There had been days when August struggled to drag himself out of bed. There would be a mental weight pressing down on him that brought with it a physical and very real resistance to moving.

This entire year had been a slow erosion of his usual drive to do, well, anything.

He would lock himself away in his room, retreating into the reliable comfort that a state of half-sleep afforded. When the alternative was to open his eyes and exist, to inflict upon himself a world filled with people who couldn’t locate a pair of half-shits to give if he paid them.

It was a contest that his bed had begun to win more often than not.

On a conscious level, he knew that the whole process was unhealthy, but it was buried so far down, and the panic he thought he should be feeling at his slow descent into lethargy was entirely missing from his consciousness.

He would just lay there for hours at a time, his mind twisting itself into a mess while he tried to convince himself to get up and take action. The thoughts were always such hollow things, and sometimes he just wished his body would move on its own and leave his mind behind to fade away.

Today was different.

The haze that had settled over him these past few months was still there, but he felt absolutely no resistance to the idea of getting up—though it might well have been the lack of a bed beneath him, the dirt pressed against his face, or the grimy root that was pushing against his naked groin.

Soil fell down onto his head, and he fought to get his arm out from underneath him, trapped as it was between his chest and the dirt. He managed it after a struggle, pushing himself up enough to get his knee under him to support his weight before he twisted, slumping against the wall. Another trickle of soil fell from high above, crumbling away from the mass of dirt and clay that made up the walls.

August stared, wondering how he could have possibly come to be in such a place. He was inside a hole in the ground, dug deep, and shaped like a well. It lacked the stone walls, the water, and the bucket that pop culture had led him to believe came with basically every one of them.

The almost-well was roughly four times his height when standing, and he thought he might be able to touch both walls with his fingertips if he stood in the middle and stretched. At the top of the hole was a ring of dirty metal, tiny engravings covering its surface.

The entire pit was oddly smooth as if someone had dug the entire hole with precision in mind; only the natural loose quality the soil possessed was making it quick to crumble away. The sight of such a precisely cut hole was almost as inexplicable as his presence within it and the mystery of where on earth his clothing had gone.

It said something, then, that finding himself at the bottom of an almost-well wasn’t the strangest part of it all. That award went to the ethereal text that was scrawled into the very air, in curvy blue letters, and hovering directly in front of his face.

Welcome to Devil’s Nest

Forbodeing on several levels, the actual content of the message that the writing conveyed was least of all. How could these letters just exist in the air without some form of projector present? Not that he’d ever seen one this advanced outside of movies in the first place.

There was no visible light being emitted from it like he would have expected, and waving his hand through the letters simply washed the text into non-existence. A faint feeling of pressure brushed against the skin of his fingers, his touch acting as a catalyst as the fading light swirled into a new pattern.

Choose a Unique Role

Ruler

Commander

Language denoted intent, and somebody had intended him to read this message. It didn’t seem as alarming as the previous words, but this was evidently a choice he was supposed to make.

The problem was that the options present most likely came from the same person who had stolen him from his bed, removed him from his apartment, and dumped him in a pit.

“And what if I don’t choose?” August said. “What if I sit in this hole until somebody notices I’m missing?”

There was no response; the text simply hovered in front of his eyes, and now it seemed to be locked there, following his field of view as he turned his head away, perfectly centered in his vision. Impossibly enough, when he closed his eyes, it remained in place, unaffected.

It was entirely unignorable, given its position.

“Any hints at these two choices?” August spoke, still hoping whoever had done this might eventually speak up. “A ruler of what exactly, this pit?”

Nothing but silence and another splash of soil crashing down onto his leg before scattering around it. August swiped his hand through the text, but this time it passed through without disrupting it.

“Fine,” August said.

A Commander and a Ruler were both leaders by definition; they would involve different levels of leadership, but he couldn’t remember the defining features of each. Although, it was likely that a Commander had some kind of military connotation to it.

Without the internet at his disposal, the best choice here would be to climb out of the pit and attempt to find some help. Then again, with a name like Devil’s Nest, he wondered if there would be much help to find.

There was also the fact that his cock was dangling out in plain view. The idea of getting into a fight with someone while in such a vulnerable state of dress was one he would much rather avoid.

“I think I’ll choose the option that is less likely to lead me into a fight,” August said dryly. “I choose Ruler.”

The text vanished, and barely a second passed him by before more text took its place. Clearly, he’d been conned into taking a supernatural survey of some kind.

Choose a Basic Combat Role

Striker

Defender

Evader

August couldn’t help but notice that the options weren’t in alphabetical order; it was strangely annoying and also very sloppy.

Worse than that, was despite choosing what he had assumed was the peaceful option in the previous question, he was now being forced to select a combat role anyway. It made him think that he’d already messed up and that perhaps choosing Ruler may have been a mistake.

“Give me more information first,” August sighed. “Fuck.”

The three words gave a fairly clear meaning when considered alongside the context of a combat situation. A Striker would be someone who struck things, but what those things might be, was entirely up for debate. Keeping to the theme, a Defender would be a person who defended something, while an Evader was someone who avoided things.

They sounded straightforward, but his expectations had already been upturned once already.

The idea of striking things wasn’t something he felt particularly invested in, so he would gladly pass that option up. On the other hand, Defending could mean that somebody would be striking him—and August wanted absolutely nothing to do with that. Running away from danger seemed like the least terrible of the options.

“I choose Evader,” August declared.

System Unlocked HUD Available Menu Available Ruler Unlocked Analysis Learned Summon Learned Tame Learned Peace Learned ​Evader Unlocked Burst Learned

Before he’d had much of a chance to investigate the strange white lines that had appeared within his line of light, a single larger word wrote itself into the air before fading away.

Survive

“Well now,” August said quietly, as another clump of soil fell onto his shoulder. “That doesn’t sound good.”