Level 1
rating: +66+x

Level Classification

Difficulty 1/5 This level is desolate and characterized by a lack of sustenance or materials. Long-term survival is unrealistic and aspects of this level have adverse mental effects. After a great enough time spent in the level, it will become psychologically impossible to distinguish between imagined and real sounds.
Entity Count 0/5 N/A
Chaos Gradient 1/5 Halls change rarely, loops can appear. The layout is non-linear. Lights and walls can be broken.
Basset-Frazier Index 0.667/5 This level, though disorienting, is still very livable in comparison to other levels.

Description

halls

fig 1.0 Level 1.

Level 1 is an infinitely expansive space that crudely resembles a barren office. The walls are textured with mono-yellow wallpaper and an oily red liquid endlessly drips through the cracks between ceiling panels. The beige shag carpeting is always damp, occasionally forming puddles. Drinking this substance causes bodily mutations and vulnerability to mental deterioration.

The level is made up of rectangular rooms with extremely variable proportions; rooms may be extremely wide, impossibly tall, or too narrow for anyone to fit through. Rooms are frequently larger than the confines of the surrounding area should allow, suggesting a level of spatial overlap. There are many floors of Level 1, each separated by about 20 meters and hundreds of layers of the same damp, shag carpeting.

Alternate floors are accessible through massive cylindrical shafts with steel-plated walls, stretching through dozens of floors. These shafts can be found every few hundred rooms, behind thick steel doors that usually require a crowbar or similar tool to pry open. The shafts have a constant updraft of warm, damp air, and vents dotted across the walls, damp carpet fluff puffing through the grates, liquid dripping out. Blue bulb lights appear within the walls at regular intervals, lighting the shafts dimly.

It is possible to descend these shafts to reach lower floors. However, the floors do not have any distinct characteristics or markings that would delineate any orientation. It is common for explorers to descend floors and still find rooms with identifying markings or items from rooms in above floors. Descending the shafts using ropes or other means may be a necessary escape in dire situations, however, it is nigh impossible to ascend through the shafts due to the slippery walls and lack of protrusions.

Precursor Checkpoint Terminals commonly exist within shafts, at the center of gridded steel platforms that extend from the shafts' circumference. It is believed that shafts do not have vertical ends.

Additionally, fluorescent ceiling lights fill Level 1 with a constant hum buzz, permeating the air with ambient noise at unnerving volume. These lights are often broken, glass shattered on the ground and wires dangling and bulbs dangling. The humming sound is known to cause various psychological effects such as auditory hallucinations and stressed disorientation; it is advised to take refuge in the shafts where there are no fluorescent lights when one is starting to feel these effects.

Some sections of Level 1 show signs of extreme damage as if abandoned partially through demolition. Plaster chunks from the walls are torn out and left on the floor, usually from a pickaxe, but claw marks have also been observed. The beams of the walls are often torn and broken, showing signs of stretching as if the level were supported from above rather than below. Some sections of wallpaper appear to be drooping from the water damage and/or being torn from the wall.

Objects do not appear in this level very often, leading to the risk of dehydration and starvation for those that enter this Level without supplies. Bodies tend to disappear from where they died; where they go is unknown.


Communities

UNCB Outpost Kochni

The UNCB Capital of Level 1, a population of approximately 100 citizens, consists of a group of rooms with doors created by the inhabitants to prevent accidental entry.

BRU Outpost Battitri

A research outpost, established by the BRU when the nature of the walls of the level was discovered to be anomalous. It became more of a residential outpost after those experiments concluded, now numbering about 150 residents.

JRC Outpost Takashiri

When the UNCB was established and the Jade Razor Clan joined, it was mandated that every faction must have an outpost that can be accessed by citizens of other factions at any time, so they established Takashiri on Level 1. It has a small population and is hardly used, but there is always one prominent member of the faction, never more or less.

Assorted Camps

These camps are spread very sparsely across Level 1. These camps are typically abandoned from years of neglect, plastered with a faded logo. The active camps are run by people who live in Level 1. Keep in mind, a majority of these are private property and better to be ignored.


Entrances and Exits

Entrances

Level 1 and The Backrooms in general can only be entered from an outside universe. Another way to enter Level 1 is via its sub-levels.

Exits

The only known exits from Level 1 lead to Level 2 via a special staircase or Level 1's sub-levels.

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