UNDERWANDERERField archive
Case file O-017ObjectsLevel 0

Floor Notes

Papers on the carpet, sometimes pinned. A sentence from someone who had time to write before disappearing.

Testimony

“One said not to follow the hum because the lights lie there.”

Floor notes are the cheapest and most abundant text in Level 0: a paper on the carpet, sometimes nailed down with a pin, with a single handwritten sentence. Almost all are written in the first person by someone who was there before. None of them explains anything.

Notes found

The archive has been able to confirm ten. They turn up in any room, in no order and no fixed place.

  1. Don’t follow the hum. Where it’s loudest, the lights lie.
  2. I’ve spent three days counting rooms. They all have the same crooked outlet.
  3. If you hear footsteps that aren’t yours, stay still and count to a hundred.
  4. Almond Water is where the carpet dries.
  5. I marked this wall with chalk. The mark isn’t there anymore.
  6. M.E.G. base 400 m north. Or so I thought.
  7. The dark zones aren’t dangerous. What’s inside them is.
  8. If you find a hatch, don’t go down alone.
  9. Narrow corridors always end in a huge room. Always.
  10. Today the carpet was wet in a perfect circle.

See Fluorescent Hum, Almond Water and Pits.

A cubicle with a desk and chair: the kind of place where someone leaves a note and doesn’t come back
A cubicle with a desk and chair: the kind of place where someone leaves a note and doesn’t come back

How they are read

The tone is always the same: short, concrete, with one detail too many that doesn’t fit. The note about the rooms with the crooked outlet doesn’t say who wrote it or why they were counting. The one about the hatch doesn’t say what happened the first time. Whoever left it knows something and isn’t telling.

If two notes contradict each other, don’t try to work out which is the true one.

What is said

Wanderers insist they have read more than the ten. Fifteen more sentences circulate by word of mouth, each with its place:

TextWhere it is said to have been seen
Location: Out of Boundsthe only fixed note of Level 0.0, see “Location: Out of Bounds”
hidein a degraded zone, see Arrows and “hide”
1989near the counter of the Reception
The chair was facing the wall. Now it faces this way.in a room with a Watcher twenty meters away or less
Don’t answer whoever isn’t typing in the chat.in a long corridor, see Skinstealer
I left my backpack here. If you find it, the zipper was closed.next to an empty container, see Surprise Boxes
When the hum cuts out, it isn’t silence. Something is covering it.in a blackout zone
I’ve come back to this desk four times. The notepad has my handwriting and I didn’t write it.in a repeated room, see Level 0 Anomalies
This door opens onto nothing. I checked with my hand.next to the door to nowhere
The lights don’t move. We do.at a recent chunk seam, see Chunk Displacement
I drove a screw into the baseboard. Tomorrow I’ll see if it’s still here.on a piece built by another survivor
Don’t look at them too much.in a dense zone, no creature in sight, see Adult Faceling
They’re small and they move in a group. If you stop, they stop.before a trail of small footprints, see Children
I went down the pit with two people. I came up alone.at the edge of a pit
The exit has a white frame. Don’t cross it. Don’t cross it. Don’tin a very long corridor of Level 0.01, see EXIT Door with a White Frame

Each person found them in a different place and none has been seen again.

See also

Found Texts, Office Signs, Graffiti, Safety Notices.

Mentioned in

P-017 · PhenomenaThe Wanderer’s GlossaryThe words wanderers repeat until they stop explaining them, with the entry where each one is told.P-003 · PhenomenaSanityIt drains on its own, faster with creatures nearby, when you're alone or in an unstabilized chunk. Only Almond Water restores it.E-010 · EntitiesChildrenSmall silhouettes that move in a pack. Still if you look at them, fast if you turn your back, and their touch stuns.L-004 · LevelsLevel 4A fourth level that everyone talks about and nobody describes the same way twice. They say you can only enter through doors and that its rooms change on their own.P-023 · PhenomenaPitsOne-meter holes in the carpet, with no railing and no bottom in sight. Falling leads to Level 1, and climbing back is another story.E-013 · EntitiesLegacy RecordsThree names the archive keeps from another era: Lurker, Crawler and Shadow. Nobody has seen them in the current Level 0.E-001 · EntitiesStalkerThe third patrol creature, silent, with no fixed habitat and no reliable witnesses. The archive records it so the gap doesn’t look like an oversight.S-013 · Sublevels“Location: Out of Bounds”A paper with a single typed line in English. It is the only voice in 0.0 that comes from the place itself and not from an explorer.P-001 · PhenomenaLevel 0 AnomaliesFour construction defects no architect would have signed off on. A doorframe with no door, a ceiling that steps down, a room that was copied.O-007 · ObjectsOffice SignsPlaques, A4 sheets and wall lettering. An office that keeps to its routine long after the last person left to follow it.O-019 · ObjectsGraffitiSpray paint and marker on wall and carpet: crossed-out arrows, an eye, a tally that never ends, an empty chalk circle.S-006 · SublevelsRow of OutletsAn empty wall with outlets in a row, every 45 centimeters, alternating baseboard height and desk height where there is no desk.