I didn't sleep.
Not because I couldn't.
Because it wouldn't let me.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the pit.I felt it—its breath sliding up the spiral staircase, slow and wet like a crawling tongue.
It didn't just breathe.It watched.
⚠️ [Passive Threat Detected: "The Sleepless Watcher"]
Class: UnknownNature: Pre-Bound EntityStatus: Dormant (For Now)
Effect: Dream InterferenceYou cannot regain sanity while it's aware of you.
✅ Tip: Mask your soul. Or be seen.
Maren paced inside me. Not physically, but her presence — anxious, flickering.She spoke in fragments. Not because she didn't want to help, but because she couldn't focus. Something was pulling at her too.
"It remembers me. I think… I was buried near it."
"It sings in reverse. It buries before it kills."
"Don't answer if it calls your name twice."
[24 Hours Later – Descent Begins]
The cultists surrounded the pit's edge.
Victor Pale stood barefoot at the center, shovel across his shoulders like a crown.
"Tonight," he said, "you earn your true name."
He handed me a lantern filled with Graveoil — a thick, black sludge that burned blue when lit.
"You descend.You find what stirs.You ask it one question:'What have you buried?'And you listen."
That was it.
No weapons. No sigils. No guarantees.
Just me.
And it.
I stepped over the edge.
The spiral stairs crumbled behind me as I moved.No going back.
The deeper I went, the thicker the air became.Not heavier. Denser.Like time slowed the further I dropped.
My Graveoil lantern flickered.
The walls around me were no longer stone.
They were bone.
⚠️ [Threshold Crossed: Domain of the Sleepless Watcher]
All Bound Soul abilities suspended.
Maren: Suppressed
Vision: Fading
Voice: Borrowed
My voice?
It was gone.
In its place, a new one rose.Not mine. Not Maren's.Just a slow, echoing chant, like words spoken through mud.
And then—
A shape.
Massive.Curled like a fetus.Eyes stitched shut with rusted nails.Mouth wrapped in golden wire.
But awake.
It didn't move.Didn't speak.
Yet somehow, I heard it anyway:
"I buried light… to remember the dark."
"I buried time… to stay still."
"I buried myself… so I could watch you dig."
It opened its mouth — not physically, but spiritually.
I was being invited inside.
[Grave Event Triggered: First Descent Offering]
You must offer something to the Watcher to receive its memory.
Choose:
[Memory] – Give up a personal memory. Lose part of your past.
[Blood] – Offer your life force. -25% HP permanently.
[Soul] – Give up part of Maren's essence. Risk her fading.
One question burned through my skull:
What did the Watcher bury?
But first… I had to pay the price.