[A small M.E.G. team is travelling across Level 10. The fields are normal. It's what's in them that is not.]
Damien Green: What the… What's that dome? I thought the only structures that appeared here were barns and silos. If this is something that changes everything we know about this place, I swear…
Jayden Park: Exploration detachment "Harvest" speaking. We've found an abnormality. Some giant dome in the middle of the path. You want us to go in? Are you sure it won't be dangerous? Uh-huh. Acknowledged.
Rachel May: Well, what did they say?
Jayden Park: They want us to investigate. Follow me.
[The three explorers walk through a set of automatic sliding doors, which seem out of place for what they find inside. Within the dome are dozens of market stalls along dirt paths, with boxes and crates scattered around them.]
Jayden Park: Damien, go ahead and check out some of the stalls. I'll report back what you find.
[As Damien turns to walk down one of the paths, Jayden sets his radio equipment down near the entrance.]
Jayden Park: We're in the building. There's a bunch of market stalls and stuff, for some reason. How would I know why it needs a dome? Yeah, the stalls seem to be pretty stocked up. We'll run some tests on the food to see if it's safe.
Damien Green: Uh, Jayden? Big problem over here!
Jayden Park: One moment, base. What is it?
Damien Green: People have been in here before. There's a bunch of skeletons laying around one of the stalls over there, the one with a blue and white roof.
[He points in the direction, which is partially obscured by other stalls.]
Damien Green: No idea how they died. They don't have any records. A couple have broken limbs, but that could've been caused by a lot of things.
Jayden Park: I think we should all check to see if you missed anything. We can't risk it.
Rachel May: Can I stay with the radio? I… Really don't feel like seeing more corpses.
Jayden Park: No, we need everyone in on this. This place could have brought hostile entities, which would be a security hazard to the rest of Level 10, especially if they make more… Can they even do that?
Rachel May: God, fine… Why am I still scared of cadavers when I live in the cadaver factory anyway?
[The three pick the radio equipment back up and follow Damien's route. The bodies seem to be either laying down or slumped over, and there's no collateral damage to the surroundings that suggests a fight. There are also no signs of food remains left in the skeletons.]
Jayden Park: Seems like they starved to death… In a dome filled to the brim with food? What, is it fake, or something?
[Damien scans an apple in one of the stands with a Red Light White Light - one coloured red, and slightly reflective - and takes a bite after confirming it's safe.]
Damien Green: Seems real. And tastes pretty good, actually. It's like it's fresh from a tree.
Jayden Park: . This is team "Harvest" again! Damien's found the remains of some people, all skeletal. They seem to have starved to death. So a structure like this disappeared in Level 140 a while ago? Yeah, there's food all around, but they still starved, we don't get it. Yeah, that seems good. Alright, I'll see what we can do.
Rachel May: Wait, so this building is from another level? How'd it get here?
[Damien shrugs before answering.]
Damien Green: I guess it somehow no-clipped. It's pretty rare for that to happen, but 140 isn't exactly known for it's stability.
Rachel May: So, what do we do with this place?
Jayden Park: We're going to set up a temporary base to research the properties of the building, and bring the food here out to the bases in Level 4 and 11. We didn't manage to get any people to it before, so this is our first chance. We should probably take it.
Damien Green: I just had a thought about how the people died. Rachel, you have the remote camera, right?
Rachel May: Uh, yeah, why?
Damien Green: Put it on one of the stalls, I want to test something. Jayden, can you carry one of the watermelons out of the store? Rachel, you come too once the camera is set up.
Jayden Park: I'm not sure how this would solve anything, but any idea is better than none.
[The group carries the watermelon out of the dome, Rachel half-paying attention the screen connected to the camera. When they step foot back into Level 10, the stall restocks back to how it was a few moments ago.]
Rachel May: Wait, what? Was that one there before?
Damien Green: Nope. Just like I thought, the food only restocks when nobody's looking, or, rather, in the dome.
Jayden Park: Well, that's an infinite food glitch if I've ever seen one. Damien, we can make good use of this. Bring as much food as you can out here. Yeah, base? Good news for once. The dome is basically an infinite food source, if you like organic products. It regenerates any food we take when nobody's inside. I think it should last pretty long, it's much less likely for a whole building to no-clip here than in 140. Wait, why's the wind picking up? From… Behind us? Wait, wait, shit, NO-
SURVIVAL DIFFICULTY:
Class Theta
- Safe
- Unsecure
- Inconsistent Location
The dome.
The Travelling Market is a large dome containing numerous market stalls. At first glance, there is nothing out of the ordinary about it. The level is finite, and the stalls are stocked with food and tools. But as with most things in the Backrooms, it has several abnormalities. The two main ones are listed below.
Abnormality 1:
When the dome is unobserved and unoccupied, the stalls inside will restock all of their food. This is good for resource gathering.
Abnormality 2:
At random, the level can change its location. It has been observed flying out of Level 10 when it was being researched by the M.E.G. What causes the level to move is not yet understood. Its current whereabouts are unknown; if you so happen to find the level, please report its location immediately.
Entities:
N/A.
Entrances and Exits:
Inconsistent.
Things return to normal for a few days - well, as normal as they can be in the Backrooms. The Travelling Market is unseen for several weeks. Efforts to find the level are conducted to secure its resources, but no trace is found, and the mission is soon cancelled. Then it returns as quickly as it had left, landing in the desert of Level 628.
Harry Quint: Hey! Something's coming up from the ground!
John Grey: A giant dome… Isn't that the one moving level that got discovered a while ago?
Harry Quint: I think it is.
[They see an unkempt man stagger out of the building, before collapsing onto the sand. They run towards him to help.]
Harry Quint: Hey! Are you ok? Can you hear us?
Damien Green: Ugh… finally… I'm back…
Harry Quint: We need to get this guy down to the Sand Bunker. We've got you, hold on!
John Grey: He's got a record book, should I read through it?
Harry Quint: Yeah, go ahead. There might be some information he can't tell us right now in there.
[He opens the record book and begins reading through the pages.]
Test.
Day 1
Record 1:
For once I thought something would go right for me, and maybe society as a whole. Unlimited food, free shelter, new research, and now I'm FLYING IN A DOMED MARKET CENTRE, FOR SOME REASON! There's not even a pilot, nor any controls, and the exit locked, so I can't even jump back down. If the last group of people are anything to go by, I'm going to run out of food and die. Definitely not the way I planned on going out.
Record 2:
The level just went through a rift in the sky. There seems to be some kind of purple void through the windows, now. Exactly what I didn't want, this is probably "something that changes everything we know about this place."
The only good thing right now is a stable gravity and air supply in here. I'm working on organising food supplies so it can sustain me for a maximal amount of time, but it's difficult. There's no water, but at least the fruits are juicy.
Whenever I look outside, I feel huge amounts of vertigo. When I don't, I feel motion-sick. I would really like to NOT throw up in an enclosed space.
Record 3:
Now I'm going through some giant ocean world. It doesn't feel like Level 7. There's a bunch of house-sized jellyfish swimming around, and they're electrifying the water. Even the air in the dome feels staticky. I think they're sending morse code signals — too bad that I never learnt it.
Day 2
Record 1:
I should probably find something besides "Day" to separate significant periods of time. There's not exactly a consistent day/night cycle, because the level is going through different places constantly. Outside the windows, it now seems like some kind of planet made entirely of sapphire, probably enough to crash the gem's trading economy. If it's any different on the day side, I can't tell, because it's reflecting too much light.
Day 3
Record 1:
It's becoming rather apparent that I have nothing to do in here besides write and draw in this book, observe the outside, or sleep. I can't look outside for long due to previously mentioned factors, or sleep, or focus on drawing for any considerable amount of time. I'm going through the place I wanted to go most as a kid, yet my spacecraft feels like a prison.
Somehow, the dome is now speeding between two stars in some kind of spaceship racing contest. It's in 3rd. You cannot make this shit up. I have no idea where I am am, but this cannot be the Backrooms, nor the Frontrooms, unless I'm hallucinating. I'm not sure whether being higher than Level 93 or being in an alien universe is worse.
Record 2:
The race is over, and the dome got 2nd place. Some weird people with the heads of mice grabbed the dome in a tractor beam, docked at the main entrance, gave me a medal and a few thousand sheets of platinum, then left. They're probably just as confused as I am. I considered following, but I have no idea if I'm even compatible with the laws of physics in this universe, so I decided against it.
The medal is made of jade, rather than silver. I guess they do this with gems instead of metals, but in that case, I have no idea what the platinum is for.
Record 3:
Do you ever wonder if the Frontrooms are actually a parallel universe of a more canon reality?
Record 4:
After leaving the race behind, another bunch of mouse-heads docked and took a few hundred of the platinum sheets. Did I just get space taxes? Even in a parallel universe, they can't be avoided…
Day 4
Record 1:
I've noticed a lot of the food going past the expiration date. I ate and drank it all to save wasting it and having it actually turn nasty. That's the first big meal I've had in a while, and I didn't have to share it with anybody. Maybe being locked in a giant dome isn't the worst thing in the… Multiverse?
Record 2:
The dome just clipped a massive cluster of pure energy, and set off a chain reaction that created a Big Bang event. I really don't want to know what that has to say about our own universe. But, hey, at least the theory is proven, in a way.
Record 3:
And… Back to no fun we go. This time, the world I flew through was under the control of some dystopian police state. No building lacked their flag — it looked almost comically villainous. They tried blowing up the dome as soon as we arrived. What a bunch of kill-joys, huh? But the level somehow dodged all of the shells. I'm starting to think it's conscious. Just another absurdity in this experience.
Day 5
Record 1:
Big news: the dome just passed by what looked like the dwarf planet Eris. I thought I had a chance to go back to the Frontrooms, but of all things, there was a massive neon sign that said "Welcome to Magnus, the most unique solar system in the galaxy!" Yes, for some reason, they wrote in English there. I'm not sure which universe is infringing on the copyright of the other.
Record 2:
A time anomaly just sent me through a speedrun of the whole history of this universe. I didn't pay attention to any of it. I'll say that it's because my mind couldn't handle all the information, not that I was finally able to overcome motion-sickness and start sleeping, and didn't want to waste some rest.
Record 3:
I just met a mirrored version of myself on some barren planet. By mirrored, I mean that literally - he moved exactly as I would but in a mirrored way, no matter what I tried. For some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to take out my stress on it. The result was a missing tooth for both of us, and my continued inability to leave this place.
Record 4:
I've set up a small mushroom farm with some compost and… Mushrooms, obviously. At least I'll have a long-lasting food source. A long-lasting sanity is another matter.
Record 5:
The dome just went into a 2 dimensional universe. Me and everything in the dome went completely flat against some invisible wall. It didn't hurt, but being unable to move on the Z axis felt incredibly restrictive.
Day 6
Record 1:
Forget my idea of changing "Day" to something else. No other terms have come to my mind.
Record 2:
The store just passed through Level 1. Unfortunately, nobody was around to see it. That's definitely a major downside to infinite spaces.
Record 3:
For some reason, I keep hearing the sounds of people shouting advertisements for their produce. I don't feel it, but my mental state cannot be good right now.
Day 7
Record 1:
The sounds of a busy market are constant, and deafening, even though I know it's empty. I can't even sleep at all now. If I go insane, when or if I get out, this will likely be the reason.
Record 2:
The dome has stopped. There's some giant cosmic being staring at it… Or at me. It seems to be made out of galactic fibres.
It looks sort of like a cat, I guess. Maybe that's to look less threatening, maybe that's its natural state, I don't know. It's getting closer to the dome, though. This might be the end of me. Maybe it's for the best, because I don't feel like starving to death when the food runs out.
Record 3:
UPDATE: The cosmic cat thing swiped the dome like it was a ball of yarn, hard enough to send it into another universe. I was leaning against a stall when it happened, so I wasn't flung across the dome and killed. I think the dome is coming to land somewhere, now. I guess I'll try to exit here. Whatever happens can't be worse than dying, and I don't think I'm destined to do that right now.
John Grey: He's a little injured, but should be able to recover.
Harry Quint: How long has he been gone for?
John Grey: A week, according to the record book. It could be more or less. He wrote that using days, which would be inaccurate where he went.
Harry Quint: Get a contact with the M.E.G. It's probably best if more warnings about the level went around.
SURVIVAL DIFFICULTY:
Class Theta
- Safe
- Unsecure
- Inconsistent Location
The dome.
The Travelling Market is a large dome that travels between locations at random, both inside and out of the Backrooms. The length of this period is often a week or longer.
When travelling, the level will continuously no-clip through different dimensions, in or outside of the Backrooms. Staying inside the level as it does this is safe, although prolonged stays can result in psychological harm due to isolation. Currently, only one person is known to have survived in the level during its movement period.
If it has appeared somewhere recently, taking food and supplies from the Travelling Market is generally safe. These restock whenever the level is unobserved and unoccupied. However, getting too comfortable with this often leads to the level no-clipping away with one or more people inside, who are unfortunately expected to die as the resources in the level will become finite for them.
If you come across the level, report its location to M.E.G. authorities. Do not attempt to enter the structure.