The darkness of the vault is eerie but it’s not enough to stop me from seeing what is going on. My keen, superhuman senses, combined with the subtle glow of Quest Markers allow me to make my way through the vault.
The interior of the place is messy, and labyrinthian, with debris and supplies strewn messily about the floor. I notice plenty of objects, and I occasionally kneel down and grab some, which triple when they slide into my Inventory thanks to the prominent effects of AA. Things like MREs, Almond Water, and other useful and sometimes Limspace exclusive items begin to fill my inventory as I venture deeper into the vault.
As I explore the area just past the door leading in and out of the vault I thoughtfully select what to take with me and what to exclude so that future wanderers who enter here still have goods to take. Thanks to AA I am able to be pretty generous about what I take and what I leave, though as I begin to acquire a small fortune I begin to contemplate how chain-altering my new perk is.
Afarkaup Avarkostir is an enormously powerful capstone perk, one that is the dream of merchant-type and crafter-type jumpers everywhere. It is also an immeasurably useful survival perk, training booster, and just an incalculably powerful thing to possess, especially this early on in a chain. It synergizes immensely powerfully with the right kinds of crafting perks and jumps like Generic Merchant but right now it’s undoubtedly my single most useful perk and as I make a veritable fortune scrounging up basic goods, guaranteeing that even beyond my limitless supply of personal scale foods I can easily feed people in the short term.
As I continue to quietly navigate the vault I silently extend telekinetic feelers all around me, purposefully opting to go ahead and have hands in this place as well as be better able to make sense of my surroundings. As I do this I continue to visually study my surroundings as well.
The place is eerie, and the way the stores of goods are strewn about haphazardly is bizarre to me. I see no entities, but I hear sounds of life and motion from other parts of the vault. The sounds distantly echo through the chambers of the vault, and as I explore I learn to memorize them.
I consider summoning a few unusual allies, such as a smiler or a deathmoth, but for the time I hold back. I can summon them in a snap if I need to, especially since I can pause time and queue up actions if I actually need to do so.
I continue my wandering for a time, allowing my eyes to be as mundane as they can be. After I begin to venture deeper and deeper into the gloom of the gigantic vault I opt to experiment with a perk of mine I’ve only ever used on occasion Advanced Sensors, a perk that allows me to change my vision. The gloom of the place is suddenly replaced by vivid shades of red and orange as I turn on a strange thermal vision of sorts. The abrupt shift in what I can perceive causes me to pause for a moment so I can make sure I have my bearings.
Now, armed with much better vision, I can make out all sorts of details I previously couldn’t. This chamber is enormous and at the very edges of it, beyond the edges of what I could see with mundane vision, lie large doors. I study them, noting that the Quest Markers perk is not leading me towards them nor do I get a sense that they matter to my objectives. Instead Quest Markers is leading me deeper into the part of the vault that stretches directly ahead of the door leading in and out of the thing.
I see no entities or mundane animals, though the sounds of distant skittering do not escape my notice, nor do they fade as I move deeper into the eerie location my quest has led me. I continue to quietly creep deeper into the vault and feel my heart pound when the floor beneath me and the walls on the distant ends of the chamber glitch out, crackling and becoming pixelated for several seconds. As the glitch continues to occur I silently rise into the air, floating above the bizarre floor as it continues to flip out.
I begin to sail in the direction Quest Markers is taking me and when I get deep enough into the vault that I can see the wall distantly facing the door I phased through to get here I also see something else. A trio of massive creatures that walk on two legs are close together and seemingly staring at something. I focus intensely and I alternate my confusion, flipping Advanced Sensors on and off to be able to see the creatures as they would appear to a normal human and then to my enhanced senses.
They have pale skin and are naked, having humanoid frames and thick, long limbs. There is something eerie about their stillness. The glitch occurring underneath me eventually stops, and when it does the monsters ahead of me suddenly seem to relax and turn around. The sight of their fronts is a lot more disturbing than their backs…
The monsters are clearly some sort of altered humans, transformed by the properties of some Backrooms level. They have faces that lack eyes, and have long, bestial snouts but are otherwise clearly human. The naked fronts of the creatures are covered in scarlet blood, like they have messily eaten something fairly recently. They sniff the air and begin to slowly shuffle in my direction. I study them as I continue to sail through the air, and I consider how to handle the situation.
A part of me wracks my brain to see if I can determine what they are. It takes me a few seconds to realize that they might be examples of a sort of quasi-cryptid creature known as a Pipe-Dweller, an entity that arises from the dark fate that befalls humans who stay in The Darkness for too long. The level mutates and twists humans into these feral monsters, creatures driven by hunger and an unconscious ability to use pack tactics to their advantage, somehow.
I don’t sense any hostility coming off of them, but as I draw closer to the creatures their snouts begin to twitch more, and my eyes narrow. Their body language changes subtly, and I decide to have some fun testing out some of my abilities.
The three man-beasts stiffen as they seem to subtly sense my intentions or as something nearer to them but that doesn’t help them when I nail two of the three with abrupt, violent telekinetic blows. I use my powerful psionic abilities to drop the two to the left and right of the one in the middle while I concurrently activate another ability. A perk named Pressure which increases the impact of gravity on my foes hits my foes, and the two telekinetically dropped ones collapse completely. I then smile and relax, taking advantage of With Great Power Comes Great Leisure to turn my focus towards my remaining foe.
I scan the monsters even as I land and purposefully make noise. The sound draws the attention of the distant figure who is still standing and it lets out a loud roar as it begins to run, on all fours, towards me. I walk towards the being, determined to see how well I do with what I’m about to do, and I close my fist. The monster is fast, almost blindingly so, but I’m still faster and I’m not in a rush.
The strange creature reaches me and stands up straight as it balls its hands into a thick fist. This causes me to smile at it, and fully activate some of the perks I normally don’t use right away, such as Overclocked, Speed Up, and Slow Down which dramatically lower the beast’s speed. The monster is moving at incredibly slow speeds, and I walk forward, right up to its bloodstained torso, and do my own, superhuman spin, on a one-inch punch. I watch the force of my blow reverberate and send ripples through the monster’s chest, even as the monster reacts to my counterattack in hilariously slow motion compared to myself.
As the creature moves back, forced to do so by the force of my blow I place my hand on its blood covered torso and will the strange wellspring of psionic power inside of me to violently come to life. My hand trembles slightly as I grin and watch as the psionic force inside of me transforms as it exits my body and sends the creature careening back though in my perception the event occurs in slow motion. I watch as it violently hits one of its peers. The collision causes bones in their forcibly de-evolved bodies to snap and forces them to roar in pain.
I dart forward, taking advantage of my ability to move at near-normal speeds even in my time-altering state. As I move towards the foes I am surprised when my senses alert me to something, someone, suddenly appearing behind me. I hear the faint noises of reality-shifting to accommodate the sudden appearance of the stranger, even as I leap into the air and give myself some distance from the stranger. In midair I shift and turn and lay my eyes on where a figure is forming from nothing, a stranger in a dark cloak who looks confused as he finishes phasing into reality.
I look at him as I reach into my inventory. Without thinking, thanks to finely honed instincts I attained over the course of my past adventures, I withdraw a gun from my inventory and fire three shots, one at each of the monsters.
The monsters roar in pain and then perish, and I am able to confirm that the monsters were “Pipe-Dwellers” when I mentally inspect the menu created by Respawning Mooks and spot them in there. I don’t detect hostility radiating off of the stranger, and I decide to lean into the power of my social perks as I wait for him to inspect me. We regard each other, both sensing something strange about the other, before I break the silence.
“Hey, what’s going on?” I ask, casually. This makes the figure pause and then smile at me.
“I’m looking for something here. I have been for a few days now. You’re the first person I’ve seen who can talk.” He explains, his voice low. I pause and consider his words, before I begin to speculate about his identity.
There are a number of unique entities in The Backrooms, though the Liminal Archives continuity is not particularly well known for its unique entities. Normally that would be something relevant, but right now I’m here to fix a break in reality itself, one allowing creatures from other continuities into this one. This figure could be several beings, though the way he phased into reality makes me wonder if he’s The Keymaster or something. I’m pretty sure some Limspace Systems do have a figure analogous to The Keymaster…
“You know what’s crazy? I’m also searching for something. Want to help each other?” I ask, after he finishes giving me cryptic clues as to his purpose here. He regards me, studies the gun in my hand, and eventually begins to smile before nodding at me. I will my gun to vanish, something he notes with a curious look but doesn’t comment on my actions. For now I’ll count on Secrecy Insurance to guide me… I turn my head in the direction of the Quest Markers trail and when I begin to walk he follows after me.
We march in relative silence and the ground begins to glitch out underneath us again. I am surprised to note that one of his eyes begins to glitch out as well, though I don’t say anything about it.
We eventually reach the corpses of the monsters, and I get to see what the creatures were surrounding. A corpse, with numerous savage bite marks, is laying on the floor. The corpse is unidentifiable, and when we reach it we walk past the thing without saying a thing. Behind it is a door leading deeper into the vault, and the Quest Trails perk is leading me there. My traveling companion watches as I approach the door and place a hand on it.
I have no real choice but to use my powers here, openly, but my companion is also a fully powered being so I don’t really think much of this though it annoys a part of me. I shut my eyes and use my telekinetic abilities on the other side of the door, using my special talent with feelers allow me to visualize what’s on the other side of the door. My mind fills with handy sensory information on the dimensions of the room and I use that information to twist the wheel on the other side of the vault door and after a few moments I manage to open the door. I smirk as I feel my talent with subtle usages of my telekinesis increase.
I step into another huge room, and I look at the massive chamber with curiosity. In the middle of the room lies a strange vortex composed of visible blue energy, and in the middle of it lies a floating bottle filled with a blue liquid. I turn and look at my companion and smile.
“Is that what you were looking for?” I ask, and he grins.
“I… I think so.” He remarks. We turn and walk towards it, but the moment we begin to draw closer to the vortex it darkens and the aura-like storm of energy begins to intensify. Portions of the concrete floor are suddenly torn from the ground and form an awkward shield around the thing. I point my hand in the direction of the bottle, and try to pull it towards me but it resists my efforts and I grimace. The thing simply refuses to come towards me, so I know that I will have to move towards it. I begin to walk towards the thing when a chunk of the concrete floor I’m on suddenly rips itself from the ground and begins to move erratically. I don’t hesitate and I kneel down and use one of my perks to lock the thing in place, freezing it and then moving into mid-air and beginning to fly towards the bottle.
This seems to annoy the thing, or something to that effect, as a whole column of the concrete floor in the room is suddenly liberated from gravity and then unceremoniously tossed at me. I bob and weave to dodge the chunks of concrete, able to deftly maneuver around them in mid-air thanks to my own skill with flight as well as perks that allow me to be an expert at motion and movement.
The concrete is almost certainly being guided somehow since when it misses it spins around to come after me, something which annoys me greatly even if it is kind of cool. I eventually begin to shatter some of the concrete, mixing my superhuman strength with my telekinesis to bust apart some of the chunks of the stuff, sending rubble and powdered concrete crashing to the floor beneath me. I am slowly making progress towards the bottle, and as I do more and more of the floor of the vault begins to be lifted into the sky to try and stop me.
My traveling companion is also being targeted by concrete, but he is able to dodge most of it with ease. When two blocks seemingly working together surround him I focus on one of them and break it apart with a single, focused strike of telekinesis and tell him to leap to the side. He is able to dodge the remaining projectile with ease. The vortex suddenly glitches and the concrete surrounding it begins to fall, which is a moment I take advantage of.
I mix my flight with a sprinting perk I possess and hurl myself at the bottle. It continues to glitch, surrounded by equally glitchy energy, and I grin as I fly into the vortex and grab the bottle. It glitches in my hand and I unstopper it and chug the bright blue fluids within, which causes the vortex to vanish. My companion raises his hands in triumph at my display and then promptly vanishes before he can say anything else. At the same time a notification appears in my mind’s eye that makes me grin.
[Alert: Reality Triumphant
Your actions have weakened the corrosive effects occurring to this slice of reality. While creatures already here will remain here, no more alien entities will phase into existence on this level. As a token of our appreciation, have this.
Reward: [Mid-Tier] [Generic Worldwalker] [Status: Unlocked].
Track down and destroy other instances of corrosive meta-objects to be further rewarded.]
My eyes widen as I feel a tidal wave of new power soaking into me, even as I feel the effects of the “Essence Of The Commanding General” begin to wash over me as well. I immediately gain experience with “Integration”, a new perk I now possess thanks to “Prior Training”, one of the immediate “Generic Worldwalker” perks I had access to. I use it on “Integration”, a perk that lets me see a spiritual blueprint of myself, and I pull it up so that I can see what is occurring to me.
What I see when I focus on the power is a long list of perks I have, and their sources. I quickly sort this list, and am surprised when I sort it by source and find several perks that are connected to each other and nothing else, in much the same way that Afarkuap Avarkostir is by itself.
The list of perks and their descriptions is curious. Several of them have the word “Warlord” in their name, while the rest do not. In total the list is Gene Edited, Awakening, Tactical Talents, Seeing Patterns, Commander Mentality, Mind Of A Warlord, Warlord Gathering, Warlord Body, Warlord Production, Warlord Development, and Warlord Looks. As I become aware of them I feel time freeze and I get to see a character creation screen appear where I am the character in question.
This is a manifestation of Warlord Looks a perk that lets me design my own appearance. It feels weird, and I immediately alert it that I look how I want to look which deactivates it. I inspect it and find that it cannot be reactivated, which is amusing, and I wonder if I’ll be able to activate it at the start of my next jump.
I study the quiet room, and begin to inspect my litany of new abilities, as well as the new items I possess, which are already being affected by the secret essence I possess. I am dramatically stronger, not physically but in every other way, now than I was moments ago and I need to beat to adjust to the new types of power I possess.
New types of energy are now nestled within me, circulating through my body, strange and unfamiliar to my conscious mind but energetic and quietly calling to me. I feel mana, the power used to fuel spells, as well as qi, flowing through my blood. I close my eyes and feel Prior Experience influencing my newly gained powers, and granting me advanced knowledge of techniques and schools of discipline in each of the central power sets I have just unlocked.
I open my eyes and will magic into my fingertips and with a thought sacrifice a small quantity of my magical energy. The energy seeps out of me and forms a sphere before spontaneously bursting into flames. The orb illuminates the vault and I smile as I witness the power of my own magical energy. I reach out and touch the fire and wince as it burns me, before retracting my finger and studying the burned flesh. I watch it for a few moments before I notice the skin slowly beginning to recover, regenerating perfectly, and I let out an amazed laugh.
Right as my other self finishes work for the day I decide to make a big move. I switch consciousnesses with the me that is working at the pub, and go to find Gianna. Armed with all sorts of fascinating tools, like Kingmaker, a perk that allows me to identify someone’s most skilled areas and also teach them assorted things at a remarkable speed, I make the decision to go ahead and reveal that I am an Anomalous Human, a creature like her: someone with some level of supernatural powers and heritage.
FInding her is pretty easy, and when I use my charisma perks to get her to accompany me to a remote part of the city. It is only when we are alone and my enhanced senses detect no prying or curious eyes that I look at her and ask her to look me in the face. When the pretty wolf-girl is looking at me I activate one of my Essence of the Assassin abilities and purposefully change the color of my eyes right in front of her. This shocks the girl who freezes as she processes what she has just seen.
“I’m… like you. Kind of.” I remark, as I change my eye colors again, returning them from the blue I changed them to, to their natural brown.
“Whoa… That’s amazing!” Gianna eventually exclaims, before beginning to badger me with questions.
