Chapter 1: A Prelude
Night has fallen on the part of the Almond Fields where a decently sized group has set up camp. A moon, as fake as most environmental niceties are in the Backrooms, illuminates the night sky. An uncountable number of stars are visible, but none of the campers pay them any mind.
None of the people who are part of the group are newcomers. Every wanderer who has made it to the Almond Fields has undoubtedly survived countless ordeals to get to this mostly peaceful place. As a consequence of their experience they all know that the stars are fake, even if they twinkle as beautifully as any real-world or "Front Rooms" stars would.
"Pass me some almond water, would you?" Mutters a gruff voice, which belongs to an even gruffer looking man, who struggles to be heard over the crackles of the campfire and the different peals of laughter that spontaneously emanate from different corners of the camp.
One of the people sitting around the campfire grabs a waterskin from the communal pack the group has traveled with and tosses it to the figure who just requested it. He quietly thanks the young man who heard him, and the figure silently nods at him.
The group of wanderers, if the former nomads can still reasonably be called that, are safe. In the Backrooms safety is a rare thing, but all eleven of the figures who inhabit the camp are safe and they all know that. The safety they have earned is what allows them to feel comfortable setting up a camp like this and resting, even in the Almond Fields, a place that is well known for being one of the safest levels in the Backrooms.
That safety, something they all fought long and hard for, is something almost none of them take for granted. The one exception to the trend of not taking one's safety for granted is a handsome man who is all smiles as he mentally keeps track of the time. He is just minutes from midnight, a time at which he knows that something will happen that ensures he, most likely, never has to worry about the Backrooms ever again.
Marcus, the one wanderer with meta-knowledge, is supremely relaxed. He is currently shirtless, and he rests near the fire, closer to it than almost anyone else dares to get. He enjoys the warmth of the fire and the way his proximity to it gets him sweating.
His muscles glisten as sweat trickles down his chest. A few of his fellow wanderers do their best to only subtly watch the figure, unaware of the true depths of his unusual nature. To them he is just another wanderer, an unlucky son of a bitch who at some point in the past "Spliced" into the Backrooms.
He's purposefully cultivated the idea that he is "just like them" in that regard, rather than being seen as a freak or, in this context at least, worse; someone with a way out of this hellish dimension. Truthfully in his eyes this is all a simulation, a place where almost nothing he does truly matters, and given the nature of the "Generic First Jump" he's been in for the last nine years he's not wrong.
Marcus revels in the attention he receives. He spends the last few minutes he has on this "Level", and thus in this jump, basking in the rush of hedonistic joy he feels as the eyes of his fellow wanderers on his body. He lets out a hearty laugh when time slows to a stop around him.
He extends his hand forward, into the campfire, and smirks even as his hand touches the unmoving flame. It is not hot to the touch, nor does he feel any desire to yank his limb back. The look on his face is one of jubilant pride and triumph.
Marcus hears the familiar pinging noise of his personalized system hitting him with an "Alert", a personalized mental textbox informing him of important but occasional bits of knowledge related to his own body, the nature of his journey, or his immediate surroundings. The handsome young man, who looks to be in his very early twenties or his very late teens, silently reads the thing and his sharp eyes narrow in curiosity.
The message is about his achievements here and presents him with a choice. According to the thing he could elect to return to "Real" Earth, the one he is from, and keep the powers he earned for completing the "Generic First Jump", or he could "Continue his chain" and, in this case, proceed to another alternate Earth. The man's next destination, assuming he elects to continue his journey, has already been picked for him but he is told that in the future he may be able to select his own destinations if he is impressive enough during these next few "Jumps".
The choice between returning to his boring, mundane life on the version of Earth he was born on or continuing this journey is not hard. He is basically being asked if he would like to return to the life he once led as an average looking accountant for a small business in a dreary New England town, even with the powers and perks he's gained thanks to the decade-long adventure he's already been on… Or if he would like to have the chance, however small, to become a god, a superhero, and live a thousand lives.
He already knows that if he returns to the Earth of his birth, he may never get another chance like this. The man himself only got the chance to go on a chain because of his inborn nature as a magically gifted human, itself an unusual anomaly given the nature of his home world…
If he goes back to his mundane life, he'd only get to keep what he already has. His system has explicitly told him that while going back would allow him to safely return home it would burn out his current stores of magic in a way that they wouldn't recover from. He'd be mundane in every way aside from the perks he has right now. Nevertheless, Marcus's adventures over the past decade have emboldened him and he is much braver than he was before his first jump began.
The youthful fool makes the easy choice, which his system detects even without conscious input from the jumper, and a split second later the text in the alert in his mind's eye changes. The man reads it and his eyes light up with both interest and concern. There are only five words in the text box.
[Generic Creepypasta/Horny Horror Jump]
The man reads and then rereads the text box. As he does his mind, sharpened by several different perks, fills with various mental images. He envisions creatures like "Jeff the Killer" or "Slenderman" running amuck, along with other… more disturbing mental images, of what such creatures might do to their victims in a world colored by the meta-textual subtitle "Horny Horror".
Marcus is both intrigued and slightly concerned by the possibilities such a world might hold for him. Marcus's expression softens as the words in the text box vanish and are replaced by new words. They indicate that he is being scanned by his system and assessed to help determine what perks to confer to him, as well as what origins, items, and companions to give him. It takes what Marcus's internal clock tells him must be several minutes before the text box changes yet again.
[Alert: [Build] Completed & Other Pertinent Notifications
You have become a [Human] [Documenter], with all of the perks available to either origin. You have gained all the items attainable by such individuals, some of which have been spread throughout your [Starting Location] in ways that, locally, make sense. A [Nexus Event] will take place shortly after you arrive in the world that allows you to meet a few potential [Companions]. Your [Starting Location] is this world's version of your hometown. Your [Age] and [Gender] are the same as your [Age] and [Gender] were during the [Generic First Jump].
Be forewarned, [Drawbacks] were taken to allow you to attain the power you have attained. None of the [Drawbacks] are actively pursuing you from the start of your time in this world, but your energy will suffuse and elevate them. Caution is advised, as one of them is especially powerful and if alerted to your presence or the presence of your companions it will become extremely hostile. If a companion from this setting perishes, such a death is final and such companions will not follow you on your [Chain].
The world you are entering is currently receiving its first infusion of the chaotic energy you exude as a [Jumper]. This process will take a few minutes, from your perspective, and when it is done you will be transported to your [Starting Location]; the [Suburban Home] your in-jump identity owns. During the transitory period you will spend being transported to your [Starting Location] you will receive all the memories of your in-jump identity.]
All this news is, in fact, news to Marcus. This doesn't really surprise him itself, as he understood the simulated nature of his first jump well enough to know that rules would be significantly different during his second jump, but it's still a bit concerning. He takes a deep breathe and he relaxes as he waits for his surroundings to blur and for the transitory process both he and the world he is heading to complete itself.
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During this time the "Earth" he is destined to appear in begins to undergo changes. Certain inhabitants of this world, from a plucky group of teenaged detectives to a grizzled monster hunter, are lightly touched by the creative and chaotic energies of the jumper, while others are changed in decidedly less positive ways.
Of special note, as far as changed beings go, is a creature that when time freezes on the planet Marcus is heading to is moments from mauling a surprised fawn. The creature is an unholy beast, and at the moment it has the form of a truly massive tiger with unnatural, jellyfish-like tentacles sprouting from its back. The tendrils were whipping and whirling around the creature when time stopped.
The shapeshifting monstrosity is mere centimeters from the creature it intends to make a mid-morning meal out of and is in Black Turn Brook State Forest. Situated in quaint and sparsely populated Essex County, Vermont, the state forest is a place that is familiar to Marcus as it was where he went camping on more than one occasion growing up on the "Earth" of his birth.
In the alternate Earth Marcus is "minutes" from arriving in, this forest is a curious destination and has become an informal proving ground for many would-be paranormal investigators. That said, none of them have encountered anything like the savage monster that has spent the last few days hunting in the forest.
The chaotic energy that Marcus exudes as a jumper is particularly reactive with certain types of creatures, and the "tiger" in the state forest is one such beast. The energy exuded by the jumper infuses every one of the mutable and protean cells the tiger possesses and will allow the beast to undergo a subtle but potent evolution, which will, in hours, culminate with the creature becoming a [Drawback].
Eventually Marcus watches as his surroundings blur and begin to subtly shift around him. He closes his eyes and he lets out a soft chuckle as he senses his immediate surroundings beginning to change. Over the course of a few moments his senses are abruptly exposed to wildly different stimuli from the cool spring air of the Almond Fields and the smell of the campfire that he spent several minutes adjusting to earlier.
When his surroundings stop changing and his senses adjust to the soft linens of his suburban bed he opens his eyes. He is sitting upright on a soft bed in the middle of a quaint bedroom. The smells associated with a well-kept and lived-in home fill his nostrils.
Marcus grins, and he pulls out his cellphone. He is unsurprised to see that the thing has fully adjusted to his new reality, and he quickly enters a simple four-digit password to unlock it that he knows due to his knowledge of his in-jump identity.
The unlocked device is a metaphorical portal to the world outside of his hometown, which is where he is currently located according to the very device he plans to use to go away from this place in the days to come. Marcus, almost high on a joyous feeling as he processes the curious reality that he has managed to both come home, or at least come some place analogous to his home, while still acquiring new abilities, busies himself by checking his emails and text messages and searching for the "Nexus Event" he was warned about earlier by the personalized system he possesses.
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Distantly, the bizarre tiger-like creature sinks its sharp and venom-coated fangs into the flank of its prey as time resumes. At the same time as its fangs rip into the fur-covered skin of the young deer one of its tentacles brutally slams into the creature's head, hitting it with force equal to that of a Warhammer swung by a particularly powerful human might generate. The creature, mercifully, is slain nearly instantly and only feels a sharp but quick pang of pain before it expires.
As the monster's fanged maw rips into the creature its own eyes widen in shock as it begins to uncontrollably consume more than just fur, flesh, and bone. Knowledge, however inarticulate and bestial, begins to fill the previously simple mind of the tiger-like monster. The beast's mind widens and matures at a terrifyingly rapid pace as it instinctually consumes its prey, every bite granting it more of the animalistic and wild scraps of knowledge its prey possessed.
The eldritch monster moves, driven by a mixture of gluttony and instinct, as it processes the curious sort of knowledge possessed by the fawn it has downed and devoured. In almost no time at all the body of the fawn is gone, and the strange, nightmarish monster snaps itself out of the instinctual haze it has been in since its fangs first pierced the fur and flesh of its first victim since it was infused with chaotic power.
The chaotic cryptid is a powerful creature and almost without thinking about it the beast's form folds in on itself and shrinks as it takes on the size, and then the shape, and finally the overall form of its latest victim. This transformation, driven by little more than instinct, occurs over the course of nanoseconds and is physically perfect.
The transformation's perfection lasts only mere seconds after the transformation is completed long tentacles that end in vacuum-like holes sprout from the back of the beast and begin to sweep across the floor where the fallen fawn perished, sucking in any lingering evidence of the violence that just took place here. In a matter of moments this part of the forest has been swept clean of any signs of terrifying semi-natural violence and the protean nightmare that calls this forest home leaves the area wearing a facsimile of the form of its most recent victim.
The nightmarish journey this beast is destined to begin is hours from beginning in full. Its first true victim remains unaware of its existence, and it remains unaware of the clash it is hours from having with a foe unlike any other.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone