“I went up three floors and saw nothing alive. I thought I’d gotten away, and then I found out how things really were.”
When the building gained height, wanderers noticed that the floors above were empty. You went up one floor and the creatures vanished. Some took it for good news, until they found out that the emptiness was an anomaly and not a respite.
What was happening
The distribution of creatures was measured by a layer four meters thick, but the floors are 3.32 meters. The second floor fell in a layer with nobody in it, and from the fourth onward everything was bunched together, so going up a floor emptied the world of creatures.
How it is now
The distribution was adjusted to the real height of each floor. What the archive has measured since:
- Of thirteen upper floors, six have creatures. Before, none did. All thirteen can be reached.
- The ground floor keeps its 60 creatures, spread over twenty-five regions. That has not changed.
- The upper floors add up to 34 creatures, where before there were zero.
- When you go up a floor, the creatures that were following you are no longer withdrawn.
The overall balance holds. There are not many more up above than down below, and inside the offices the proportions are the same as in the rest of Level 0.
How to survive
- Go up knowing there is life above. A quiet floor does not mean it is empty; maybe the Pulse is just at rest.
- The stairs are narrow and long. If something is following you, don’t stop on a straight flight.
- Stabilize before going up. On an upper floor, your shelter is farther from a pit and closer to what you don’t know.
What people say
- Floor -1, with many flights below level 0, is set apart, because no creature has been recorded there, and the archive has not confirmed whether there are none or nobody has seen them.
- According to one who went up several times, the creatures above are more patient and wait longer before approaching.
- The word is that light between floors doesn’t behave the same going up, and that a staircase lit below can be a trap above.
See also How It All Fits Together and The 63-Meter Staircase.