text: [Themes: grimdark fantasy, post-apocalyptic, serious, anti-hero]
  
  Your ears ring. Strange lights flash before your eyes. You're falling forward, tumbling endlessly into a sea of bright light. You realize your eyes are closed, and open them.
  
  You are instantly assailed by hideous sights. Strange geometries and blasphemous constellations dance before you. You laugh and can see the soundwaves echoing from your throat. You are awash in the cosmic sea; it is strange, beautiful, alien, hostile. You realize, as all madmen do, that the world of flesh and blood, of soil and sky, is but a tiny island, surrounded by an ocean of madness.
  
  Before you lose your grasp on sanity, you slam your eyes shut and clap your hands over your ears.
  
  Three deep breaths. In through the nose. Out through the mouth.
  
  Some time later, you land roughly in the dirt.
  
  You get up. Your legs shake like a novice sailor's.Your stomach rebels, and you double over and start vomiting. A few moments later, you wipe your mouth and take stock of your surroundings.
  
  You're standing in a dirt field. You estimate that there are five to six times more stars in the night sky than there should be. Blue, wisp-like clouds coat the ground like a thick blanket. In the distance, you see the outline of a city; jagged, knife-like buildings stabbing into the sky.
  
  You do a slow three-hundred-sixty turn. The field seems to stretch on forever. You can make out the strange, moving shapes of gargantuan arthropods. The creatures move at a ponderous speed, sifting through the dirt with their prehensile mandibles. You focus on one, and see it lift a human-sized figure off the ground, and gingerly stuff them into a gargantuan sack-gland on its back.
  
  Three deep breaths. In through the nose. Out through the mouth.
  
  Re-uniting with the party seems paramount to survival.
  
  You wonder if one of your companions may have fallen victim to one of the giant arthropods. You wonder what the purpose of kidnapping human beings is; why take such pains to lift them from the ground, intact?
  
  You approach one of the creatures and lay in the dirt from what you deem to be a safe distance. You observe the beast for several minutes. You estimate it to be fifteen feet tall. It stands on six ponderous legs; it perennially stumbles forward. Its movements seem drunken, somehow; as if the beast is unaccustomed to its own gargantuan size, and is perennially shifting its balance so as not to collapse under its own weight.
  
  You hear a man screaming. Your eyes automatically turn to the source of the noise. You breathe a sigh of relief as you realize the screamer is a stranger. A man in strange garb cowers before the giant insect.
  
  Ponderously, it crouches down, staring at him for a few seconds with its dozens of eyes. Then, its mandibles slowly extend. It gently grabs the man by the waist. You watch in horror and fascination as its neck bends completely perpendicular to its body, and it deposits him into the writhing sack-gland located on its back. You make out other, squirming figures; other victims, perhaps?
  
  You can make out other human figures, secured in the creature's membranous pouch. You wonder if your compatriots could be contained within.
  
  > attack the Spider-Beast
  You take your grandfather's skull off your belt. With a sharp breath of concentration, you focus on the creature's membranous sack. You squint your eyes and grunt in exertion as you try to rend it open. Your efforts are rewarded with an inhuman squeal as the sack breaks. fluid spills all over the creature's back as a half-dozen people spill out.
  
  The creature turns towards you, and begins to lurch to your position. With a determined scream, you wrench its head from its body. It keeps coming. You sever one limb, then another, methodically hacking and chopping at the creature until at last it falls to the ground, seeping ichor into the dead soil.
  
  You approach the hapless victims who lay gasping in the soil. You don't recognize any of them.
  
  You walk up to a middle-aged man with a ginger beard, long hair, and one eye. The man lays gasping for air. Each cough discharges more viscous fluid from his lungs. He's wearing tattered cloth armour, with a gargantuan longsword slung over his back.
  
  "What is this place?" you ask.
  
  "Give me a — " he raises one finger in the air, like a shushing librarian, and violently coughs.
  
  You offer him a sip of water from your canteen. He greedily gulps at it. "Thanks," he says.
  
  "Pay me back by telling me what the fuck is going on here," you answer.
  
  "I wish I knew. Couple days ago, me and a couple mates broke into this sorcerer's library with the hopes of making off with some valuables. Walked up to this funny black rock; glass-looking thing, on a big pedestal. Next thing I know —"
  
  "You're here."
  
  "Aye. Same thing happen to you, I reckon?"
  
  "Something like it. My compatriots and I were told to investigate the lair of a monster, and we found one of the glass stones you mentioned."
  
  He shoulders his sword and begins to walk. You follow. "Everyone I've met in this blasted place has a similar story. Those things must be the way through."
  
  "I bet if we could find one, we could find our way back."
  
  "I'm sure we can. I've seen those things use them."
  
  "The big spiders?"
  
  "Ah, I see you haven't met our hosts yet. No lad, not the spiders. The wicked fucking devils who inhabit that evil city."
  
  > walk Back to the City (Accompanied)
  You continue to walk with your new companion. You walk in silence, for a few minutes, eyes trained on the foreboding structures in the distance. The jagged buildings begin to remind you of a mouth full of sharp fangs, jutting upwards into the sky, as if some hideous creature were just underneath the surface with its mouth open.
  
  "The name's Thompson," the ginger man says after a minute of silence.
  
  "Winter," you say.
  
  "Odd name," he responds.
  
  "It's a family name. Surprised you haven't heard it."
  
  He shrugs. "Where ya from?"
  
  "Exenforde," you answer.
  
  "Never heard of it."
  
  "It's the largest city in the world, how have you not heard of it?"
  
  He shrugs again. Having established how little the two of you have in common, you proceed in silence for the next few minutes. The city looms larger. You begin to count your breaths again as panic rises in your breast. As you get closer, you can make out more details of the city.
  
  The buildings are gargantuan, and not fashioned out of any material you're familiar with; they look as if they were fashioned from a single piece of black iron. There are strange outcroppings on the sides of the buildings that resemble metal tree branches. As you get closer, you can see, for the first time, the people suspended from the branches.
  
  Dozens, if not hundreds of people are strung from them. Men, women, and children have all been gutted and hanged by their entrails. Each unfortunate victim is still alive. The city is alive with the weeping and wailing of the damned.
  
  "How are they still alive?"
  
  Thompson shakes his head. "No one dies here."
  
  In the distance, you hear the telltale crack-BANG! of a flintlock being discharged.
  
  "Friends of yours?" Thompson asks.
  
  You nod. He shoulders his gargantuan sword and the two of you begin to run towards the city. You pass over the crest of a small hill. The rest of the party comes into view.
  
  Stitcher, Tor, John Boy and Frye stand with their backs to each other. They are surrounded on all sides by baying, sneering, naked men, their bodies emaciated and their skin calcified. You estimate the ghoulish horde to be around fifteen or twenty. They carry cruel, makeshift weapons; hooked poles, chains, cudgels with nails through them. A few don't carry weapons, but instead appear to have gnawed their fingers down to sharpened points.
  
  Frye fires again. The horde flinches, and backs away a few paces. You can see him holster his last, spent pistol. A few of the creatures turn, and look at you. With their attention divided, you guess that you have a few seconds to act.
  
  > Thin the Horde with Lesser Spells (fighting together)
  You fire four bolts of searing energy into the crowd. Each one hits one of the ghoul; their dry skin burns like tinder, and their ruined bodies fall to the ground. Your efforts are woefully insufficient.
  
  A wave of screaming naked bodies crashes over you and Thompson. The big man is dragged down immediately. He doesn't have time to scream before a sharpened stake is thrust into his mouth. A second later, his guts are ripped out by eagre clawed hands.
  
  His agonized screams barely register, to you. You're held fast by a dozen iron grips. You are stabbed, bitten, and ripped to pieces. Your body is rended and shattered. The creatures fight over your wretched remains like chickens squabbling over pieces of grain; you watch two ghouls do a tug-of-war with a section of your intestines. A ghoul standing over you, your severed arm in its mouth.
  
  Thompson was right. No one dies here. Although your body is ruined and in pieces, you are still very much alive. You can see the battle; your comrades are overtaken shortly after you. Stitcher is the last to fall; a battle-prayer is on her lips as she defends the remains of her fallen compatriots. The giant woman fights like a cornered bear until a ghoul thrusts a spear through the back of her head and out her mouth, sending her teeth and tongue shooting out the front. As soon as she falls, her corpse is simultaneously raped and devoured.
  
  You are spared the indignity of watching your own remains be further defiled, as a ghoul tears your eyes out. The last thing you see before an eternity of darkness is two corpse-like thumbs reaching into your eye sockets.
  
  Eventually, the pack grows bored, and moves on. When the agony fades, boredom sets in. You only have an eternity to wait.