I cautiously study the imposing stone wall the settlers have erected around their home as my companions and I step closer and closer to the boundary, and one of a number of doors that would permit passage through it. My mask is off and my face is nothing like my normal face.
I currently have lightning-blonde hair, a pale face, and oceanic blue eyes, a far cry from my visibly Latin true face. This is a defensive measure to ensure that if anyone here sees me they won't recognize me if they come across my other self later on, and also to give the settlers in here a normal-looking person to talk to.
The facelings are wearing masks I made using some of my "Today's Supplies" items, which actually came in quite handy here. Their faces are covered, and since mine isn't I'm hoping that'll lead to the wanderers who erected this settlement to believe that I'm the leader of our group.
I mentally review my powerful slate of social perks. Names like "Game of Life", "Charming Action Hero", "Personable", and "Merits Of Your Own" all come to mind as I dwell on my powers, ones I hope will be strong enough to give me a chance to make trusted allies.
As my companions and I draw nearer to the door, I hear overt movement. Someone nearby is not trying to be subtle about the fact that they've detected us. Thankfully we are not trying to be subtle ourselves. We don't need to be, we have protection not only in the form of myself but also in the form of my allies.
I am currently being given cover by a clone who is nearby, invisibly watching over my companions and myself. The clone of me with Gianna is also receiving the same treatment; being offered cover by a powerful, dangerous clone who is utilizing some of our perks to skillfully avoid detection. In both cases, our clones have access to our weapons and are ready to use them just in case, though one thing about this version of the backrooms is that it is noticeably less dangerous than many continuities and entities just aren't common in the spaces I've visited so far.
When we reach the door etched into the stone wall I boldly step forward and knock on the door. My companions, creatures who've had plenty of time to acclimate to my presence and to adjust to the idea of showing me not actual deference but something more akin to friendship and trust, shuffle nervously as all of us hear movement from behind the door. The thing is solid, and does not have a small window or any peepholes to look through, so I am unsurprised when someone opens it and I find myself face to face with a decently tall woman.
"Hello, uh…," She says, as she studies not only me but my also faceless companions. I look at her and decide to immediately interject.
"Hi! My name is Henry, and I'm a wanderer. These folks," I say, pointing to my companions who both wave a bit energetically. "Are my friends. This is the first outpost I've ever seen. I came from some other place a few days ago, after arriving here, generally speaking, months ago, met my friends, and when we saw here we just… we just about cried." I remark, lying but not as fully as one would expect. The woman, a white lady who seems surprisingly fit, looks at me sympathetically when she hears my story.
My social perks are fully active right now, and I can feel them working. I perceptively study the body language of the woman as she listens to my story and I subtly adjust my own body language to mirror hers and make her feel comfortable with me. Additionally, I can empathetically sense that she is not a naturally wary person, though she's also not a fool or hyper-trusting.
"Hi Henry. My name is Joanne. Welcome to the small town of Stoneboro. We're a part of the UNCB, but if you're new you may not know what that means. We're pretty friendly towards visitors but… We do like to see people's faces." The woman tells me, and I inwardly grimace. I move to my companions, quickly thinking as I try to ready myself for what's about to happen.
If I were in any other canon traveling with facelings wouldn't be as big a deal as it is here but in the Liminal Archives facelings don't even exist. This was confirmed when I first met these two, both of whom are friendly, personable entities in a continuity that is not known for having many of those.
"So you're about to see something a bit surprising. I'm hoping that you really are friendly towards visitors." I remark as I gesture for my companions to take off their masks. If need be I can intervene with telekinesis, but I really hope it doesn't come to that.
"Heh, I've seen a lot, Henry. You sound a bit green behind the ears, but even folks who were born here are routinely surprised by what they see." The woman states. I pick up on a number of different things from her statement with the biggest being that she is, like me, not a native of the backrooms. It's a bit less clear if she's new or not…
She lets out a quiet gasp when the facelings remove enough of their masks to reveal that they have no eyes. Inwardly I smirk, unsurprised by this, and I sense the woman tense but to her credit she doesn't run or do anything reckless. Her breathing becomes more erratic as the facelings continue to remove their masks, and reveal more of their perfectly smooth heads.
"What am I… looking at? Am I looking at new entities, or the victims of some horrible level?" She asks, and I sense my allies tense up in response to her words. I whisper, telepathically, for them to relax and they do so, having recognized me as their unusual but trustworthy friend due to the circumstances of our initial meeting and the very powerful perks I began to fully use almost the minute we met.
"These are entities. They are known as 'Facelings'. They are sapient, and can be as friendly and sociable as humans can be. These two are the first I've seen here, but in baseline they are known elements, known entities, of some fictional version of the backrooms." I remark, opting to mix in elements of the truth with certain, powerful, falsehoods. She glances at me, her eyes now filled with skepticism aimed squarely at me.
"You're new, aren't you? Or at least relatively new. How do you know all of that?" She asks, her eyes revealing a quick wit and a good intuition. I frown as I hear her questions. I also gesture for my companions to put their masks back on. They dutifully do as they are told, which is good for me especially since this is part of their first impression. Showing that they are receptive to cooperation with humans, and about as intelligent, in their first interaction with UNCB officials and representatives will particularly good for helping people get to know them.
This fact is true even without one of my new perks but it is especially true with it. A new perk I possess is named "Living Legend" and it guarantees that my deeds, at least so long as it is active, will spread like wildfire and will be exaggerated to the point that they become more like myth than concrete, correct retellings of my deeds. I haven't had a chance to use this power since I got it, but seeing as I am the jumper equivalent of a charisma main this perk will become a key part of my repertoire pretty quickly once I get to interacting with people.
I'm actually quite excited by this perk because at some point I'd like to go to Generic Spy Thriller and my favorite origin in that jump has a perk that synergizes incredibly well with "Living Legend". Still, Generic Spy Thriller is a bit too mundane for me to really want to go there sometime soon.
"When I first got here I quickly came across journals of people who were researching the first… 'Level'. The people were long dead by the time I discovered their journals, which were in a ruined campsite in The Frontier. The researchers had heard of the UNCB and used their jargon. I'm assuming they had encounters with UNCB scouts or something, their journals didn't clarify the precise nature of how they first met UNCB people. But I was a fan of backrooms media, which has become increasingly popular over the last few years. I've only been in the backrooms for about two months." I explain, turning my attention back to the woman, offering a vague story but one that sounds more or less plausible. The woman listens to the story and I watch her compare it to what she knows about this place. She eventually sighs and accepts what I've told her.
"I see… Still, a new entity type? I mean, probably new. I've been here for a full decade and never seen anything like them." She remarks. She opens the door fully and gestures for my companions and I to come into the town. We do as she signals for us to do and she gestures for us to follow her.
We are in a small space dedicated to watching the door, a cramped space that is clearly designed to be defended and to serve as something akin to a death funnel if the town is invaded. Flying entities are pretty uncommon, though this alternate version of the liminal archives does have deathmoths, so this isn't perfect but it's perfectly defensible under normal circumstances. The facelings obediently follow after me, and as we move the woman proceeds to ask me some questions.
"So, what did you do in baseline?" She asks, curiously. I smile at her and chuckle as I tell her a lie but one I can easily back up.
"I was a wilderness doctor." I remark, and this intrigues the woman who guides my companions and I out into a small town square. A number of people turn and look at us curiously, some of them having overheard my remarks just now. She glances at one of the men who overhears me and gestures for him to take her place. He nods back at her and walks towards where my group just came from, presumably taking over her shift as a guard.
Wilderness medicine is a discipline of basic medicine that focuses on the sort of life-preserving and life-saving medical practices used by doctors in remote areas and without advanced medical infrastructure. This is the sort of medicine that saves lives in forests, atop mountains, and deep in deserts.
"You were a doctor? Like with a medical license? Or with a doctorate?" She asks, and I let out a loud laugh at this question.
"I have a license from North Carolina. I practiced medicine in the rural community of Dellview, not super far from Charlotte. Wilderness medicine is a specialty that focuses on practicing medicine in less than ideal circumstances. It's the sort of medicine that is used by some first responders, though with a bit more finesse than they might have, since first responders are not always trained doctors." I reply, utilizing my knowledge of my home state from my pre-jump life to come up with a lie.
"In that case… We don't have much in terms of medical supplies, but we have some medicine and I think if you want to quickly befriend folks I can think of a way you can quickly become essential here." She tells me as she guides my companions and me towards a stone and carpet building in the middle of the square. We step into it and find ourselves in a foyer.
She guides us past the foyer and into a small dining room area. We are told to sit and that she needs to retrieve somebody. I do as I am told and the facelings mimic me. As I sit down and relax I mentally focus on my clones.
One of my clones is beneath me, hidden underneath the floor of this place just in case I need support. My other two clones are together, though one is hidden from view, and the other is escorting Gianna towards the edge of the level. Their path and their plan are simple: just keep walking.
I study the room, noting the presence of a considerable amount of furniture fashioned from the hard concrete I've acclimated to walking over. My new perks have helped a good deal when it comes to getting used to navigating this new level. Walking on hard concrete for hours at a time is tough, but perks like "Wanderer" and "Flow" make it a touch easier mentally and physically respectively.
Another thing that helps is the idea of finding new things to scan, which I do with the mental focus it takes me to do somewhat advanced math like I did back in Chronicle. "Scanning" something refers to when I use a new ability of mine: "Analysis". This ability allows me to gaze at anything of substance, be it furniture, a small animal, or a person, and gain a basic understanding of it.
This is a "Worldwalker" perk I have made healthy use of in the time since I've gotten it, scanning the entities that madly dash across the catwalks, scanning the facelings, Gianna, the objects I've come across, and anything I can scan to practice and hone the ability, since I innately suspect that it can grow stronger with time and practice.
It takes a few minutes before someone new steps into the small room my companions and I are in. This time the figure who stands before us is an older-looking man with a thick white beard and the complexion of someone I'd peg as Middle-Eastern. He has a kindly-looking face and he smiles at us.
"Hello wanderers, My name is Ali. I was told, by Joanne, that the three of you have made an interesting discovery," The man tells us, a gentle smile on his face as he speaks. His English is very lightly accented but I can still hear the traces of something older in it, something softer. I smile at him and nod, even as he sits down at a table across from me.
"Good… morning? Who even knows anymore? As I'm sure Joanne told you, I'm Henry. These are my friends, they, as far as I know, don't have names. Please take off your masks." I say, turning to address the facelings partway through my remarks. They nod at me and remove the masks they are wearing, doing so over the course of several moments and when the top parts of their heads reveal their lack of facial features I see the man's eyes widen.
"Whoa… That's-" The man begins to exclaim. The sight of the featureless faces of the creatures does take some getting used to. He falls silent as the masks fall away and reveal their fully smooth faces. I nod at him and smile sympathetically.
"It does take some getting used to." I remark, lightly.
"These creatures are facelings. They are a type of entity. They have temperaments that are almost as varied as those of humans and are only a bit less intelligent than we are, at least according to stuff on the internet in Baseline. I suspect they are actually as intelligent as humans, they certainly seem to be. I came across these two when they were fleeing the catwalks, using a ladder to climb down and when I helped them they became my friends." I reveal, smiling at my companions. I can distinctly feel their happiness at my remarks using empathetic perks. Ali nods as he takes in my remarks.
"A friendly type of human-like entity… Remarkable." The man exclaims once he's had time to take in my remarks. I smile at him as he begins to speak about the brief history of friendly entities in this variation of the backrooms.
To make a short story even shorter there is one known friendly entity in this version of the backrooms. A strange being, according to its own written testimony a former human, named "Hans Kirsne", is a skeleton that can be found wandering this version of the backrooms and protecting people from each other and from other entities.
All other known entities and entity types are either neutral, in several cases, and outright hateful, in several more cases. The discovery of a friendly entity type, especially one that has more than one instance, is considerable news.
The man insists on fully documenting everything possible about the facelings. He is more excited about them then he is when he remembers that I am a doctor, and while his reaction mildly surprises me I kind of get it after a while.
I am one person, in one part of the backrooms at a time. I mean… I'M not, but to him and to the best of his knowledge I appear to be. The facelings represent the discovery and emergence of a whole new faction in the backrooms, one that can be interacted with peacefully and on friendly terms. Alliances can be made, and new growth can occur. And actually spreading information about them is critical so that if more facelings emerge in other levels members of the UNCB know to protect them when possible and befriend them whenever they can.
Over the course of the next few hours I am interrogated relentlessly and eventually new people are brought in to question the facelings. The researchers struggle to communicate with the facelings, and in fairness to them even I can't do it easily unless I communicate mind to mind using my perk-granted telepathy. After a while I begin to get questioned in place of the facelings, and I helpfully answer rather truthfully, utilizing my telepathy to acquire the best answers to the questions of the researchers.
I even discover some stuff while doing this, such as that the facelings do not have memories before they appeared on the catwalk, seemingly spawned by the same processes that may spawn other entities, and I learn that the facelings can consume things by causing them to… despawn, for lack of a better word. That particular discovery is fascinating, but does explain why they've asked me for food during our long march. I never interrogated them about it because it felt rude to do so, but learning this is still nice.
The day eventually comes to an end after a truly grueling series of interrogations, and I end up promising to tend to the needs of the injured, to the best of my ability, the following morning. My companions and I are given permission to use a small room in the building as our home while we are here, and we do so. When the day comes to an end I am the last of my clones to go to bed, with Gianna and that clone of mine going to bed hours before I get to dos so.
I fall asleep almost instantly when I find a corner of the room to sit down in. This marks the beginning of a new routine, one that begins the very next morning and will last for the better part of a month.
Gianna and my clones with her continue their ceaseless wandering, while the facelings and I get a chance to settle into life in Stoneboro. I pass my days using my skills as a doctor and my more supernatural perks to help injured wanderers and settlers, and my faceling companions agree to be subjected to tests and to help humans learn about them, which I help with whenever I am not tending to the needs of patients throughout the small town. The people throughout the town who are less research-oriented and scientifically-inclined than Ali and his cohorts are wary of the facelings but with me as a bit of a go-between and mediator they learn to relax around the entities, and I quickly become well-liked for my essential skills and my sincere desire to help people. In time a small building is erected for me to use as a place of business, and I quickly find myself settling into a new role: that of a healer and therapist.
My social perks work collaboratively and synergistically to make me a beloved figure that people come to trust in days. Perks like "The Game Of Life" allow people to naturally like and trust me, while some of my other perks like "A Helpful Hand" work while I tend to people and talk to them. This has a slow but noticeable ripple effect of promoting unity and getting people to gel, which slowly lowers the number of injuries I get, most of which I heal using my perks more than actual medicine since no real medicine exists here other than almond water.
When a disruption to this neat routine comes, it doesn't affect my faceling companions and this me, but actually involves Gianna and the me with her.
