:

VIOLENCE: 14One’s ability to cause Harm and Suffering

DESIRE: 20 (6+9)One’s ability to Perceive and Influence indirectly

CONSUMPTION: 11One’s ability to Devour and Endure

COWARDICE: 9One’s ability to Avoid harm and find Escape

TYRANNY: 10One’s ability to Command and Dominate

SALVATION: N/AOne’s ability to Exist

COMMANDMENTS:YOU POSSESS NOTHING. YOU ARE NOTHING. SUFFER AND BECOME.

GNOSIS:

MANIPULATION OF SIN (2nd TIER)One’s being is defined by SIN, but through comprehension, through will, a SINner may shape that definition, turning their acts of un-grace into specific steps, specific changes, and further distance from the ABOVE. More than just a thing to imbibe, the true manipulator can wield SIN as fuel, as lubricant, as multiplier of harm.

WOUNDS:BROKEN GULLET (COMMON)Shattered pieces of what was a face, what was a throat, forcing one’s hunger to overwhelm and allowing them to shovel anything into the wound that causes it.SUFFERING STOMACH (Uncommon): Torn open and made to drench flesh in pain and acid, an organ birthing violent digestion that burns through living and Still matter just the same.

MANIFESTATIONS:YOU POSSESS NOTHING. YOU ARE NOTHING. SUFFER AND BECOME.

ACTIVE TITLES:

“ONE WHO ENDURES STILLNESS” (COMMON)Trapped, unable to move or even breathe, this SINNER has maintained their consciousness, has kept their sanity and self, refusing the erosion of Stillness. +1 TYRANNY+2 CONSUMPTION+15% STEALTH WHEN PERFECTLY STILLSIN DEGRADATION SLOWED BY 7%

INACTIVE TITLES:

“ONE OF THE BREATHLESS” (COMMON)In spite of the presence of breathable air, the SINner has decided to willingly forgo respiration for over a month during their time BELOW. +1 TYRANNY+1 DESIRE+5% SIN intake from Breath

And behind that series of glowing letters, brighter than the lights behind my eyes, there’s a second set. All I have to do is try and focus on it and the regular sheet slips away, just like when I look through previous notifications. 

ASPECT THRESHOLD BREACHED

DESIRE UNSATED MUST BE EXPERIENCED

There’s more there. Like I can push into the words. Maybe it has to do with Desire making it past ten points before everything else, maybe it’s about making it to fifteen, I don’t know. 

I focus on breathing, on walking, and on my personal “character sheet” first. 

There’s a new category. “Inactive titles”. Focusing on that, and the new title I unlocked, “One Of The Breathless”, brings up even more words, but it’s… different. It reminds me of when I first woke up, how the words seemed sort of reluctant to appear. Here, again, I have to sort of push and nudge at the category, at the words I can feel hiding behind it, before it opens up, slowly and begrudgingly. More of the system’s intrusive, glaring glow shines into the shape of my mind.

THAUMIEL SINNERS MAY EMBODY ONLY ONE TITLE

ADDITIONAL TITLES WILL BE STORED AT THE COST OF SIN

SIN DEGRADATION INCREASED

The words connect me to a feeling, an instinctive sort of sense that guides my attention inwards. Down into my SIN.

There’s a sort of… node. Like a little clump. Right on the top of the bubble that is my SIN, deep inside me, like a clump of seaweed on the surface of a vile pond. I poke at it, prod it with my mind, and it sort of shifts and shuffles, but never actually sinks in.

Taking a wild guess, I start to look for another one somewhere else, though I have to stop looking and hurry up behind the beast now and then. I’m much more accustomed to the act of meditating than before, but doing it while moving and breathing, which keeps refusing to become a subconscious act, is tough. 

But there’s plenty of time, as we wander through the dark, following the unknown intentions of my would-be social symbiote. So I try again, and again. 

If the nature of this world is to despise me, to hide information until I stumble onto it, then all I can do is trust in luck and hard work. Over and over and over. Hard work. It’s something I learned in my youth, and which carried me through all the way to the late middle age that I made it to before everything goes blank: hard work matters, even if the results don’t turn out how you wanted. Keep trying, keep working at it, keep going, and it will have an effect, somewhere, somehow. 

So I try again, and again, and again.

And eventually, I find it. Another little node, but this one feels… unfurled. Like the bundle of disgusting, weird little mass I can feel at the top of the pool inside me has opened, ripening by being bathed in SIN. I touch it with my will, and feel it connect, somehow, to the words emblazoned inside my skull. 

ACTIVE TITLE:

“ONE WHO ENDURES STILLNESS” (COMMON)

So there’s a real, active presence to what the stat sheet says. Which I already know, but there’s multiple kinds of physical, noticeable machinery that the sheet represents. I can see why there’s a sort of limit to it, too– the unfurled node is wide enough that the weird little roots growing from it cover most of my pool of SIN, drifting through it, again, like algae. 

But the implication is that I can replace one Title with another, if I can figure out how. Maybe I can do it through the sheet, or maybe I can do it directly, but… it’s hard enough to get even singular droplets of SIN to disconnect from that pool, nevermind get all of those roots to curl back up to look like the title on the “surface” right now. Another thing to put down the list. 

Scritch, scratch. Scritch, scratch. 

Forward into the dark. The beast seems confident, as much as I can read it at all. Its face is a muzzle, its eyes sheer black dots, and I’m mostly staring at its back. Its legs and arms are… distressing, as expected. Like a human being walking on all fours, but distorted to seem the tiniest bit more like a quadruped, each with one or two extra joints added. Hard to fucking read, that. But it walks forward without pause, doesn’t hesitate even the slightest bit at each turn or alternative route, so it seems like it’s trying to go somewhere.

It offers me the chance to keep examining more details, more aspects of my sheet. And there’s one thing glowing there, waiting for me.

ASPECT THRESHOLD BREACHED

DESIRE UNSATED MUST BE EXPERIENCED

 Desire unsated must be experienced. 

I let the words come forward, their glow unraveling. But again, there’s a sort of begrudging reluctance to it. The system informs me of things, sure, it’s helpful, sure, but it seems angry at doing its job, frustrated at answering questions that come from what it, itself, is trying to tell me. 

I wonder. If all of BELOW hates me, judges me, harms me, then why would there be a system at all? Why would there be something that breaks my ignorance, that helps me to organize and understand things that allow me to become stronger?

Things to wonder and worry about later. For now, I follow what the system is telling me, falling into the glow. 

DESIRE HAS GROWN PAST THE LIMITS SET UPON IT. AN ASPECT HAS ESCAPED THE BOUNDS SET UPON THE FORMS OF CREATION, AND MUST TAKE NEW SHAPE. 

CHOICE IS DEMANDED. A NEW FORM MUST BE ESTABLISHED. CHOOSE. SUFFER. AS IT MUST BE. 

Well. That’s. That’s pretty wordy. Pretty fucking descriptive. More personality than I’ve seen in the regular character sheet, and at least as much as when I first woke up and it yelled at me about how I’m damned and everything sucks and whatever. 

My mind feels sort of… trapped, inside of the notification. I feel like I could pull back out of it if I needed to, but walking forward is mostly automatic, so I… think it’s fine to spend time looking into this. Yeah. It’s fine. 

It feels similar, though lighter, than when I fell into the weird evolution menu, after I crossed the SIN threshold. Like I’m sinking into water, cold and slimy and full of sharp things and dangerous currents. But this feels quieter, like I’m not falling into an ocean, more like a lake, or a river. It flows and eddies, shifting and churning, horrific and dark and cold, like something I could get lost in. It’s like putting my head into a dark, underwater cave, so cold that it hurts, and trying to navigate by the sense of the waters moving past me. 

But there are patterns. Directions. I don’t just fall into the waters, like they’re not strong enough to drag me, but they are strong enough to keep me there, to try and pull me forward and down. 

As I trail behind the beast, keeping far enough out of reach that I might be able to dash away if need be, I follow those trails in my mind, in my soul, deep down in the cold and dark. 

 I find three directions that call to me the most, that are clear enough, though I have to dig through the swirling mass of lesser pulls to find them. As I approach each of the three places that the dark drags me down to, the system wakes back up, glowing its horrific colors beside me down in the depths.

FORM OF DESIRE: LUST’S BLINDERS

FORM OF DESIRE: LIAR, THIEF

FORM OF DESIRE: HATE UPON THE MASSES

Each one flows forward, implying further currents, further pathways through that un-sea hidden beneath my soul. Behind everyone’s soul, perhaps.

I wonder if I can ever come back. If anyone can, once they commit to something in this place. Are there do-overs in hell? Sacrifices that can be made to turn back? 

Are there ever? 

I turn to the first swirling pool of cold in my mind. It’s cold but smoother, almost slick, like its a comfort that drags me down deeper. I detect some kind of wispy movement there, unknown shapes down in the cold. 

The words of the system start to flow deeper into me, forming words that swirl and shift in the current.

LUST’S BLINDER

Desire leads to want. Want leads to lust. Lust leads to selfishness, and selfishness, to power. Be led by your Desire, and find what it is you ache for, though it will ever destroy you. Gain an awareness of the directions that will lead you to what you want. At the cost of SIN, hear the whispers of what you must do to obtain it.

A pathfinding skill of some sort? Or something more prophetic? This… I guess I sort of assumed it would be a skill of some sort, but then, how does one gain a skill in the first place? If it isn’t a GNOSIS, WOUND, COMMANDMENT, MANIFESTATION, then it’s got to be something else. Those are more… like powers, maybe? Superpowers, kind of. And the Aspects, then, are they more like… I don’t know, qualitative upgrades to me as a whole? Except they’re not all passives, this one obviously has an active component that can be fueled. 

Maybe I don’t need to know all the differences yet. All the minutiae of how this works.

I pull away from it, letting the words fade and the cold slip from me as I return to shallower waters in the metaphor of my mind. I turn to the next one. 

It feels acidic. Bitter. Like it’s over-salinated water, but on my skin, not on my tongue.

LIAR, THIEF

Take from others what they do not wish to give, not by command or control but by manipulation, by subterfuge, by the shaping of one’s perception. Your true nature will be made clear to all who can See, but your words shall lead them to honeyed ends anyways. The truth of your words becomes harder to verify, but your nature as a liar is imprinted on others. At the cost of SIN, understand what might distract someone to hear.

Same as before. Same setup. A passive and an active, both of them subtle, which… theoretically fits the themes.

Last one. Bubbling waters, warmer, given the implication of movement just out of sight.

HATE UPON THE MASSES

You will never be at home among them. Never be safe. There is no kindness they can offer that is not poisoned. All you can do is turn them against each other. By infusing SIN, see the chains of distrust and loathing between others. 

Alright. No passive on this one, just the horrifying sort of note that makes it feel like this place is staring at me. Judging me. Trying to convince me that everything is bad and will be bad forever, trying to play upon my fears and what my traumas are teaching me. 

But there is an active effect. Does that mean that this one is stronger? Does that mean that there’s something more to it than the others, or that it’s more superficial? It seems… maybe a tiny bit more personalized?

The currents hold me tightly, demanding my attention. To pull away now would take more effort, more will, forcing me to stop and force myself out of this… not a trance. What is this sort of thing, anyway? A fugue? I don’t really see anything, per se, and I think that I can detect the world outside clearly, through my sight, my forced breathing, my footsteps, but it’s also like all of that is in another room. A dissociation so loud that it brings me someplace else, where sight and sound aren’t real, but words and feelings of touch are. 

Nothing has attacked me. I pull back out a bit further, doing everything I can to focus myself on the present rather than the abstract, and see the back of the beast, a bit further down the tunnel than before but not so far that it’s out of sight or isn’t being followed. 

So. Choices. 

I let the too-thick oil and cold and dark pull me down into the choices, the eddies and currents inside me born of my choices and the offerings of BELOW.

Lust’s Blinder seems like the best bet to start with, though the name obviously implies it’ll limit my perceptions somehow. It’s the loudest one, and anything that offers me such a direct set of answers feels almost overpowered in spite of that implication. But what’s offering me that? Can it mislead me? How much SIN to infuse things? I get no hints about jack fuck all in terms of details. 

Liar, Thief is right out. Fuck that. Being identified as a liar up front basically poisons everything, and the suspicion inherent to meeting someone in a world like this is already too much of a nightmare to add on to. And all that just to distract them? Absolutely not. 

As for Hate Upon The Masses… it’s definitely the most pointed one, but it’s also the one that offers the most freedom. It doesn’t tell me what to do or where to go, which, for as powerful as it might be in Lust’s Blinder, makes me worried. Do I trust the system enough to command me? To believe all that it says?

Then again, I believe my character sheet, right? What other choice do I have?

Hate Upon The Masses offers me more freedom, but also… less? Sure, it might help me break through other people’s lies, figure out what some of the nuances of social dynamics are, but it also seems to outright teach me that people are all about hatred, that my fears are all true. And how much does it tell me? The details of why people hate each other? That shit’s fucking complicated, no?

Which all leads me back to an important thought, the one that every good gamer figures out at some point in time. And for all that this place is not a game, thinking of it as one makes some things easier. Like coping.

Which one might have more potential loopholes? More potential uses? The best cost-benefit ratio?

I don’t want to interact with a lot of people in the immediate future. Dealing with the beast will be hard enough without that, and no passive effect? Hate Upon The Masses is out too. That really only leaves me with one option, doesn’t it?

Fuck it. Might as well go all in on the devil-witch vibe, what with my beast and my memories of the world before. I wasn’t exactly doing skyclad rituals, but the occasional lit candle and sigil made its way into my room sometimes. Let’s double down. 

I sink into that first, coldest place, rife with hints of stranger dark and slick wetness. 

It’s quick. It’s startling. Like stepping into a cold shower, so much worse than the cold that the fugue state offers me. Like a thrill of adrenaline mixed with ice that runs up and down my body, from my skin to my bones and back again, until I feel different in some nonspecific way.

And then, there it is.

DESIRE: 20One’s ability to Perceive and Influence indirectlyLUST’S BLINDER:Know the way to one’s want. Hear what steps must be taken to make it yours.

Summarized. Nice. Fair enough. How generous of the system.

No longer haunted by the constant feeling of that cold stream inside the back of my head, my attention drifts all the way back to reality, the present moment becoming all I can see and feel.

The beast has gotten far enough away that I can barely see it, the dark too pitch-black to make out its details. Just movement and the sound of its claws on the stone.

I hurry forward, just enough to keep it in clear view, as it leads me where it wants to go.