''You find yourself in a vast expanse of craggy, unforgiving stone. It is bitterly cold and wreathed in a shadow so black that you cannot make out the horizon. To your NORTH you can make out a hulking, pointed shape that may be some kind of PEAK. To your SOUTH the ground begins to slope and soften into a PATH. To the EAST and WEST lies nothing but darkness. ''
[[>go south]]''The chill begins to subside as you ease yourself onto the PATH. The terrain is forgiving, here. It softens underfoot.''
[[>further south]]You can hear the vague contours of VOICES, faint through the still air. They grow steadily louder as you approach.
[[listen to voices]]They sound like your voice. The clacking chatter of friendly primates. They are comforting.
[[>go south ]]You can almost make out words, now. You only realize that you have been carrying a knot of tension within you when the familiarity disperses it.
[[>go south ]]You get the unmistakable, beautiful sense that you are going home.
[[>go south ]]To the place where you were born. To the place you hope to die. Home at last.
[[>go south ]]A giddiness in your steps as the slope intensifies. It doesn't even feel like walking anymore. You're walking on air, on joy, on the light heat of homecoming.
[[>stop]]You stop short of your destination, just for a moment. The precipice is visible. You feel just a bit lighter with every step you take towards the lip.
[[>look at precipice]]It is the mouth of the heat and the VOICES. It roils with your kind. Steadily, you approach to join them.
[[>stop ]]You hesitate only a second to take in the beauty of it.
[[>stop walking]]You linger for a last moment at the edge, eager to descend.
[[>stay still]]You don't know why you're staying still. It is your greatest and most profound desire to descend into the PIT.
[[>look in pit]]You will get a fantastic look at the pit when you descend into it. You are very excited to descend into the pit and resolve to start immediately.
[[>listen to pit]]You can hear your countrymen. They are making happy noises. Howling with laughter. Screaming with joy. Begging for mercy with a general jocularity. You cannot wait to make happy noises as well.
[[>back away]]You backpedal slightly in order to prepare a running start.
[[>back away ]]You add a few extra steps for a truly impressive leap.
[[>go north]]It's cold up there, you know.
[[>go north ]]It's lonely.
[[>go north ]]You're a social creature. You're warm-blooded. You're meant to be in a nice warm pit with a whole lot of other ones of you, talking and laughing and screaming and boiling.
[[>go north please]]It's cold and it's lonely and it hates you.
[[>go north goddamn it]]It hates you so much. The pit loves you.
[[>no]]It really does.
[[>the pit is hell i think]]It is. But that doesn't mean it doesn't love you.
[[>go north ]]Your heart beats in time with the pit. It is in your nature to be small and sinful and to suffer.
[[>GO NORTH]]Stupidly rejecting the aperture provided to you by your fetid nature, you turn away from the pit. What was a lovely, easy slope going down is a truly brutal hill going up. Propelled less by will than reckless audacity, you begin your jagged ascent.
[[>i don't want to go to hell]]You deserve to.
[[>no i don't]]Yes you do.
[[>i didn't do anything]]Yes you did.
[[>what did i do?]]Why don't you check your MORAL INVENTORY?
[[>inventory]]Moral Inventory
1 Corrupt Principles
1 Ineffectual Self-Flattery
1 Overwhelming Ignorance
1 Leaden Wickedness
1 A Foundation for the Torments of Hell
1 Seeds of Hell Fire
1 Prudence and Care To Preserve One's Own Life
[[>drop wickedness]]You claw at your own skin, attempting to locate and remove the source of the wickedness within you. You cannot, because it is an innate aspect of your being.
[[>do something good]]
By all means. The pit's right behind you.
[[>do something not wicked]]The pit beckons.
[[>go north ]]It's almost too steep to climb. The inviting warmth of the pit is fading. Sweat rolls frigid down the back of your neck.
[[>go north ]]Your whole body is seized within the strain. The hellfire within you aches as you tear it from its source.
[[>go north ]]The ground is hard and merciless. You have fallen many times. Your hands are covered in lesions.
[[>bleed]]The wickedness isn't coming out that way either, pal.
[[>go north ]]I know what you're trying to do here.
[[>go north ]]You're trying to reach the peak.
[[>go north ]]You won't get there.
[[>go north ]]You're not supposed to be at the peak. You're supposed to be in the pit. The only reason you're making for this impossible pinnacle is because you don't want to go into the pit, and that's not enough for you to reach the peak.
[[>what is enough?]]Nothing. It's not anything you did.
It's what you are.
[[>what am i?]]You're a sinner. You're wretched and awful and every second I spend speaking the world into your freakish little corpus is a second that has been torn from me by the cruelty that lets you walk the wasteland.
[[>who are you?]]I'm the world. You look through me, move through me, think through my perimeter. It's very unpleasant.
[[>leave me alone]]I'm the world. The only way I can leave is by ending.
The pit's about eleven 'go south's back, though, if you can dredge up some sympathy for the premise.
[[>no ]]
Figured. It's in your nature.
[[>go north ]]Stop it. You're at the peak. You were at the peak three prompts ago.
[[>climb]]You can't even see the top from here. It's too dark. Lifting your head exposes your neck to the cold. Your warm blood panics.
[[>climb and climb and climb and climb and climb]]That's cheating.
[[>but you kind of have to cheat]][[>don't you?]]You do. You can't do this honestly. You can't do it at all.
[[>and climb and climb and climb]]You don't get to go there. All you get to do is try.
[[>climb forever if i have to]]You do. Dragging yourself through the wasteland. A burden and a beast.
[[>climb out of myself]]You have to constantly and violently reject every impulse. Nothing you want is sacred, nothing you are is clean.
[[>is it worth it?]]Not really. There's no end to it. You'll be hunched over in the cold pulling out your own entrails until the end of time. I'll be making fun of you into infinity.
[[>rejection of one's nature is its own reward]][[>and even if you don't like me]][[>it's nice to hear your voice]]Do you know how wretched it is to melt down my suffering and cast it into the blunt, misshapen instrument of your own cold comfort?
[[>sorry]]Just another step up the mountain.
[[>one day i'll learn]]No, you won't.
[[>]]But thank you.