This game was chosen especially for you, Zoe Gibson! Jon was nowhere to be found. For you, it's free! Beat it to the specified Trial Goal, and your First Trial of Immersion Arcade will be over. More features for your Arcade will be unlocked then!
Zoe was silently freaking out. She thought herself thick-skinned before: one of the school's goth crowd, a connoisseur of the forbidden and the weird, with a persona carefully crafted to tell the world "don't fuck with me". She wasn't supposed to be scared of anything. And now, she was freaking the fuck out. Apparently, waking up in a pocket dimension as nothing but a pair of floating hands, with nothing around but tutorials and elevator music, was enough to do it for her. At first, honestly, she was sure she'd died. Right now, honestly, she still thought she might've actually died.
"This is such a bad sign," Zoe's internal monologue would've said, looking as she was at the icon of the game supposedly chosen "just for her". This Sinful World, the game's evident title, was carefully written out in some overwrought, archaic-looking script font. Maybe it was some sort of fantasy RPG? Hopefully, it was the sort of game where Zoe could party up together with Jon. If Jon was even in there. What if he wasn't?
... If he wasn't, Zoe still didn't really have any choice other than to play her own game. There wasn't much worth doing in the Main Menu, anyway. With more trepidation than she would ever have admitted aloud, she snapped up the Master Controller, selected her game, and hit START.
Then the world went black. For a moment afterwards, nothing existed in the Universe, not even her own two hands anymore, except for a single loading screen icon in the dark. It was a kneeling dead woman. She was on fire, and her ashen corpse had split like a log. Above her, creating new save floated where a tooltip would probably have gone.
When the corpse disappeared and the game had finished loading, Zoe had a body again, but absolutely no control over it for a while. Unlike Jon's own game, (which Zoe's was not,) this game had an intro cutscene.
Well, well. You've finally made it.
Zoe's eyes, slowly, groggily, were fluttering open. One of them was, anyway; she was nearly facedown, splayed out on the ground.
To that land so loved by sinners like yourself... so flocked to by perverts and degenerates, the licentious and the promiscuous...
Her body pushed itself off the ground, just a little bit. A fine powder clung to her face, and she licked her dry, cracked lips. The earth tasted salty on her parched, gross tongue.
... And despised by God himself.
Slowly, Zoe's head lifted. Burning chunks of sulfurous salts were raining down from the heavens. The city around her was a flaming, lifeless ruin, and the smoke blocked out the sun. It was, well, a little hot.
Welcome to Sodom, Capitol City of Gomorrah. Is it everything you hoped it would be?
A meteoric hunk of brimstone crashed before her with a thunderous boom. Part of a well was destroyed by it, and because of that, Zoe could see a little water, steaming from a pool within. Zoe wanted it immediately.
I'm sure you know the stories. This place is overrun by Succubae, like you.
The water beckoned, and Zoe's right arm dug its fingers into the salty ash, to pull her body closer. Her left arm was only a charred stump, and pushing its exposed bone into the ground helped only a little. She had no legs.
Only sex-crazed sluts ever lived here, even before the Curse. God's Twin Servants could not find even one sinless person.
Somewhere far above her, only barely visible through the smoke and ash, was a great winged figure. The Brimstone would not touch it. It looked down on her and the cataclysmic destruction all around in judgment and contempt, and did not deign to help her.
And when the Citizens forced themselves onto the Angels, they were Cursed forever, doomed to be Blinded by the Transformative Fire.
Ashen corpses all around her split like spent logs and would crumble in the wind. For some, nothing remained but a Pile of Salt afterwards. For others, Zoe's body would mercilessly just drag itself over what embers remained. It cared only for the water, and that desperately, it seemed.
They would lose sight and sanity. Their bodies would warp and their minds would fog. Eventually, only Blind Lust would remain of their Selves.
Zoe herself, interestingly, was not thirsty. Nor did she feel much pain beyond a slight discomfort, nor was she as unbearably hot as her circumstances would suggest she should be. She had only messed a little with the settings in the Main Menu, but it was easily seen that deeply uncomfortable sensations such as those were not allowed in the Immersion Arcade by default, and would not be allowed until she turned them on. She could mute even mildly uncomfortable sense if she so chose, but that was not the recommended setting. No, as her body involuntarily pulled itself to the mirrorlike surface of the water, Zoe herself was much more interested in seeing what had happened to the body itself. It wasn't just that she had apparently lost 3 of her 4 limbs in the Cataclysm; her body felt wrong. Deformed, sort of, like she was a round gelatinous ball pressed hard into an unfamiliar square hole. Her chest felt off, her hips felt off, her face... In that water, she wanted to look into the reflective surface and see it.
But, don't worry. Everyone is gorgeous in Gomorrah, and nothing is taboo. Worship only this one rule:
Zoe's body pulled one last time, and she was over the ruins of the well wall. She looked down into the water, and immediately got a headache. Her body pulled away and held its ashy head in pain, and the heat of the world spread to her core. Finally her body tried again to look into the water, determined for its drink, but Zoe's head ached, and she couldn't comprehend what she was seeing. There was a signal she would later learn meant the buildup of a status effect, and it reached a critical point as her body tried in vain to reach for the water and Zoe tried in vain to see what happened to her. The arm she could see burst into flame and split, as did much of the rest of her, judging by the common sensation. Her foolish, traitorous hand finally did dip its fingers into the water, and those fingers simply dissolved up to the knuckle and disappeared. The rest of her body finished turning into a statue of ashy salts, and only once that transformation finished did the burning of her flesh finally stop. She crumbled in the wind and died for the first time.
Never, ever look back. You'll turn back into salt.
The world had gone black again. From that void, eventually, came the loading screen icon. Above the burning salt-woman, this time, was an actual tooltip, apparently an item description, attached to an image of a curious white substance.
Lifesalts
The seed of Life itself. Deeply coveted by Succubae, used by them to gain power, and sometimes traded by the sane ones as currency.
This powerfully magic salt is found in dried semen and menstrual discharge. It is Life's greatest power, and according to some its only meaning. Succubae who have lost all rational thought can think only of their desire for it.
Zoe was speechless. And not just in the literal sense.
Nobody can leave Gomorrah without an Angel's Favor. Not even in Death.
This time it wasn't the grandiose voiceover it had been in the intro cutscene; it was just plain, floating, faraway text, visible somehow through the fabric in front of Zoe's face. She realized she had a body again, but it was still dark, because she was curled up in... some kind of bag? Somehow? Anyway, this wasn't a cutscene anymore, and Zoe had full control of her body again, to try and squirm out of the bag. Thankfully, she did have all 4 of the usual limbs now, but her body still felt weird; stretched and deformed, too tight in some places and too loose in others. It was cramping, kind of.
Zoe finally found the way out of the bag. Actually, as it turns out, it was in fact a sleeping bag, one made of sheepskin with the fluffy wool side facing in, and some sort of smoldering-ember pattern glowing faintly on the exterior (This must be an RPG for sure, she thought: way too many things needed to glow with some sort of energy even if it didn't really make sense). With that knowledge, and her head poking out the little top to breathe, it was actually really comfy. Nice and warm, a pleasant contrast to the burst of chill she got when her sweaty face met the cold air. Posed as she was when the game finished loading, it was like she had buried herself in the bag for a good, loooong nap. She definitely felt those little morning sleepies, anyway, and kinda didn't wanna get out of bed as such.
Nevertheless, you must find a way, as the Incestuous Lot once did. Else, you face eternal torment.
"Fiiiine," Zoe said aloud, and then immediately regretted it. Talking gave her a very familiar headache: y'know, the one she'd had just before bursting into flames and turning into a pillar of salt? But still, unlike in the Main Menu, she did have a voice and could talk; she'd just have to avoid doing so enough to trigger whatever instadeath THAT was.
This is your Trial Goal: Break this Curse and Escape the Cataclysm. Then you may go.
"Oh, is that all?" Zoe's internal monologue jeered in place of her actual voice. "It's only the end of the world, how hard can THAT be?" Zoe had a feeling she was going to miss spitting her usual biting sarcasm out loud like that, and sighed. Time to get out of the bag and see what the damage is.
Of course, Zoe was entirely alone at that moment. It was worth checking though, since it was kinda dark, and she seemed to be in some kind of campsite in a cave; it wasn't until she could inspect more closely that she saw that it was a site only meant for one person, presumably her, with little more than her bedroll and the lightly smoking ashy corpse of a campfire to show for it. The only truly bright light in the area filtered in through the cave entrance, maybe two or three dozen yards away over an old rope bridge, apparently open to the rest of the game world. Being an RPG, though, of course a few other things in the cave glowed just enough to get her attention, most notably the aforementioned sleeping bag. (A): Rest came up as a prompt when she looked directly at it, but of course she wasn't interested.
She did snap up the Master Controller, though, because interacting with the other glowy bits around the starting campsite seemed a much more interesting possibility. Almost all of them were hieroglyphic runes of some sort, and they were scribbled or carved all over the floors and the walls. Each one had its own (A): Read prompt, of course. Zoe didn't read most of them. Instead, she zeroed in almost immediately on two different, standout messages, ones in a different, brighter color and much neater, more academic script than the other rough carvings, both signed by one Giik the Scholar (No other message had a signature). "These are messages from Succubae in Other Worlds," one declared, once a button press on the Master Controller translated it for her. "Can be sent with magic knife," said the other. The latter was found just over the only item pickup in the campsite, an item that announced itself as the "Interdimensional Chisel" in a popup when she grabbed it, just before disappearing into her inventory(?). Another tutorial popup informed her how to send messages with it and the Master Controller. The other messages, from what quick glances she had, were much less informative or helpful. "Yay for rebirth" said one. "Be wary of adventure ahead" said another. Unlike Giik's messages, these had a "like" feature she could interact with via the Controller.
"They're from other players!" Zoe's inner monologue wanted to shout, when she realized it. "Are there other people trapped in this hell like me!?" Straightaway she grabbed up the Master Controller, intent on leaving a message explaining her situation and asking for a way out, but of course she ran into a problem. She wasn't free to just start writing with the stylus in English, like she'd hoped, nor could the Master Controller just translate whatever she wanted either. Instead, she found herself scrolling through a menu on its touchpad, each option containing a single unique hieroglyphic symbol and the word or phrase it apparently translated to. It wasn't exactly a short list, but it did put a strong limit on her vocabulary, and worse, she wasn't allowed that many symbols to make a full message. It took frustratingly too long to just leave "I am trap in cave help me" on her wall, and Zoe had a bad feeling that it wasn't really gonna help her even if someone did see it. Still, the physical action the Master Controller forced her take, of recalling the Chisel from hammerspace with a gesture and actually carving the symbols into the wall with a few quick strokes, which began glowing just like the others, brought the comforting feeling that people would see it, sooner or later.
Anyway, it seemed to be time to leave the cave and actually start this adventure some guy had said to be wary of. Zoe went towards the cave's mouth, started to cross the bridge apparently made to cross over a little stream whose susurrus was only just audible below. Of course, the rope snapped and the bridge dropped her almost the instant she had put her entire weight on it.
Zoe didn't fall far, only several yards maybe and landed unharmed, but it still scared the hell out of her, abruptly being dumped into that shallow stream. For a brief second, she was afraid this water would kill her like the water in the intro cutscene had; but it was too dark and the flowing water too turbulent to make her reflection out, and so apparently she was safe. The fear had subsided by the time she got to her feet, and that was when the game took the opportunity to let her know in a popup that this whole starting area was called Berth Canal, apparently after the channel Zoe was now wading thigh-deep in. On closer inspection, it was evidently manmade.
Zoe's scowl could've turned the water putrid if she was still the angry goth girl she used to be. "Very funny, game, now go fuck yourself," her internal monologue seethed. Of course there was nobody to complain to. So she just sighed, did her best to swallow her rage, and started looking for a way out.
The fall wasn't far enough to hurt her, but it was far enough that there was no dream of climbing back up to camp, if she could even get a grip on the slick stone walls of the cave. Inspection just revealed a little clifflike projection on the cave walls above which Zoe could've used to walk around the bridge if she were less gullible. Upstream, the water flowed in through a rusty metal grate and there was nowhere to go. Downstream, though, was much more walkable. Bioluminescent mosses provided light, Giik had apparently left more glowing messages on the cave walls, and a ways down there was a worn path leading up out of the water, all hidden from the view she had just fallen from above. Bizarrely, there was also another sleeping bag and another little camp on the Canal banks, except the bag was tightly rolled up for storage, and Giik had apparently written something on the wall above. Curiously, Zoe approached the bedroll, was prompted to press (A), and did so. With the usual involuntary motion, she just unrolled the bag, and prompted another big system popup saying, BED MADE. Giik explained the significance of this: "Upon Death, your Avatar will be Reborn and Awaken in those Beds you have made for It." When translated from Fantasy-Fluff to Gamer, it actually said, "these are your respawn points," Zoe understood.
Honestly, something clicked for Zoe the moment she realized that, looking at the path ahead. This whole place under the bridge just screamed "tutorial area". Giik's messages were everywhere for the reading, the map here was as simple as just walking forward and up a gentle torch-illuminated slope that probably circled back to the starting Bed, and perhaps most of all, health bars. The first enemies of the game were down here, it seemed, just sitting or standing there almost motionless, not yet alerted to Zoe, and as frail and weak as starting enemies were meant to be. Well, they looked like they were probably meant to be enemies: they were Succubae, as promised, but not the sexy kind. These were the old, withered, impish hags of skin and bone you saw in much older depictions of Succubae, the ones that made them to really look like Demons instead of beautiful women with demon features. There were a number of them that seemed to grow in strength as one went down the hall, and given the position of Giik's messages Zoe could tell this was meant to teach the basics of what combat means in this world.
"Man. Fuck that, though." Zoe really didn't feel like slaughtering a bunch of people (artificial NPCs or otherwise) for the sake of a fucking tutorial just yet, so her next move was to try just running past them all. Sure enough, none of them had the speed to catch her. Most could only just look at her with their dumb, vacant eyes when they realized she was there, moan lustily as they gained aggro, and shamble after her once she was already past. She rounded a corner, then another; this was definitely the way back to the starting Bed, she knew now. She came to a bigger, more open room with what seemed to be just a lone enemy and some loot in it, and was approaching the door that should lead down and out of the cave, when ("Of fucking course,") it shut, and locked. The door she'd entered the room from locked too. A healthbar appeared, this one bigger and more centrally visible, and the enemy in the center of the room was standing up. She was much like the enemies outside, but taller, MUCH chubbier, and distinguished by having much larger and more ornate horns and tail. Wings were still comically small, though.
"Tutorial boss," thought Zoe. "This shouldn't take long." She snapped up the Master Controller with the thought of dispatching this new foe like most tutorial bosses; that is, she'd defeat it easily mostly by just clicking buttons in its general direction.
Turns out, Zoe had no idea what she was doing, and she died quickly.
"Wait... what the fuck?" Zoe oozed out of the Bed she'd discovered once the game reloaded, hot and sticky with sweat, and also kinda shocked at herself. "Did I just die to a fucking tutorial boss?" She ran past the little guys and tried again, gave it an actual try this time, didn't take for granted that this was supposed to be just an easy win. One attempt later, she lost control of her body to a grab animation, suffered through some kind of deathblow, and died.
When she respawned, Zoe kinda just sat in her Bed, shocked at what had transpired. "How the fuck...? What kind of game makes tutorial bosses this difficult!?" Her internal monologue had meant that rhetorically, but Zoe realized it probably shouldn't have. After a moment of sitting in her comfy sleeping bag and just thinking, she finally climbed out, checked Giik's message on the Beds, and any tutorials that the Master Controller got her access to. She had just realized a possibility and wanted to test it. Finally, she found the relevant passage.
Bedroll
An adventurer's pleasantly comfortable portable sleeping bag. It's soft, warm folds hold you snugly while you rest.
Rest in these to restore Health, Magic, and some Consumables, and respawn most enemies. On Death, your Avatar will be reborn in the womblike comfort of the last Bed rested at. You may also choose to have it reborn at any other Bed you've discovered, while resting.
The humble Bed is a sacred thing to a Succubus. Their magic lingers in Beds they have made and slept in, and to them it is a tragic thing not to share one. Gomorrah, after all, is a tragic land.
Zoe's heart sank as she read it. She had to sit down, ended up plopping down heavily into the canal waters and letting them just run over her a while. The relevant quip she needed was that she could in fact warp between Beds. The good news was that she could just warp back to the starting Bed and skip this fight with the tutorial boss, after all. The bad news was that it all but confirmed a fear that skipping the fight wouldn't really help her.
"The isn't just some generic Fantasy RPG, after all," her internal monologue groaned. "This game is a fucking soulslike! I have to live in, and beat, a motherfucking soulsborne, in one blind nonstop run, to get out of this place! Fuck me, Jon, what did you do!?"
