I reach my home and note how still it is. As I step into my front yard and reach for my keys I wonder if I’ll be able to open the front door seeing as time is frozen. I stick the key to my house into the lock and when I jiggle it I am delighted to find that it still works. I tremble nervously as I feel the door unlock and I push it open. I don’t know what I was expecting, but whatever it was isn’t what awaits me.
The interior of my house doesn’t exist anymore. What waits for me on the other side of the door is a hallway, not the one that should exist but a wholly new one, and a machine that faintly resemble ATMs waits for me at the other end of the hallway.
I silently make my way to the machine, reminiscing on the memories I’ve made in the months since I’ve arrived here. In ways both big and small my powers have allowed me to alter this setting, and that knowledge makes me feel powerful emotions as I reach the machine. The device brilliantly comes to life, turning on and displaying a congratulatory message.
“Hello [Luciano], congratulations on your survival and success in Chronicle! Now the time has come for you to choose whether or not you’d like to continue on your chain.” The machine informs me. I wonder how to proceed, before I think to myself that I fully plan to continue on my chain. When that thought crosses my mind the text on the machine begins to change.
“Excellent! Now please allocate a total of 200 Essence Points across various perks in the Essential Body Modification Supplement.” The message reads. As soon as I finish reading it I get to see what I can buy, as the message is replaced by a menu showing me the various sections of the document I get to use to spend my points.
At the moment my body mod is simple. All I have are the freebies given to those who select the Essence of the Assassin, none of which are particularly unusual other than my morphic form ability which is what lets me shapeshift. Because of my body mod I have a peak human body, immunity to normal diseases, poisons, and other debilitating things. My needs are reduced, I have heightened senses, reaction time, and I am greatly resistant to things like fear or mental fatigue, I’m a natural polyglot, I have enhanced skill in battle. deception and social interactions.
Other than my ability to shapeshift my body mod does not grant me any unique superpowers. I have a chance to change that, but doing so in any meaningful capacity would cost me if not my entire budget then most of it.
I contemplate my current condition for a few moments. As I am right now, according to my body mod I am mostly a peak human. I scan the different sections of the body mod, “Physical”, “Mental”, “Spiritual”, “Skill Perks”, and “Supernatural”, reviewing the different options available to me.
The first perk I end up choosing is the second tier of “Heightened Reactions”, which only costs me a quarter of my points. With it I am immune to being caught off guard, which is particularly powerful when fused with my perk that makes me immune to harm while I’m sleeping. I also grab the second tier of “Reduced Sustenance”, which costs me fifty points, and the first tier of “Regeneration”, which also only costs me fifty points. This reduces my budget to fifty points, the last of which I spend bolstering my innate mastery of fighting by purchasing “Tooth and Claw”, a fighting perk that innately boosts my ability to brawl using my own fists. As soon as I make these choices, which is as easy as thinking about the perks I want to buy the screen shows me an overview of my four perks and asks if those are the ones I want. When I inform it that they are the message on the screen changes again, thanking me for my purchases, and then displays a new message.
“A new quest mode setting is available. Selecting it will allow you to begin to embark down the ‘Monster Lord’ build you once devised, beginning with granting you access to a Creative Mode build for ‘Generic First Person Shooter’.” The message reads, causing my eyes to widen.
There are multiple facets to this message that matter. The first is that apparently quest mode, something I devised during my time on Earth, is a real thing in a jumpchain.
During a standard jump in a normal chain, a jumper gets a budget of choice points they can use to purchase perks, items, and companions. This also comes with them getting everything they purchase at the start of a jump, and those things being fiat-backed, that is being guaranteed to work in other settings. Quest mode is a different take on those ideas, allowing jumpers to select an origin or two depending on the number of origins in a jump, get all of their perks and items, and then earn the rest by engaging with the setting in ways appropriate to the origin in question.
For example, if someone went to a Minecraft jump that had an origin for Steve, the game’s default protagonist and other origins such as one for illagers, they could select the Steve origin and get all of its stuff from the start of their jump. If they then entered the jump and behaved like an illager for a while they’d gradually earn illager perks and items, all of which would become fiat backed at the end of the jump. I created this system because it blended the promise of creative mode builds with a narrative incentive to engage with a setting and to be entertaining to a benefactor. It seems that what I created resonated with actual benefactors…
The message also mentions a hypothetical build I once devised that I dubbed the “Monster Lord” build. This build revolves around three generic jumps, Generic First Person Shooter, Generic Protagonist 2, and Generic Action RPG. I created a build that took key perks and items from all three jumps and allowed jumpers to travel across all three jumps separately and gradually become a “Monster Lord” type foe: someone capable of using abilities reminiscent of a final boss in a Japanese Roleplaying Game or a Dungeons and Dragons campaign.
In my hypothetical build someone begins with Generic First Person Shooter, an originless jump that revolves around being a player character in a Call Of Duty, Halo, or Doom type world. This jump grants mechanics and aspects to jumpers that stem from this genre, such as automatically regenerating health, the ability to get power ups from downed foes, and even the power to turn fallen enemies into zombies.
The jump is a powerful, largely combat focused jump, but I don’t think that it’s the setting I’m going to be visiting. The message says I will be granted access to a build, almost like it’s some kind of frontload, and not the actual setting. As I think about this the message changes, revealing critical information.
“You will be teleported to Level 1 of the Liminal Archives continuity of the Backrooms. This is where the quest mode aspect will kick in. From here you will be tasked with reaching and exiting level 12 of said continuity’s central setting, The Ruined City. You will be given access to the items, with a few exceptions, and gain the perks of the levels, as each origin in-jump corresponds to a specific level, as you enter them. You will be able to find and guide others out, if they join you on your journey and you will always be able to, eventually, find ways out of levels if you can survive. Your chain will only continue once you leave level 12.” The message reads, causing me to pause.
The Backrooms is a noted hellscape, and even the Liminal Archives continuity, which is one of the less brutal ones, is notorious for being not fun. In it are things like radioactive cities, levels that are impossible to see in, and all sorts of sanity assaulting effects. That said if I have generic first person shooter… Well, if I have that jump in my back pocket, especially an unlimited creative mode version of it, coupled with my telekinetic and social abilities from Chronicle there’s a chance.
I purposefully try to project a question to the machine now that I know that it reads minds. I focus on the machine and repeat my question over and over in my head. It takes a few seconds of this before the message changes.
“If you do not accept this offer now, while it is still early in your chain, it is unlikely that your benefactor will make this offer again. At the moment it appears likely that the next three jumps on your chain will be similar hybrid jumps, fusing one of the generic settings you will be gaining powers from with other, objective-based settings.” The new message reads, which makes me grimace. I’m not surprised by this, but I am disappointed. This also confirms that I do have a benefactor, somewhere.
My monster lord build is one of my favorite builds. It’s one of a handful of builds I ever sketched out even using standard chain rules, just to see what it’d look like if I ever had the chance to make it a reality. And now a chance to harness it on my multiversal escapades is being dangled in front of me. I sigh and decide that the best way to test my months of work in Chronicle is to actually be brave. As soon as I inform the machine that I am accepting the offer made by my benefactor I do something vaguely like lose consciousness in the sense that everything goes black for a moment.
I don’t feel myself actually lose consciousness as blackness surrounds me. After a few seconds a scrawling wall of text appears in front of me denoting what I’ve gained as far as perks and items go. I see all of the perks and items from Generic First Person Shooter take up a plethora of space in my field of view, and mentally grin as I read through them.
The sight of them makes me feel like playing the Doom theme. I also gain access to a large backpack that is supernaturally large on the inside and is filled with my first items, including two sets of weapons, meals, Backrooms metals, and various other utility things that will undoubtedly be incredibly handy if I opt to save other people and travel with them through the liminal hellscape I’ve decided to tackle.
Some items, such as a mech, have special markings that denote that they are only usable in some specific places for the duration of my time here, which makes sense. If I could freely use a mech in all of the levels of this version of The Backrooms I think I’d be unstoppable.
After what feels like a few minutes I go from being surrounded by darkness to standing in the middle of a bizarre office room, one wherein several rows of sepia-toned plants are growing out of soil in front of me. The room is illuminated by fluorescent lights which hum harshly and fill the air with their unpleasant droning. I feel a large backpack on my back, and I realize, with a smile, that it’s one of my new items. I look around and am surprised when my vision is suddenly partially intruded upon by a large notification.
[Alert: Welcome To Outpost Apollonian
This area is a safe haven, one that is classified as a ‘Property-Type Item’. In it crops can grow, no hostile entity can step, you have electricity, clean water, and other essentials. This area follows you throughout the Backrooms and will follow you in a different form in future jumps. This item, coupled with your packed pack, are your items from this setting. Enjoy them and use them effectively to safely navigate this unnatural hellscape.]
I read the notification, smile faintly, and watch as it vanishes. Once it’s gone I take a beat to familiarize myself with my surroundings before I reach into my pack and retrieve a single gun. The thing is a pistol and I study it for a moment, including checking that it is loaded, before beginning to inspect myself.
I am wearing black body armor and my face is warmed by a comfortable mask. I am basically completely unidentifiable, and wearing handy armor that, in my hands, is a powerful shield foes need to find some way to deal with. I have holsters all over me and I tuck the gun away in one of them.
One of my key items is my arsenal, of which I functionally have two. This comes in the form of two items named “Fighting Tools” and “Your Gear”, both of which are stockpiles of modern arms, body armor, and other such things. These items synergize incredibly well with “Infinite Ammo”, an item from Generic First Person Shooter which gives me as much ammunition as my allies and I need of any sort of weapon.
I take a deep breath, allow my eyes to linger on the small farm in front of me for a few moments, before I turn and look for a door out. I focus on my goal, escaping this place, and as I do I spot a small door on the other side of the room I’m in. A split second later a thin, glowing line appears ahead of me, a manifestation of “Quest Marker” a handy new perk that allows me to know how to reach my objectives by showing me a direct path to where I need to go. I begin my trek to the end of the outpost, and quickly reach the door leading out of the room I’m in.
When I step out of the room I find myself in a narrow hallway still defined by the signature features of this level: the sickly colored wallpaper, the empty rooms, and the fluorescent lights. The glowing line continues ahead of me, and ignores several empty door frames that line the side of the wall ahead of me. At the end of the hall, the furthest point I can see, is a closed door.
I begin to walk towards it, and as I step past the empty door frames that are between the door and myself I glance into them and spot several rooms. Some of the rooms have beds and other valuable essentials, which I mentally take note of. When I reach the edge of the hallway I open the door and step past it into what I immediately identify as a normal part of the level.
Ahead of me stretches a large room characterized by the same annoying traits as the other rooms I’ve been in and seen: fluorescent lights, sickly yellow wallpaper, and an office-room design. At the corners of the rooms are mounds of fungi, large unsightly things that many unlucky wanderers have definitely been forced to eat. The glowing line I’ve been following continues to trail ahead of me, surely pointing me towards whatever exit will lead me out of here.
“The only way for me to leave is for me to go through.” I remark, as I begin what will surely be an incredibly long walk.
