BELOW: CRAWL 16 (Patreon)

Time to start getting a little weird with it

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My new arm doesn’t like me. 

Seems a funny thing to say, something that I would previously have associated more with phantom limb syndrome or something, but I’m absolutely sure of it. My new arm does not like me. Whether that’s because it bears some will from the person I stole it from, because something about it is sort of inimical to me, or hell, just because BELOW thinks it would fucking funny.

It’s not. It’s actually pretty fucking terrifying, feeling the arm twitch when I don’t command it to, to feel the remaining fingers curl inwards as if trying to reach towards my throat. Even skinned and half-degloved, it’s still strong enough to turn any part of my body it grabs into fucking mulch. While it’s not so intentional I can attribute it to active intent, the arm definitely does keep trying to grab at me, over and over, especially when I move it close to my face. 

The system seems to reward it for that sort of aggression, or just has fun punishing me. 

WOUND FORMED

STRONG ARM THAT HATES (RARE)Taken from an unwilling donor, ill-suited to the thief that has stolen it, here is the feast of a bold little worm. While there are many arms that hate, this one embodies a strength that is rare for its single-mindedness.

My third ever rare WOUND. Seems like it would have been common, if not for the level of SINner I took it from. GHOGIEL, I think, just like the beast. And it only confirms my lived experience, what I’m already going through and already thought to be true. 

My new arm does not like me. 

But it’s strong. 

The beast is still resting. It’s barely a day since its last hunt, and it usually takes between three and four for it to go out again. What it does inside its cave, I don’t know and don’t fucking care, but it takes its time digesting each hunt. It’s been barely long enough for the nerves to attach and the limb to properly become useful, but I don’t have more time to spare. Things are moving fast, faster than I’d like, which means that I need to move faster than I’d like too. Otherwise, I lose not only Samir, but also my first and cleanest shot I’ll have at taking down the Masked Father, before he knows I’m around. Before he knows what Samir will tell him when he breaks. 

Because he will break. 

It’s not uncharitable. It’s not underestimating him. Samir is a good person. I do genuinely believe that he would never choose to go out of his way to hurt me, that he would even act to protect me if he can. But torture does things to people. 

It is one of the single worst information-gathering tools possible for the short term. It is one of the most horrific and thorough tools imaginable for breaking someone long term. Torture someone fast, they’ll say whatever you want them to say, not what they actually know. Torture someone slow? Thoroughly? Psychologically? 

Eventually, they’ll do everything you want them to do. And Samir will tell Masked Father all that he knows, because it is what Masked Father will want him to do. 

I should know. 

If he had asked me to feed him SIN, I would have. 

Hanging there. Feeling my own shattered spine hanging on that spike of stone, staring at Saranda’s face, that poor, half-molten woman I dug my way through for nothing. Listening to him speaking. Watching what he did to his other victims, what he did to me. 

For weeks. 

A month. Maybe more. Not less. 

If he had asked it of me, I would have done exactly what he wanted me to. If he had let me take even a single breath, I would have drank deep of every bit of SIN that BELOW forced onto me and given it all to him. I would have begged to give him what he asked of me, to be a battery, forever, so long as I could just please, please, please just breathe, just be able to lie down, just be able to close my eyes. 

So. I only get one chance, before I can’t trust whether Samir’s information has been shared or not.

Slithering Worm tingles through me, turning every part of my biology into a piece designed for crawling, climbing, and anchoring me to the ground. It works through my new arm, too, which only seems to piss it off more. Without skin, it bleeds pretty consistently, so I tend to keep it cradled close to me or to stick to the ceilings, so the blood dripping down is slightly less visible then a clear trail on the ground would be. Simultaneously, the fingers, muscles, tendons, and even stray flaps of regenerating skin all work together to help me crawl, going slightly faster than before. 

I wonder if that keeps going. Maybe if I become some thousand-foot-long centipede-person, the skill will make me continue climbing in speed, so the larger I am, the faster I go. 

That would be interesting. Funky, maybe. Does the skill want me to grow a certain way? Did it develop purely from what I was already doing, is the synergy an accident, or what? Who the hell knows. Maybe it depends on the skill, even. 

Speaking of skills. 

Lust’s Blinders makes the world turn myopic, which is just what I need right now. Nothing to lose focus on, no opportunities for any real curiosity. I have neither the space nor the time to go out exploring, to discover more about this place, to actually learn about what the hell is going on here in the BELOW. 

I need power. Enough power to have options, enough options to make plans, and enough plans that it won’t matter how strong my target is. 

+1 TYRANNY

Oh my fucking god I’m going to kill you. 

I swear, at this point I’ve gotten almost as much Tyranny from having thoughts as I got Violence from carving through, melting and eating rock for weeks. It’s the Aspect I’ve put the least points into by far, but it’s actively keeping up with all the others. 

Which is good. It’s helpful, truly, means I have to waste a lot less SIN on buffing it up to reach a skill point. But also, I am not a tyrant. I try very hard not to be a bad person, and these Aspect names piss me the hell off, but tyranny is the worst. 

I might not remember my closest details, I absolutely have the overarching colors of my living existence. I went through some shit from real tyrants, the people who grind their “lessers” under their heel and ruin everything they touch for want of more. A tyrant is the sort of person that would build hell for free, purely because it might benefit them, and willingly submit others to that fate without a thought. 

I am not a bad person. 

I’m not a good person. I’m certainly not the most moral person, but I lived a life ethically and with kindness, and I have tried not to…

I have worked very hard not to be as bad of a person as BELOW wants me to be. So seeing that stat tick up, purely from being practical or for demanding more than the misery I’m offered, is fucking insulting. At least boost my Desire instead, system. 

It’s whatever. I get the Violence Aspect to 20 first, then Tyranny. I’ll deal with it then. 

My arm twitches, briefly lunging at my still-healing stump on my right side before I grab hold of it again and keep crawling. 

The Desire I’m chasing is simple. 

I want a safe pathway to the closest place where I can find a large amount of SIN.

I know the most likely place it’ll take me to. The skill definitely knows things that I don’t, but it tends to highlight paths towards things I do know. 

So I ignore all of the pathways that come into my awareness that I know will take me to the fight pit. They’re hard to identify at first, but I know what direction the skill wants to take me in, and I find it easier and easier to identify the parts of my focus that are hazy rather than cut off. 

Lust’s Blinders highlights what will definitely take me to what I want, and makes it almost impossible for me to be aware of anything else. But there’s a little bit of wiggle room, where I can still notice things, but they’re not yelling at me or crowding everything else out. I think that they indicate directions where some, but not all of the criterias of my Desire are met, or maybe places where certainty is a lot less certain. Either way, I’m not ready to go back to the fight pit, not with only one arm, not having just found Samir there. Who knows who else from the Home might have been sent there?

I would guess I have maybe three outings left after this one, maybe four. Two with the beast before Samir’s deadline hits, and then as many as I can squeeze into the windows between now and that second hunt. The fight pit is valuable for damn sure, but it can wait for another trip, hopefully after I’ve gained my first Violence skill. 

My stomach gurgles quietly, reminding me of my hunger. I feel bits of me lengthen and sharpen at the sensation as Ever-Starving Beastling reminds me of its existence. As I skitter and crawl along the ceiling, I feel myself start going just the tiniest bit faster as my body changes under the effects of the skill. 

I grit my teeth, clench my newly-stolen fist tightly, and keep going. 

And keep breathing. Always. The pain reminds me I’m alive, and pushes me forward, one step after another. I breathe, the cycle stuck on manual but kept in such a perfect rhythm that I’m inhaling and exhaling almost like a living person. 

The pathways to the fight pit are behind me now. My map updates. There’s wiggle room in the skill, and I wiggle forward, finding the paths it is less confident of and gambling on them.

I giggle. So much wiggling. 

Damn. Crawl around for like, six hours alone in the dark, and already that bad habit has snuck back. I should definitely keep the giggling to a minimum, no matter how much I want to do more of it. 

I want to break down laughing pretty much all the time, all the way in the back of me. There, with the rushing water, running over rocks to make the sound of my mind. 

Giggle. 

Bleh. I get introspective when I’m alone. 

I sneak through an opening so small I have to dislocate my newly-acquired arm a bit to fit, then wrestle the muscled limb through behind me. My new arm doesn’t like me, and my Ossified Jigsaw WOUND doesn’t apply to it like the rest of me. But that observation goes into the back of my mind nwo. 

I’m close. All the other paths have started drifting away, no longer as “close” or “safe” as the one in front of me, letting the skill’s powers shift my mind. I’m close. I just have to keep skittering chittering giggling. 

There, beneath me, hidden behind the wall I just crawled through, is a hole. 

Too smooth. Too clean. Clearly artificial, made by acid or sculpted intentionally to the level of smoothness it’s reached. 

Lust’s Blinders narrows my awareness of the rest of the chamber I’m in, small though it may be. I’m pointed straight down into that hole. 

There’s no light here in hell, though I can still see by the too-dark shadows of things. Still, that hole feels… dark. Like the light doesn’t reach it, even in this lightless place. 

My skill points me forward. 

I want a safe pathway to the closest source of SIN I can harvest without putting myself in immediate danger.

I forget the path behind me, the room I’m in, the state of me, everything but that Desire and the things behind it. My skill loudly and confidently assures me that forward is the only way to go to get what I want. 

I quickly check my condition. Suffering Stomach full. Broken Gullet sharp as ever. Strong Arm That Hates aching to grab and tear and punch. 

Fuck me, what I wouldn’t do for a Gnosis that shoots lasers or something. Or a gun. Fuck, I’d love a gun. 

My WOUNDS are ready. My Ever-Starving Beastling skill is active, granting me a few small bonuses to my more bestial stats. The system tells me I’m so far above a fresh-born Wretch that I could probably tear them apart and run circles around them without the lightest difficulty. I’m as prepared as I can be to do some new and stupid thing.

So I let go of the opening I’m holding, and start sliding down into the hole. 

It’s slick. 

At first I think it’s some kind of biological thing, like I’m falling down an open gullet, but no, it’s the stone itself that’s been sanded so smooth that there’s almost no friction to it. I can feel my Slithering Worm skill still manage to grab hold of it, but it’s a lot more tenuous than regular stone. 

Trusting that I’ll be able to tell if and when I can’t climb back up anymore, I let go of the lip of the hole, continuing to go down. 

It’s almost vertical, though not quite. It corkscrews a bit, and that makes the hole tilt and turn to one side, making the wall I’m against lean against me as the curve gradually changes the angle of things. That impression of darkness remains, though. My senses are dulling, and if not for my familiarity with how Lust’s Blinders works, it would be a lot more frightening. As it is, it’s not exactly comfortable, though I mostly trust the skill to be able to get me out of the sorts of trouble it can get me into. It’s similar, how the tunnel works, making me feel like my senses are just gradually dimming the further down I go. 

After almost a full minute of sliding down the tunnel wall, the wall I’m on evens out into ground, and I can start making my way forward more intentionally. 

But my senses continue to fade. Slowly, but they are. 

I want to go down a safe pathway to the closest source of SIN that I can harvest without being torn apart or eaten or trapped.

The way back is lost to me. Lust’s Blinders guide me forward, gently but insistently, like someone holding my hand to take me someplace I don’t want to go. 

I have to go Home soon. 

I giggle, the sound not unlike bubbling water over sharp rocks. 

So I keep going forward. 

Eventually, everything is dark. I take some of the blood from my still-dripping new arm and throw it forward, and the red is all there is. It spatters against the ground, but the contrast between that bright crimson and the rest of the dark only makes it more obvious how little I can see. 

Darkness beyond darkness. Because why not, hell? Why not. 

I trust in my skill, changing out the wording and checking that it can lead me back out the way I came in from. It always returns a positive, highlighting either the way forward or the way back just as easily as before, no matter how many caveats or specific modifiers I put in it. 

I shouldn’t be so nervous. It’s not the fight pit, after all. 

But it’s very dark. 

I don’t notice, at first, how Lust’s Blinders starts to guide me sideways. I just think I misstepped, until I notice that the skittering flesh on my right side is more active than my left, turning me, then turning me back. Like I’ve just navigated around something. 

Almost as soon as I realize that, I bump into something. 

It’s stone, which helps with the immediate panic. It’s not nearly as smooth or organic as the rest of the tunnel I’m moving through, though, which does not help with the panic reaction. 

But nothing attacks me, even as I adjust Lust’s Blinders to try and warn myself of dangers. Nothing moves. Nothing changes, except my stillness. 

So I advance some more. 

It’s… it’s a right angle. The stone in front of me goes up, then goes flat, sharply, in a way that speaks of intentional construction. And then, when I advance a bit further, it happens again. 

It’s a staircase. 

I hold my breath, embracing the silence it brings, and stand upright. 

Up one step. Then the next. 

My hand bumps into something. A flat wall. 

I explore it, and very quickly find a round knob of stone, right around waist height and to one side of the wall. 

It turns when I try it, and the door opens soundlessly.