Contents
Level 227 "How the king got his crown"
This page is a part of the Soulverse canon.
It is also my WIP entry to the writing competition on discord so no peeking!
Survival Difficulty
Undetermined safety
Unsecure
Presence of unknown entity
Description
Level 227 is a hilly expanse of dry, cracked earth approximately 150 km2 in area, ringed by mountains and orbited by a sun. The air in this level appears to affect the native entities as if it were water, with no direct effect on humans or equipment. This however does not affect the ability of humans to breathe the air, but can apparently be breathed by marine animals.
Entities
Level 227 is populated with aquatic wildlife seemingly identical to those found in the backrooms, with them appearing to swim through the air with no difficulty. The most common are shoals of a small unidentified silver fish and Blue Whales, with the smaller creatures found nearer the ground and larger creatures more often "swimming" at heights of approximately 100m. When the sun sets, entities resembling angler fish will swim out of fissures in the earth and hover in a fixed position in the air about a meter off the ground. Growing out of cracks in the ground are strands of Eye Kelp, a from of seaweed with ocular organs resembling human eyes, these entities straddle the line between entity and flora and fauna. They are made up of green fleshy stalks dotted with eyes with long leaf like structures splitting off the main stem and have an average height of 5 metres (16 ft). These leaves seem to act as both large surface areas to catch sunlight for photosynthesis and hiding the eyes from view until close inspection of the plant/entity. It is believed that all of the Eye Kelp is connected via some kind of underground root system and acts as a surveillance network. Contrary to the kelp native to the Frontrooms, Eye Kelp do not grow in proximity to one another, so instead of kelp forests, they give the impression of trees dotted around a dry and empty landscape.
They never quite knew what was waiting for them when they Hopped. The small black devices that allowed inter-level travel were unpredictable at best and deadly at worst, so you never quite knew where you would end up. The team of three eliminators glanced at each other, confirming they had all arrived safely before examining their surroundings. They were standing atop a small hill, the barren cracked earth beneath their feet stretched and undulated for miles before reaching upwards to form tan craggy mountains in every direction. The bleak landscape was only broken by the occasional tree, a drop of green in an ocean of yellow. "Quite a view" said Carrick Helms, the team lead, before jerking backwards as his expression changed from that of pensiveness to surprise. All three M.E.G members watched the bubbles that had just left Carrick's mouth float lazily upwards until they were indistinguishable from the blue abyss of a bright desert sky. Simon Grey exhaled heavily, causing a stream of bubbles to shoot from his mouth and follow the first group as if they all had a place to be. "We'd better get moving if we want to get anywhere by nightfall" noted Coral Wynn, barely containing her amusement at the bubbles slipping past her lips and scurrying off after the others like they had been left behind."Yeah," agreed Carrick, dragging himself away from watching the tiny bubbles leave Simon's nose as he breathed "I want to get this over and done with and I'm sure you do too". The others nodded in agreement, falling into step beside him as he started walking. Not long past before they were climbing another slope, this one with a tree worming it's way out of a crack in the dried mud and reaching upwards like a drowning man clutching desperately at the surface. Simon beelined for it and reached out a hand towards the leaves before recoiling, "Fuck!" he exclaimed. The other two, a few steps behind immediately trained their rifles on the plant but lowered them as Simon gestured at them. "Come look at this," he called, pushing the leaves away from the main stem and revealing the eyes that studded it. There was an audible intake of breath from Carrick and a soft "eugh" from Coral. A moment passed before Coral spoke, "Why are the leaves swaying?", Simon stepped back to look up at what was definitely not a tree as it moved back and forth in the breeze. "There's no wind." Carrick pointed out evenly. Their smiles gone, the trio continued onwards silently, leaving a rising trail of bubbles in their wake.After three hours of trudging across the blasted land Carrick noticed his teammates were starting to lag behind. Spotting a grey mass in the distance, he pointed to it "We rest at that rock for ten minutes" he stated, the words were left to hang in the air with no reply to keep them company. As they grew closer however, Carrick narrowed his eyes and readied his gun, maybe it was just the heathaze but he could've sworn... His teammates glanced at each other nervously and followed his example. The rock split in half and seamlessly flowed towards to group, fingers tightened on triggers and then relaxed, the shimmering shoal of fish passed over their heads and they watched it until it passed over the hill.