The Red Knight
rating: +141+x
knight.jpg

Entity 1. Photograph taken by Emilie Langermann, after her rescue.

Habitat - All



Description

The Red Knight is known to nearly everyone in the Backrooms. If you haven’t met him personally, you’ve heard about him from someone who has. I’m recording what I know and what I’ve gathered from others in this document for the sake of posterity and respect, more than actual research - but unfortunately, there's not a lot to write down.

You’ll know the Red Knight if you see him, because he’s a fucking knight. You don’t really get a lot of those around here. From what little I can remember from Wikipedia, he’s equipped with armor that would have been appropriate for the late sixteenth century, but I’m not sure if that means anything. He’s got a sword that’s too big to be worn on the hip, so he tends to shoulder carry it. Sometimes he has a shield, sometimes he doesn’t. He wears a red cape with gold trim, which is great for visibility, fortunately for us. All this is in good condition, but you can tell it’s old. The armor has some dents in it and the cape is tattered at the end.

He’s average height, average fit build. If it weren’t for the getup you probably wouldn’t notice him. But I hope you do notice him if he’s around, especially if you get lost. Or cornered. Considering how long this guy’s been around and how much ass he beats, there’s no way he’s human. It might even be wrong to call him a “he” at all, but I don’t care, he sounded male when he spoke to me. You’re probably only reading this because he can cut monsters in half with one swipe of that blade of his, and the whole… magic, thing. We’re not entirely sure how that works, but frankly we’re not sure about anything, are we.

Behaviors





What sets the Red Knight apart from a lot of the ghoulies and ghosties we bump into in this fucked up labyrinth dimension is the fact that he doesn’t try to eat your face the moment he sees you. None of us are entirely sure how or why, but the Red Knight seems to show up right around when someone new falls into the Backrooms. The running theory is that he has some kind of ESP or magical sense that lets him find people, or maybe he’s in tune with whatever magic or quirk of physics that results in us getting trapped in here with the first place. More on that further down.

It’s the same story, person after person, hundreds of times now. Poor Billy falls into the Backrooms. Billy winds up on 8 or 777 or 200 or something, and some real fucked up shit is about to happen to Billy, real quick. We’ve all found enough skeletons in here to know how this usually ends up. But, sometimes, the Red Knight finds Billy before he can get his guts thrown everywhere like a ball of yarn. And good for Billy! Because the Red Knight generally rescues newcomers. Usually by putting himself between the survivor and whatever is trying to eat them and slashing the things to ribbons.

Sometimes he talks to who he rescues, but he’s not a great conversationalist. From most accounts, he only spends time enough to give the survivor instructions before throwing them into that portal thing he does. Yeah, we’re not sure how exactly the Red Knight does this, but he can use his sword to cut open a portal to another level of the Backrooms. Again, this story is consistent across hundreds of accounts. You look for the circle with the equal-arm cross. You ignore the voices, and walk through the light without stopping. Once you find the symbol and touch it, you get spat out somewhere near where there’s other people. Usually this is a M.E.G. encampment of some kind, but sometimes people just fall out of a glowing white rip in the air in front of an expeditionary force. Signed, sealed, and delivered safe.

We’re assuming that something bad happens to anyone who ignores or disregards his instructions, because there’s no one around here who claims to have done it.

Other than that, the Red Knight has been known to show up when people are in a bind. Again, we’re not sure how he accomplishes this. It’s either some kind of omniscience thing or the universe has some sense of dramatic irony after all. You went down the wrong shaft, you got separated from your crew, your gun jams. Your back is against a wall or you’re walking in circles in the dark. About to be something’s lunch, or set to die an agonizing death of dehydration, drinking your own piss for four days until your body gives out.

Then the Red Knight steps out of a cut in the air. And you find your way back home.

We all want to know more about him, why and how he does the things he does. Or at least some kind of hint about who he is. But he’s not much of a talker. He just sends us on our way.

Biology

We’re not entirely sure if he has any? Biology, I mean? These forms are kind of meant for other sorts of stuff, I’m just making do with what’s around. I’ll just talk about the things I’ve heard he can do.

One thing for sure is that the Red Knight is superhuman. No question. We’ve seen this guy go toe to toe with threats both known and unknown, while outnumbered, and still come out on top. He’s strong enough to lift and throw a grown man with one arm and swing that greatsword like a twig, and so fast that some have reported his boots glowing red and kicking up sparks while he fights. Old Maurice said he saw the Red Knight get backhanded into a stone wall by an ogre. He hit it so hard that he left a man-shaped impression in the stone, but he pried himself out and kept fighting.

That said, we don’t think he’s invincible. There are a few stories of the Red Knight getting into fights that only barely left him time to open his gateway and throw the survivor in with the right instructions, and other times where he was really badly messed up by the end of the fight. Limping, cradling a broken arm, riddled with dents and holes from spikes or arrows or whatever he’s having to deal with. He must bounce back pretty fast, though, because none of that damage appears to have been permanent. The upshot is that it seems like the Red Knight can be defeated - it’s just that no one would have been left alive to recount what they saw. Those sites we’ve found in some zones, with the sword slashes and signs of a struggle? But no one can remember being there before? Yeah, you’re probably thinking what we’re thinking. Unlike us, the Red Knight might have some kind of… escape clause or immortality or something, because if he has been beaten in the past, he’s come back every time.



Discovery

It feels almost ironic writing something about how we “discovered” the Red Knight. I don’t think that’s how it worked at all, I’m pretty sure he discovered us. Think about it. You fall into the Backrooms at random. You could end up anywhere at all. We’ve all heard the stories, there are almost as many entrypoints as there are people. How did a human society even come about in a place like this? There are only, what, a few hundred of us? Maybe a thousand on the outside? How the hell did we ever get any kind of organization at all?

Well, I’ve got a theory. I think the Red Knight did it. I don’t know if he did it on purpose, but we all know that he tends to drop you off near other people. And I think that’s by design. I think the fact that we even have a human enclave in the middle of all this shit is because of him. I think he wants us to stick together. Because he knows better than anyone else that this place wasn’t made for us. And we don’t stand a fucking chance all by ourselves.

He may not always be around, and we might not always meet him, but he’s the closest damn thing to a God that this place has, and I think we should all thank our lucky stars that he’s there. Where the hell would we be right now if he wasn’t?






Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License