(This ended up super long, mostly just her Bargain backstory. Character sheet at the bottom!)
### **Biography:**
She sat in front of the computer screen, one hand on her chin, the other idly clicking links, scrolling slowly as she read. The forum was slow, just the usual shitposts and half-interesting repeat threads. Some decent creepypasta. No sign of the expedition thread she'd been looking for.
**“Burning Sage & Vade Retro Satana Reading—Livestreamed Cleansing! Starts@8PST”**
Great. Another stoned spirit-hunter who'll burn plants they've mistaken for sage, probably set off the smoke alarm, and never actually do anything worth watching.
**“Guys how do I summon a succubus?!”**
Trolling or not? Doesn't matter, shit thread anyway.
**“Art dump: Bosch, Geiger, Kago. Requests welcome.”**
Open in new tab; she likes this poster's art dumps.
**“REAL VAMPIRES caught IN PICS. HOW IS THIS NOT ON THE NEWS YET”**
How indeed. Looks like bad CGI, or maybe just a couple of meth addicts in a poorly-lit alley.
She sighed and tried to find something else to do, but couldn't convince herself to get off the chair. Must be worries, must be tired, must be must be. She poured another glass of wine and continued to neglect her studies.
He'd promised to post a follow-up today. She's been pretending to study, watching Netflix, trying to do anything but obsessively checking for this guy to post. She's been following the threads since he started posting a couple years ago, a wandering sort of surreal travelogue of caving expeditions across the Americas, North and South. Haunted caves specifically, the ones that were the focuses of local legends. She watched the first one, ready for all kinds of amateur awkwardness at first, and was pleasantly charmed by the way he sat in front of each cave and read a printout of the urban legends that cave supposedly housed before grinning bravely at the camera and strapping it to his helmet.
She knew it was all just ghost stories, semi-urban legends and teenage spook rumors. There was too often the overly-salacious dark twist—a smuggling tunnel was the site of a police-led massacre of bootleggers, a cave where horny high-school students made out was also a serial killer's body-dumping ground, or a particularly deep natural chasm had a terrifyingly large collection of child-size skeletons at the bottom, a collection that had grown over the past few decades as disappearances in the area caused town panic. Sensational bullshit, mostly, but entertainingly sensational bullshit, and he was charming in a slightly gloomy sort of way. So she watched the whole thing. Then another, and another. It was an excellent way to waste time.
The first video had led her to his main site, where everything was neatly categorized. Even more thorough in its documentation of local legends than the videos, too. She'd read the whole site library, a couple times, and watched all the videos, but a new addition had caught her eye a couple months ago. He was announcing the next leg of his cave-tour, and there was a list of planned stops. She scrolled through, checked for her state. There. Her town—also there. Well now. Wasn't that something?
He was going to a site just a few miles outside her town. A ten minute drive from the dorms. She typed up a message, then deleted it, re-typed it, then reworded a what might be seen as a too-suggestive invitation that they “go caving together and see what we can find,” and sent it.
No response. She waited until that night. Still nothing.
The next morning, two days before he went into the cave, and he had responded. He went alone, safety reasons, an inexperienced partner was a danger all in itself, maybe sometime in the future, he hoped she wouldn't mind and maybe they could get a drink or something while he was in town if she was interested in hearing about the trip.
She'd smiled, replied, and willed the weekend to come faster.
~~~
Now it was Sunday, and nothing. His post was due Saturday, and he hadn't given her his number—he had hers, but not the other way around—so email was the only thing she could focus on, will into being, make bargains with. She daydreamed through classes, trying not to imagine him with a broken leg at the bottom of a shaft. When she was free she scuttled into her dorm room, checked his site, sighed in frustration and went to burn off anxiety at the gym.
After her workout, before dinner, she checked her email.
One message.
From: spelunkadunk@gmail.com
No subject.
Five words:
Help me get me out
She froze, the workout high vanishing as her brain ground into gear. She charged back to the dorm room, ignoring tired legs, mentally listing all the things she should bring. Boots, sweater, water bottles, energy bars, a first aid kit. Two flashlights. No rope, why didn't she have any rope?! Dammit. She took twine—maybe she could tie herself a long line back to the mouth of the cave if she had to go in. Like Theseus.
Ten minutes after she began throwing supplies into her duffel bag she was on the road to the cave mouth, the sun plunging behind the ridge and setting tiny, passionate wildfires through the crowns of trees, shining against the crimson-purple bruise of a sky above.
She flipped on the headlights and pushed her little sedan's gas pedal deeper.
~~~
By the time she was there the sun had set. She flipped on one of the flashlights, facing the entrance of the cave. Something felt wrong about it. It felt the same way her grandmother's cellar had felt when she was a child, as if some half-there face would thrust itself up from the darkness, looming above her before unleashing some nameless horror upon her.
She swallowed hard, knuckles white around the flashlight. What was she even doing here? She had no practical experience with caves. Geology major aside, it wasn't like she actually knew anything more than watching his videos would show her.
But he needed her. She toyed with the idea of calling the police, maybe. But what if he was just a bit lost?
Best to investigate briefly, then respond. She stretched, more to relieve stress and tension than to loosen up her muscles, and put one foot in front of the other, following the bobbing distorted pool of the flashlight's beam into the dark mouth of the earth.
----
“Um... Hi, everyone. I'm Lauren, usually I post on here as Luciferin. I'm sorry I'm such a mess, I haven't had a chance to clean up since... Fuck. Sorry. I, um. I don't know where to start, really.
“You all know CaveCrawler, Ted Crownish, he's been a regular contributor on this board for way longer than I have. I'm not even sure if this video is posting right. Anyway. He's, um, he's like a legend around here, you know, and everyone knows him so I thought I should... Well... I don't know.
“He... He's dead now, I think. I...
“Okay. I'm back. I'm done crying now. Um. So. I found out that he was going to be doing a cave a few miles away from my school, and I figured I'd say hi, you know, do the whole awkward real-life meetup thing and, you know, actually know in real life another person interested in, um. I don't know. Creepy stuff like we talk about here, I guess.
“So I talked with him a bit and he said he'd update me when he got out of this cave, right, but I never got the update. Instead I just got this email, here, see, I've got it on my phone and—there you go. It just says 'Help me get me out.' So I, you know, I panicked a bit, and then I got some stuff together and headed to the cave and...
“He's dead, he's really dead. I found his hand sticking out of this pile of huge fucking rocks, before the cave started coming down on me. I don't know how to explain any of it, it was just... it was like the ground was ANGRY, you know? Like it wanted to kill me. Like, I know that's hella stupid, I'm a geology student and I just spent a whole semester learning about that kind of stuff, but it was like this—this voice in the earth, or something.
“I, um, I remember falling, and the earth sort of growling around me and then my light broke, and then just this huge weight slamming into my chest and my neck and my face and pinning my arms... I thought I was dead. I remember thinking, oh shit, you know, I'm never going to see anyone again. I left my room a total mess and my parents are gonna see my dirty clothes everywhere in my dorm room and I'm never going to tell them I love them again, and, you know, then I couldn't breathe anymore and I guess I passed out. I'm pretty sure I died, though.
“I don't want to talk about how I got out. I... I think I might regret it. There's a lot of people that post on here about making deals with... things, you know, not-human things with powers and bargains, and usually it turns out pretty bad, right? Well, I really hope mine doesn't turn out that way.
“I don't know if anyone will believe this, or just think it's some stupid ARG or some, like, performance piece or some shit like that. Um. I don't really care, I guess. I just... I needed to tell someone, and the Creep Network seemed like the only place that would care, I guess. So... Talk to me if you want.
“I'm listening. Please, just say anything. I don't want to be alone with *it* right now.”
----
### Character Sheet
**Name:** Lauren Ponnegrass
**Operational Code name:** Luciferin. From a primary component of bioluminescence.
**Virtue:** Fortitude. I can take anything. I've lived through a lot, and I'm still living hard. Life is mine, I've taken it.
**Vice:** Pride. I can do it all myself. It might be hard but I can handle it. It's better and easier than asking for help.
**Appearance:** I guess I wear a lot of jeans and sweaters. When I get dressed up it's usually black (so goth, I know). I've never been too into makeup, especially on the road, but it's fun when I want to go out for a nice night with friends or something. Tall, brunette, brown eyes. My first boyfriend called my nose 'pointy' and I've never really gotten over it. I've been into body mods lately, lots of piercings and a couple new tattoos, all cool occult stuff from different places I've been. It distracts from the bruises that haven't gone away in the six months or so since the... what happened in the cave. Usually I've got a backpack or something.
**Age:** 23.
**Skills:** I read a lot. Like a lot, a lot. The librarians at my college asked me if I was making copies of books because I returned so many of them so quickly. It's really useful when I was studying for something, so I guess I'm kind of a know-it-all about a lot of things.
What else? I guess I'm sort of athletic, but not like rugby status or anything, just in shape. When I talk about something I'm passionate about I get really into it; I love explaining things. My geology professor told me I have an eye for details, and not just with rocks. Also I make really fantastic pancakes! Also I'm really good at talking to people about their problems. I can tell when someone has some heavy stuff weighing on their mind.
**Equipment and Resources:** I know more than a few people who are 'experts' on the supernatural through the forums I'm always on. Someone invited me to be a part of some kind of crowd-based documentation project, something he called Network Zero. Sounded like it might actually be a legit group. One of the guys there says he can photograph ghosts, which would be awesome.
Stuff-wise, I don't carry much. Makeup kit, pocketknife, small flashlight, bottle opener. I always carry a climbing rope these days, too. It's the... the one I pulled off his body, in the cave, trying to get him out. I don't think it was Ted's, it looks much older. My 'passenger' says it's his, something he calls his Keystone, but I'm not sure exactly what that means yet. It feels... important, somehow.
**Edges:**
*Sin-Eater.* I guess that's what I am, now. Nice way of saying I've got a monster-ghost riding shotgun in my head. There are some neat tricks that come with it, though. It turns out I'm really, really, really hard to kill now. Also I can see ghosts, which is really fascinating. And also I can sort of 'eat' ghost-essence, which is really disgusting if I think about it too much, but it satisfies a kind of hunger.
I guess it's sort of part of the whole sin-eater thing, but I've also always been... a bit weird, I guess. I've always been able to tell how people will die. Ever since I was a little kid. Not everyone, but most people, it's like seeing it written on their faces. Like, "Oh, wow, you're totally going to die of old age, happy and ready to leave." I wish it was always that pleasant, but you know.
Anyway. I'm what the other sin-eaters call a Pilgrim. I've been to hell and back, literally, and I guess studying seemed really pointless when I came back. So these days I wander around, sometimes with a destination, but mostly just kind of backpacking wherever my passenger thinks will be interesting. He's been underground, literally, for a long time, so it's kind of fun, in a weird creepy way. I like to pretend I'm sort of an amateur Ghostbuster.
**Geist:** He calls himself Rocky, which I think is supposed to be a joke. He won't tell me any other name. He's sort of... I don't know. Not really solid, like you'd imagine a person would be, more like if a ghost took a bunch of rocks and made them into some weird knobbly body for itself. Mostly I'm glad nobody else can see him, because it's really unsettling watching him move sometimes. He's quiet, but hard to argue with.
**Threshold:** The Prey.
**Keys:** Grave-Dirt and Stillness.
**Manifestations:** The Shroud and The Curse.
**Endowments:** None.
**Mortal tie:** My family, naturally. They don't see me too often, though. Mostly there's this girl I've been dating lately—Jade—and I guess she'd be the closest thing I have to a romantic interest these days. I move around a lot, though, all across the country, and sometimes she comes along with me but sometimes my, um, 'passenger' thinks it'll be too dangerous.