BELOW: CRAWL 05 (Patreon)

Two and a half hours. That’s how long it took for me to find where the skill guided me towards, crawling down one tunnel or crevice or cave after another, until I finally found myself somewhere surprisingly familiar. 

It’s hard to tell, what with how my brain is physically incapable of looking away from my stated goal while I’m in this state, but I still recognize one of the cubby-holes when I see one. A little hole in the wall, just the right size for a human being to crawl into, and in spite of my myopic state of mind, I’m pretty sure it’s not the only one. There’s fainter trails, directions that I can kinda-sorta turn my head, like the skill sees other possibilities, but the main one overwhelms them all. I’m not sure what criteria it uses to decide that beyond the criteria that I set, but it all points to a single and rather frightening fact.

My first “skill”, or the first magic spell I can cast through my Aspects, or whatever the fuck this is, is prophetic. It knows things that I don’t. I didn’t know that this place was here, within two hours of where the beast has made its lair, and there’s no way I could have found that out. So the skill that guided me here did so knowing something that I don’t.

Which offers up all kinds of possibilities for the future if it’s genuinely prophetic. An expensive as hell sort of prophecy skill, but a potent tool nonetheless. 

I’m thinking all this through because I’m standing still in front of that little hole in the wall, staring down into it. 

Cancel the skill.

COST OF SIN: 115

The cost changes as I approach the objective. But not exponentially. Not to nothing. And not to anything I can reach anytime soon. 

I don’t want to crawl in that hole. I know what I’ll find. There’ll be a person in there, conscious or no. A thing I can easily defeat and bring back in a few hours which will convince the beast to keep me around longer, reaffirm the way I’ve manipulated it with my GNOSIS for SIN manipulation and my dumping Aspect points into Desire. I can feel the shape of the skill by the way my thoughts are allowed to move or vanish, disappearing out of the searchlight of my stated goal.

I know the skill is telling me to crawl in there. I know its telling me to go into that claustrophobic little hole, identical to the one where I first discovered that I can’t die from suffocation, until I find the poor bastard huddled inside of it. 

Cancel the skill.

COST OF SIN: 115

A good day or two of just breathing, to reach that amount. I’m tapped just about dry, after all. 

I don’t have days. 

I crawl in the hole before I can regret my decisions any further. 

It takes me a good while to crawl in there. I’m a bit larger than I was the last time I was in one of these, and my joints are grown back a bit poorly, making me gangly and in a lot of pain as I squirm deeper into the wall. Inch by inch, I make my way down further and further and further, bit by bit, until I–

My hand touches something that is not stone, and suddenly, my mind expands.

I exhale in terror, in relief, in pain, as the sensation of having my thoughts shackled by my own will vanishes. My hands tremble, and I would hyperventilate if only I had room for my chest to expand very much in here. 

My want was very specific. I said that I “want to find something weak enough that I can defeat it with minimal risk that I can bring back within a few hours to feed the beast and convince it that I am worth keeping around.” Not bring it back, just find something that I can bring back. Which means, in spite of my terror, that the skill does follow the limitations I’ve set, and I don’t have to either sit in perfect stillness or tear into the victim before me. 

And it is a victim. Just like me, not too long ago.

It feels like a year since I woke up. In truth, its probably only been a few weeks, maybe months. A few sleeps, or whatever. Not long ago, I was the same as the thing before me.

Unlike the last Wretch I found in a hole, this one is almost disconnected from the stone. Their body is real, whole, lying there in the dark but not molten into the tunnel, as if at any moment they might wake up and struggle to take a breath. 

How many other holes like this are there in hell? A hundred billion, if the system is to be trusted. How many of them are full? Their contents stillborn, never awoken or having surrendered to suffocation rather than struggle through the agony of breathing. 

I don’t know. But I’d like to find out.

And now that I’m here, it would feel like a SIN to leave them alone in the dark. 

So I reach forward, gently, and give them a little shake. 

Nothing. 

Again. A little shake, my hand malformed against their shoulder. Part of it is the many times the fingers have been broken, but another is that I don’t look like a Wretch anymore. My current form, that of a Hungering Ghoul, is even less human than the waxy, malformed state that I awoke in. So little time, and so little true evolution, and yet, I’m already so distinctive from what I started as. 

Hell changes a person, I suppose. 

It will not change who I am. Not at my depths. I will break this place before it breaks me. 

Another shake, a bit harder this time. 

And they stir.

+50 SIN

An instinctive inhale, followed by a spasming contortion as the agony of breathing hits the freshly-woken SINner. They contort, throw their hands out, their response to pain a bit more chaotic than mine, more animalistic. They slam their hands against the walls, finding that they’re trapped in the hole, and the spasms only get worse, the panic of it digging deeper into the animal part of their brain.

I grab them by the shoulders, my hands going under their arms, and start to drag them out of the hole, crawling backward slowly. 

At first they fight back, trying to slap at me and even claw at me once, but I think, eventually, it gets through their head that I’m moving them somewhere, and somewhere else is, theoretically, better than this pitch dark hole. 

Joke’s on them, but I appreciate the slightly reduced rate of getting slapped in the face. 

A few minutes later, I clear the lip of the hole, pulling them out behind me. 

They collapse the moment they’re out of the tunnel, their limbs acting like they’re in the midst of atrophy. I see them try to breathe once, twice, their head darting left and right and their hands coming up to their throat and then their eyes.

It’s funny. It’s like I can hear their thoughts. 

“Why can’t I breathe?” they ask, followed by “why does it hurt to breathe”, quickly segueing into “oh fuck am I blind, why can’t I see?”

All very reasonable questions to a freshly awoken devil / undead / SINner, I suppose. 

I crouch down beside them, waiting for them to calm down. Their hand darts out towards me, and before I can overthink it, I grab hold of it, holding their hand tightly in my own. 

That helps them, I think. The panic focuses towards me, holding onto me like a lifeline, their hand squeezing against mine hard enough to bruise. They keep gasping, starting a breath and then stopping, over and over, that needle-agony touching their throat and then stopping. 

I start my breathing over, having let it lapse while I was distracted. 

In, out. In, out. In, out.

I try to make it loud so they can follow. Then it occurs to me that I don’t know where I am, and I turn to look around, letting my skill wash over me. 

I want to know about any threats around me and examine the area.

I don’t spend any SIN on it this time, letting the passive version of the skill wash over me. Unlike the active version, there’s no steps that appear in my mind, no clear set of instructions that I’m forced to adhere to, and I’m not locked into it. Instead, my awareness shifts, opening wide and letting me breathe a bit more.

I’m in a cave not unlike the one I woke up in. Unlike mine, which had large tunnels extending from it, this one has only one form of egress, a tiny, cramped little crevice I squeezed through. It’s no larger than a bedroom, really, and there’s a half-dozen more holes like the one I just dragged this poor SINner out of.

I want to find the person inside that tunnel, I convince myself, facing one of the others I haven’t explored yet.

And… nothing happens. Lust’s Blinders doesn’t activate, dissipating instead. Same as it did when I wanted to die, it breaks and leaves me fully free for a moment.

Ok. That’s strong, actually. If I can use the skill to narrow down the impossible from the possible, that’s a lot of information. Just at the cost of a bit of sanity and freedom, I suppose.

I repeat the mantra of want over and over, convincing myself of my Desires and examining each holes in turn. Four of the ten or so ping against my skill, narrowing my focus, letting me know that some of them are occupied and others aren’t. 

This is… not bad. And interesting. This seems strong, actually.

As some of my regret over my choices fades, I start to wonder. Would the other effects have been as powerful? They were vague enough to mean any number of things, but I can’t help but think that “inconvenient gift of prophecy” is pretty stylish as far as options go. 

Unlike WOUNDS, GNOSIS, and TITLES, I don’t see any indication of rarity or rank. Are all skills equal, are all of them unique, are all of them just… unmeasured by the system? I don’t fucking know, and that’s annoying. Another thing I don’t know that–

…

Hmm.

I want to find the location or person closest to me that can explain how the system works.

My focus narrows to the crevice leading out of the cave.

…

Yeah. Inconvenient gift of prophecy is a pretty good choice, I think. 

Something squeezes my hand, twice.

Right! Right. 

I want to be aware of my immediate surroundings.

The SINner below me is trying their best to imitate my breathing pattern, and it seems like it’s sunk in. Their eyes are a bit glazed over, glistening in the all-black darkness, and I wonder if they’re seeing their version of the system. 

Then they turn to look right at me, and I see their whole expression shift. 

Right. I must be pretty fucking horrifying, huh? All mouth and I can’t scream. My Broken Gullet has unzipped my face and jaw down to my sternum, and doesn’t really close or allow for speech.

I wave, as friendly as I can manage. 

To their credit, they don’t let go of my hand, and don’t panic. They keep breathing, sharp, short bursts of inhale and wheezing agony of exhaling, almost in sync with my slower breathing. I can’t help but feel self-conscious all of a sudden, wondering if I’m making some kind of gurgling through my terribly gross face-hole, and… yeah, just a little. 

It’s whatever. We’re BELOW, who cares?

I bring one of my fingers to my Maw, pricking the tip of it and starting to paint symbols on the ground. I pull the newborn SINner’s attention to it, making words slowly and carefully. 

Ok to breathe, I write. 

Can you read this?

The SINner nods, but it looks like a convulsive jerk. I point at the second sentence again, and this time they nod repeatedly, then make a “so-so” motion with their free hand.

Better than nothing. 

System? Words appear to you?

Another set of nods. 

I think it’s true, I write. Accurate. You’re in danger. I can help, maybe.

All true, as far as I’m aware of. Ignoring the fact that I just woke up this person into literal hell. Maybe they could’ve slept another hundred years, or another day, without having to suffer in this place, but I don’t think that the people melting into the stone aren’t suffering, and to leave them alone? Unfair. Far more unkind. To know that they’ll wake up someday alone, like me, and do nothing? 

The future over the present. The goal over the journey. 

I will not let this place break me. 

I don’t want to be alone. 

A squeeze on my hand.

The SINner has reached over, dipping their finger in my blood and writing with it, adding a question mark to the line that says “Ok to breathe”. 

I nod back at them, then squeeze their hand once, in case they have trouble seeing my head in the all-dark of the world. 

Hurts, but no damage, I write. Can heal. Can’t sleep. Can’t die. Sorry.

They stare at the words. Then up at me. 

They get enough breath in their lungs, bit by bit, to ask a question.

“Estoy en el infierno?”

Ah. I know that one. Mostly. Semi-fluent. 

I nod, sadly. 

It’s weird, seeing a Wretch weep. Their eyes, or maybe our eyes, leak red instead of clear. It’s all blood and suffering down here, and even crying isn’t exempt. 

I would laugh, but I don’t want to. 

They cry there, choking on air, trying as hard as they can just to exist. Punished simply for being. 

But not alone. That much, at least I can offer them.

That, and food. If they follow me. And I want them to follow me, because I need someone to experiment on.

I’m not sugarcoating it. Not going to try and protect myself with half-truths. I’m not going to torture this poor fucker, but the notification I got when I woke them up was plenty clear. Worse than cannibalizing three people is waking one up. I have SINned by bringing this person to consciousness, and the fact that I fundamentally disagree with the system’s assessment of my actions doesn’t mean it hasn’t offered me its little judgement. And I want someone else who I can talk to, someone who I can maybe train to manipulate SIN like my own GNOSIS, someone to choose options that I didn’t in my own transformations to help me understand the system.

And that’s torture, if not one done of malice. And worst case scenario, we can eat each other. I’ve got experience regrowing limbs, so I’ll even go first. Better than starving, and a consistent source of SIN? Lovely. 

This place will not break me. 

But I will be whatever I need to be to ensure that I break it. 

Follow me, I write. Big monster. Working under it. Feed it, we get scraps. Better than most things in the dark.

The wound in my finger, just a tiny prick, heals shut at the end of that sentence. Perfect timing, honestly. 

I go to let go of the SINners hand, but they hold tight to me, desperately clinging to me like a life raft. 

I turn to look at them. 

There’s something so very human in the pain in its eyes. 

Silently, unable to speak aloud, I point to one of the words I’ve already written.

Sorry

And then I pull them, slowly but insistently, back the way I came, my skill guiding me back to the beast I have gambled my fate upon.