It didn’t take long before Buck understood just how utterly fucked he was. The moment Ash, the Devil Child, finished speaking, a timer flickered to life in his vision, ticking down toward zero. Three days. Three days to escape?
“Great.” Buck thought to himself “Just enough time to starve, dehydrate, and lose my mind.”
Well, technically, he presumed he had infinite time, but the fire in his belly burned hotter as he continued to think of his family. The thought alone ignited a spark of urgency within him. He wasn't about to let this darkness claim him. He would do whatever it took to find them again, and if that meant playing this damn game, then play he would.
Buck needed to wait another hour before he could move again. As he lay there, a twisted mix of fascination and horror washed over him. His muscles and skin were knitting themselves back together, but it wasn’t pretty. Torn flesh and ragged edges pulsed with a sickly warmth, the raw tissue beneath squirming like live worms as it merged and sealed. It was a gruesome spectacle.
Finally, it was time—time to escape this cave. Hesitantly Buck pushed himself upward, using his arms to leverage himself between ceiling and floor, rolling onto his stomach. The jagged stone tore at his palms, leaving shallow cuts that stung like fire. He needed to be cautious; one wrong move would impale him against the rocks like a giant human kebab, undoing all the grotesque progress his body had made. On the other hand, with his newfound regenerative capabilities maybe he would just have to stop and rest for another hour—then he’d heal anyway. Or maybe he’d just bleed out and die. Either way, problem solved
Of course, he had no clue, so for now, he would assume he was still that soft, fleshy mortal he was used to being. Thus, he scuttled forward through the inky darkness, utterly disoriented, with the only sound accompanying him being the slowly receding Popo Agie River, its gurgling laughter echoing through the caver like it was mocking him. In the fifteen minutes that had passed, he discovered he was in a chamber roughly three meters in diameter with two exits— both of which required him to lie prone and crawl through if he wished to escape. This posed a significant problem: he was as naked as the day he was born.
He was a blind. He was nude. He was lost.
Crouched in the darkness, trying not to bump against the floor or ceiling, Buck couldn’t help but laugh at his absurd predicament. The sound echoed eerily through the cavern, bouncing off the walls like the cackle of a madman. If he wanted any chance of escaping this cave, he would need to push his newfound Endurance to its limits. Testing himself by scraping and cutting his way along a floor that most likely no one had ever explored before. Hopefully, it would help him understand what his attribute points meant. Hell, he might be the first person to ever navigate these caverns; if he made it out, he’d have one hell of a story to share with Emily.
“Yo, so this creepy kid and his pet AI shoved me into a mountain and watched me fight for my life. Forcing me to crawl through the pitch black, while they sat at home and laughed at me. Oh did I say I was butt-ass naked?”
Shaking his head, Buck moved toward one of the exits. If he had any hope of seeing his family again, he had to get moving.
Buck knew this would hurt, but he had never experienced anything quite like it in his life. With every pull, he inched himself forward, nude and vulnerable, through the tunnel before him. The sounds he made were like nothing he’d ever heard before—his wails echoing like a screeching cat. Each inch felt like dragging his body across a bed of broken glass, the jagged stone tearing into his flesh with merciless precision.
With each inch he pulled himself forward, long, shallow wounds opened along his torso and shins. It was a lose-lose situation: bleed from the front or push himself up and bleed from the back. Either way, Buck was starting to think the cave had a personal vendetta against him.
To make matters worse, the searing pain caused him to pass out more than once, only waking to find himself pancaked between two layers of rock, like a gross human sandwich consumed by the darkness around him. With each passing moment, Buck felt that the darkness wasn’t just the absence of light—it felt alive, pressing in on him from all sides, whispering things he couldn’t quite hear but felt in the very marrow of his bones.
As time passed, he thankfully managed to find a rhythm—a cycle of ripping and tearing, then halting to let his body knit itself back together before resuming the excruciating process. Inch by excruciating inch he moved forward, each movement a testament to his sheer stubbornness.
Buck couldn’t fathom what the tunnel’s walls looked like as he stumbled into another cavern. He wouldn’t be surprised if he had drenched the previous tunnel in his own blood at least twice over. A sheen of sweat coated every inch of his body—though it could very well have been blood. At this point, he was too focussed on moving forward to care. Was he now a patchwork of scars? What did he look like now?
Before this nightmare, he wouldn’t have called himself a model, but he did work out. He went to the gym and didn’t indulge in pizza every night. Now, he had to be a walking—well crawling—scab. Did his Endurance heal him of all of his wounds? There was no way to tell in this suffocating darkness.
How on Earth was he going to escape this hellish cave system? Buck paused to check the timer, his breath hitching in his throat. [70:25] Jesus. It had taken him almost two hours to crawl through just one room. Two hours in cramped quarters, navigating a maze of sharp rocks and narrow passages, each movement a painful reminder of where he had been trapped.
This was impossible.
If Buck was interpreting the [Quest] correctly, it appeared he would only forfeit whatever advantages receiving a New Citizen would offer. Yet, two thoughts crossed his mind. Drawing on his past gaming experiences, he knew he should pursue any rewards available at the outset.
“Always grab the loot,” he muttered to himself, “even if it means crawling through hell to get it”
And of course the immutable fact that if he didn’t get out of here as fast as possible he would inevitably find himself unable to continue onward due to the threat of another degloving incident. “Because nothing says ‘fun’ like losing another layer of skin” he thought bitterly
Perhaps the Tutorial would have indicated if this was indeed a worthwhile reward, but how could he escape this cave?
As Buck sat there, gathering his composure, a realization struck him. Bev had mentioned Viewers. Were people actually watching him? Observing a naked man crawl through a series of caves, skinning himself alive? The realization twisted in his gut like a knife. Imagining the scene back in the comfort of a living room, people sprawled out on couches, munching popcorn, and laughing as they watched his struggles play out in real-time caused a wave of nausea to wash over him.
Even if he was an Adonis, he couldn’t imagine what sick fucks would like watching someone go through this level of torture. Buck shook his head, trying to dispel the vivid imagery. He could only hope that, since he couldn’t see anything, the viewers were stuck staring at a black screen, listening to him groan and grunt like some sort of ASMR torture porn. Buck found himself chuckling at the absurdity of it all. “Well, time waits for no man,” he muttered, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Buck pushed himself up from what felt like ‘definitely just a pool of sweat’ and started to navigate across the cavern when a brief fanfare of trumpets sounded in his head, and a warm sensation blossomed in his belly, spreading through his body out to the tips of his fingers and toes. It felt amazing—really amazing. The sensation was almost like a soft glow, swirling around him like a gentle breeze that breathed life into his weary limbs.
However, before he could savor the moment, a new prompt flashed in his vision, causing him to smash his head against the ceiling. Blood trickled down his face, completely overshadowing his earlier elation.
He opened the prompt and read;
[Congratulations, Your Spelunking Skill has Increased to 1]
[Wow, you’ve really embraced the whole ‘naked mole-rat’ aesthetic. Keep it up!]
Buck froze. He truly was ensnared in some kind of twisted video game. Beneath the [Character] icon, a new icon had appeared: [Skills]. Buck focused his thoughts and mentally pressed the button, and he watched as a new menu materialized on the left side of his vision, glowing faintly in the darkness.
[Skills]
Spelunking Level 1
Spelunking? If Bev defined this as Spelunking, he could hardly imagine what other nightmares awaited him. With a sense of trepidation, Buck mentally pressed on the Spelunking skill and was taken aback when a description appeared.
[Spelunking] (Basic - Exploration)
Level 1
After years of living amidst lush forests and cozy homes, you’ve decided comfort is overrated. Why not dive headfirst into the claustrophobic nightmare of caving? Enjoy your time in complete darkness, you masochist. Pro tip: Maybe wear some clothes next time. Maybe then you’d feel less embarrassed to bask in the warmth of the sun.
What the fuck Bev? This AI certainly seemed to revel in crafting these descriptions, and despite finding himself in a horrifying situation, Buck couldn’t suppress a chuckle. He wasn’t going to overlook a bit of levity. Finding joy in small things might just help him keep his sanity in this godforsaken cavern. If he surrendered now and let the darkness consume him, he would never again see the light of day.
He continued exploring the menu to distract himself and found that as he pressed on the Spelunking skill again a dropdown menu appeared. It seemed that each skill would provide him with something called an [Ability]. Exploring the menu it seemed that he would get one at level 25, 50 and 100 but there was also a fourth line that provided no information. He could only assume that each Skill had a three set abilities and then a fourth that would be rewarded when completing some secret objective.
Clearly, investing time in leveling up his skills would yield some form of power-up. He couldn’t help but think that leveling up his Spelunking may provide him with better methods to explore these caves. Hell, maybe he would even unlock the ability to see in the dark.
Of course, that depended on if Bev was feeling generous or not. She could very well hand him something utterly useless, leaving him to crawl through these caverns like a deformed Naked Mole-Rat for the rest of his days. The very thought sent a shiver down his spine.
Not that any of this helped him out now. He couldn’t imagine that he would level up after every tunnel. Still, he couldn’t shake the memory of that warm sensation. It was evident that the system in place was designed to incentivize leveling up. He could feel it deep within him—he craved that feeling once more.
That warmth was like a drug.
He pushed the thought away, focussing on the task ahead. Most video games had some form of exponential experience requirement between level-ups. If he received the [Ability] that filled the fourth slot at, say, level 5, and his calculations were correct, he would need to traverse thirty-one tunnels before he could earn his first Ability—if that’s how this system worked. Well...Buck flattened himself down against the stone, preparing himself for the continues torture he was about to endure.
“Strive for Greatness or whatever” he muttered to himself
—-
[49:42]
Nearly 20 hours later Buck passed through another tunnel, and heard the familiar fanfare heralding a level-up. The [Spelunking] skill had finally leveled to 5. Thankfully while the abilities were something to strive for, they weren’t the only perks. Though not explicitly shown in any of his menus, Buck discovered he was moving faster throughout the caverns. It wasn’t something easily quantifiable, but as he crouched and crawled, he felt a growing instinct for avoiding walls and dodging particularly sharp rocks. It was far from perfect—trusting a system he didn’t fully understand felt like betting his life on a dice roll—but as the time passed, Buck started to move more quickly through the seemingly endless series of tunnels.
However, Buck's joy was short-lived. The reality of his situation struck him. He had no idea whether he was even headed in the right direction. Initially, he had tried to follow the sound of the river, clinging to the hope that it would lead him to safety. But the river was not as nearly as prevalent as the glossy brochures in the Visitor Center had promised. At one point, he even considered jumping into the river, letting it take him wherever it led. But with only 5 Endurance, he didn’t have faith he’d survive the cold, rushing water—or whatever lurked beneath its surface.
He tested his breath-holding capacity, partly out of curiosity and partly out of desperation. and was pleasantly surprised to find he could hold it for about 8 minutes. “Eight minutes,” Buck thought. “Great. If I ever make it out of here, I’ll have a killer party trick.”
Still, the idea of submerging himself in the river felt like signing his own death warrant. Perhaps if he could find a way to level up his stats in the hours to come, he might consider it. With that Buck figured it was time to see what his ability was, and glancing at his interface he saw that his [Character] menu was blinking. Upon opening it, he was overjoyed to discover a new prompt.
[Level up! Attribute Points +1]
Buck promptly allocated the point to his Endurance. He had been mulling over this decision for the past ten hours. While it might have made more sense to distribute his points more evenly—especially if he made it out of this cave and faced an actual fight—right now, if he didn’t bolster his defenses against the cave walls, he would never reach that 72-hour mark. The pain of the last ten hours had been some of the most harrowing time in his whole life.
Many times he found himself lying there, squished between the walls of an especially thin tunnel that he had almost given up. The only thing that had allowed him to continue was the thought of his family out there looking for him as well. He could only hope that by increasing his Endurance he would also increase his durability, allowing him to take less damage from the stone around him.
With that settled, Buck opened his other menu and was pleased to see that a skill had auto-filled into the fourth slot. Bev must have been feeling a bit generous.
(Basic Caver)
Choosing to forsake the outside world, you now spend most of your time crawling through tunnels so cramped you can’t even stand! Do you aspire to be a creature of the night, hiding from your troubles in the dark? Well, congratulations! Now it’s easier than ever!
Passive: You can now Track your footsteps while inside caves
Track your footsteps while inside caves? What could that possibly mean? Buck pondered the phrase, confused at the meaning. Tracking typically suggested the ability to follow an animal or human using clues in the environment, but in pitch blackness, how could he track anything? And how could he track himself?
Without any fanfare, Buck was taken aback to see a small circle materialize just below the timer in the top-right corner of his vision. And after a moment of confusion, he realized that it was a mini-map! With a mental nudge, he was able to open it and was excited to see that he could now see all of the tunnels and caverns that he had passed through.
While not life-changing, it revealed that he certainly hadn’t been moving in a straight line—he had indeed been crawling in circles, overlapping certain caverns multiple times. The realization hit Buck like a ton of bricks, filling him with a heavy dread. It seemed he had essentially wasted the last 10 hours. All that pain just to see he had made no progress.
No…he had leveled up both his [Spelunking] skill as well as increased his overall level to 2. He had to remind himself that this was a game, and sometimes in games, grinding was necessary. Though grinding himself into a pulp wasn’t exactly how he wished to level up. Unfortunately, the next thing this game put in his way threw a big wrench in his plans.