Of Ash and Dark Places...

>"You've got nothing on this, sucker. Bring it!"

The creature steps it up! he executes a nearly flawless move! in a blinding flash of speed, grace, and fineness it lunges up in the air, does a triple front flip and proceeds to break dance on your face. the monster deals 8 damage. you have 10/18 HP

You gently grasp the hands of the emaciated being a access what the fuck it is, you roll a 17. the creature has no reproductive organs but has a Human frame, the creature has stitch marks where genitals and breasts would be so you guess it was female at one point but now... well it hasn't been for some time now.

Well there are no tables but there is a door knob, you and monster struggle for a moment but you force it's head into the knob dealing 6 damage and crushing it's skull into bone powder, you gain 10 essence.

You quickly make a fire, and remember it's dust you need to burn to do stuff with essence. and you throw a fist full of dust into the fire, what will be done?

>A figure from your past steps out of the flames, he owes you money. He hands you a check, then disappears.

You see a figure in the flames... it's someone you owe money to shit uhh you rummage through that wallet from before and toss him his 20 bucks.you attempt to summon Jesus... you roll a 19! you manage to force an ebbing flow of life into the flame

|How Much Essence Will You Spend?| How much HP will be Sacrificed?|

>As much as it takes.

35 Essence is removed you have 25 remaining You lose 8 HP off your max...

Out Of The Flames Crawls a small being with rather meaty army and a hard shell encasing a segment of it's body analogue to a head and abdomen. speaking of the abdomen has one small horn emerging from it's chest and is a pearly white contrasting against the rest of the body which is light grey to blackish. The creature cannot speak but it bears no hostility to you and looks a you with eyes which say "what can i do for you" in a loving way

>Know any jokes?

it has no mouth and cannot say one but it looks like it is sorry for not knowing any

The creature looks confused... you then realize this thing WAS JUST BORN. and you damn well know where your from... wait you... where do you live again... something about a city but what was it's name? you can't recall... it's just gone.

>"What's your name?"

it cannot speak and looks sad that it cannot answer... it looks as if it wishes to serve you but it was just made so... uh what will you call it?

You decide to call it Pearl on account of his pearl like shell. moving on is there any thing else you would like to craft at the fire?

>Gather warmth. Hone your magical bloodline to store the warmth generated by the fire so you may use it later.

You focus on the fire... however the augmentation is not quite possible with your current essence, however to carry the torch you create an Unquenching Lantern. The lantern cannot be put out unless the small knob on it has been switch to the off position, the lantern also has a strange underside resembling the cap to a bottle with a thin hole leading to the lanterns interior. You have no essence left.

You gesture for Pearl to climb into your arms, it does so with great pleasure! you walk down to the far end of the hall, a door with a stairs sign attached, you unlock the door and are presented with two paths, one leading upwards and one leading down. The path up looks rather worn and has claw marks in the walls, the path down shows signs of decay... the dust has began to replace the walls and a ominous static sound reverberated from the depths.

>Are the claw marks going up the stairs or going down the stairs? Is it dark going down, up, or both?

Pitch Black up even darker down the claw marks lead up, however the static noise is rather unnerving and gives off an unnatural feel to the basement.

>Are the claw marks fresh? We don't want to blindly go into a place where some dangerous creature may lurk.

They are rather fresh, however, you can't really tell how fresh they are. At worst you might fight one of those fat things again... At your best estimate those claw marks have been here a few hours.

Hunt the static noise

>... That might be from the fat thing from before, but I'm still afraid what it might entail. Peek upstairs.

The fat thing is dead, you hope, but you peer up stairs anyway to check... there is nothing, the upstairs looks clear. You forgo going upstairs for now and walk down to the basement to see if there is anything down there... to better inform your self. The basement has a door with a window you peer through to see that the main part of the basement is rather empty and houses a Broken TV in the center. there are several Ghoulish Figures standing in the dark and Festering Sentries in dust piles watching for intruders. Pearls eyes narrow on sight of the TV. The door is unlocked, you are unsure of proceeding.