Level 00.7

*Beside the catastrophe of death, I heard the sound of the clock that swooped down. Through the big bell on the top of the tower, it rang the time of the sea. -Dylan Thomas*

2
2

**Survival Difficulty: Class 2**
»⠀Unsafe
»⠀Unexplored
»⠀Low Entity Count

**Level 00.7** is the 8th sub-level of the Outrooms.

## Description

Whales falls on the cape. Here they sleep soundly, unaware of their own souls.

When the imperceptible dim light fills the air, you will see the cold blue-gray atmosphere, seem to hear the faint dreamlike lingering sound of the whale song...but you can also smell a fishy, ​​sweet and strong smell of carrion; and when you look up with the dim light. Don’t be afraid when you find countless floating whale carcasses hundreds of meters long-you may also be lucky enough to witness groups of wanderers climbing up their carcasses and cutting their majestic whale carcasses with huge saw blades. body...

In the sky of **Level 00.7**, the "Giant Whale Fall" hangs loosely and sinks at an extremely slow speed; the whale body is up to 100 meters long, and its species include various baleen and toothed whales. Its refresh density is about 2.7/km³ on average; it takes about three months for a whale fall to land from generation to landing. Their falling speed is slow, not because they are not affected by gravity, but because the drag and buoyancy of the atmosphere seem to affect them very strongly. This kind of atmosphere is thick and abnormal, and the scattering is significant, making the sky appear dark steel blue; the ambient light is also extremely weak, and the light from above and below is like in water; the sky is never seen in the deep sky, and no signs of the alternation of day and night can be observed .

Under the windless dark night sky, the stretch of pale "desert" is vast and lifeless as the moon's surface; this is the most common landform in this layer, only slightly undulating, and its main composition is very similar to sea sand. A landform often associated with deserts is "mire", which is shaped like a tidal flat, but has the shape, color and chemical composition similar to sea mud.

"Sedimentary wilderness/chalk hills" is also one of the main landforms. In the areas where whale falls are most frequent, the accumulation of whale skeletons is faster than the rate of erosion, and fossil reefs and chalky sediments accumulate on the desert, forming geologically solid plains and hills. The presence of oil has been detected in the bedding of its rocks. If it is also formed by the organic matter of whales, it can be inferred that the phenomenon of whale fall has lasted for at least a million years.

A desert. Although there is no light in the physical sense in this layer, the system will increase the "brightness" in Settings-Image by default, so you can still have a clearer vision.

"Sea of ​​Mercury", the black ocean of mercury cuts the land with an altitude above zero into continents, infiltrates the sand and mud along the coast, and leaves a large pool of mercury when the tide ebbs. The whales falling in the sea are like floating continents. They are propelled by ocean currents and beached with the ebb and flow of the tide. The area of ​​the Mercury Sea is the same as the land area of ​​this layer.

The "Mountain Stream" is probably the most magnificent structure that has been explored in this layer. It is usually 3 to 5 conical volcanic settlements with a height of 30 to 60 meters, and the mountain body is hard black rock salt texture; and the highest mountain stream that has been discovered so far has a relative height of more than 70 meters. Its activity cycle is divided into quiet period and eruption period. During the calm period, it just quietly spews out billowing green mercury vapor from the crater; while during the eruption period, it is accompanied by the wanton release of liquid mercury in the Outrooms. The most violent eruptions usually cause old streams to sink into the ground, or new ones to rise.

A Whale Fall occupies a minimum of about 400 Manila Rooms. Its size is so large that it can be considered a biome in itself. Whalefall has its own life cycle: The newly generated whale fall is a complete whale carcass. Afterwards, the wall of flesh began to grow, and the giant crow's nest and a few corpse rats began to be refreshed on it, but some kind of oil in the whale body stopped the internal corruption. Next, as the whalefall lands, the vagabonds may come to take over the carcass and drive off the host entity; without the intervention of the vagabonds, the whalefall will usher in its heyday: due to the further gnawing of the carcasses and the The depth of the corridor extending in all directions exposes large pieces of whale meat and internal organs to the air; and the oxidized whale oil cannot provide antiseptic effect, which provides conditions for the spread of fungi. Whalefall will have some fungal spores when it is generated, and soon this place will become a paradise for those fungi: Due to the lack of light, poor soil and water shortage, there is almost no natural green vegetation in this layer; but when the accidental whalefall brings With the long-lost water and nutrients, countless large saprophytic fungi can grow wantonly on this oasis that has come. In the sanctuary of this long and narrow oasis, various entities live intertwined and mixed. The fungi range from only ten centimeters to as high as two meters, and are in milky white, light blue, gray blue and other colors. In the next year or so, the nutrients of the whale fall will be exhausted day by day, and the entities that will eventually leave this oasis in batches will leave behind a lot of white whale skeletons.

## Entities

For the ecosystem of this layer, whale fall is the only external energy input. Based on whale falls, various entities form complex food webs. Before the arrival of the original wanderers, these creatures took on the function of breaking down the whale fall. Today, they are also not afraid to clean up the remains of whale falls that have been mined by wanderers. Entity subspecies in this layer are quite different from those in other layers due to their unique environment. For example, in terms of color: in order to adapt to the tone of the sky, the giant crow has dark blue feathers; due to the extremely weak light, albinism has become the norm in some corpse rat communities; the color of other entities is also basically a dull gray-blue. The unique traits of each subspecies are described further below.

### Entity 5 - Clumps

* The area around the Whale Fall in the water is the spawn point for the Limb Clumps. Unlike the usual situation, the limbs of this layer are not human arms and legs, but the pectoral and caudal fins of cetaceans; they do not live on the surface, but swim in the ocean of this layer, and in when exchanging air, several water jets are sprayed out (depending on the number of its pores). Some of them do not show aggressiveness, they cruise quietly, and use baleen to filter biological debris in the water; others have mouths full of sharp teeth, use piles of fins to protrude in the water, and use killer whale-like mouths to prey a limb clump, or, attacks and rips apart a floating whale carcass, using its dolphin-like proboscis to prey on any carcasses hiding within.

### Entity 24 (Wikidot) - Death Rats

* These omnivorous small rodents are the most numerous and will spawn inside all whale falls, including those still floating in the air or on water. They feed on the whale body, gnaw out of it, set up a camp, and breed offspring. Have a certain swimming ability. Often, they are the earliest hosts of new whale falls.

### Entity 52 (Wikidot) - Archravens

* The giant crow is the master of the deep sky in this layer. They feed on dead rats and live in groups. Due to the lack of vegetation in this layer, most giant crows build their nests on the floating whale falls. For those larger groups, there are often not enough carcass rats near the nest, so they need to fly across the sky to the distant whale falls to feed. The giant crows on this layer have therefore evolved sharp wings that can use the updraft to glide. To adapt to dim skies, they have owl-like eyes with powerful night vision. Due to the lack of twigs, their nests are usually built with small and broken bones; while large pieces of whale bones are cut longitudinally by them into bone rings, which are worn on the legs as a symbol of status and fashion. After the breeding season comes, giant crows will build their nests on the cetaceans in the higher airspace, lay eggs and feed their chicks in them; in order to prevent the nests from falling out of the cetaceans, they fix them on the gaps in the cetaceans' solid skeleton . As time goes by, the chicks gradually grow into young birds, and the falling whale falls closer and closer to the underlying surface (ground or ocean). At the end, the chicks face a big test: flying high into the air with their nursing adults, where the next breeding cycle will begin. This is a rite of passage for juvenile giant crows, and the loser faces the fate of falling or drowning. However, there are reports that the challenge failed, but the surviving giant crows gathered together to build a high nest on the pile of bones that stood on the ground, forming a separate ground population. They will live and reproduce there, and will no longer try to return to the high altitude; and their offspring will flap their wings and fly again in the next breeding cycle in order to complete the unfinished business of their parents.

### Entity 839 - Meat Walls

* A variety of microorganisms use the whale fall as their nourishment, covering the outer surface of the whale fall in pieces and converging into lush colonies. It is said that the color and texture of the clustered colonies are similar to carrion, hence the name; in fact, most of the fleshy walls of this layer have gray-green stipe and caps like mint branches and leaves, and the back of the stipe and caps are covered with a large number of bud tips Small soft cyan fleshy leaves. Dead rats will feed on them regularly to maintain their density at around K/2. The decomposition of this bacterial colony breeds methane gas, which makes the whale body swell and float on the surface of the ocean, while emitting the stench of hydrogen sulfide.

## Colonies, Outposts and Bases

### Ghost City

* A large wanderer base. It is currently under the control of the newly established Outroom Branch (The Outrooms Branch, or OB) by the Outroom Colonists (ie, BC).
* It relies entirely on mining whale falls to provide various materials and energy.
* A year after **Level 00.7** was first discovered, wanderers discovered several naturally occurring, empty city blocks on the plains, uninhabited except for giant crows nesting on top of buildings. They may have originated in Level 00.3, but are in a state of complete disrepair, with numerous buildings tipping or collapsing in the quicksand. In the relatively intact buildings, the wanderers gradually established the first large-scale stronghold on this floor, which will be the ghost city in the future.

**Excerpt from Pandora Team Investigation Report**

Before the arrival of BC (Backroom Colonists), there were only sporadic settlements of wanderers in **Level 00.7**. They relied on processing and utilizing whale falls to make ends meet, breathing the stench of rotting whale carcasses with countless entities of various colors every day . The governance of BC has brought about earth-shaking vicissitudes of life, and along with the development and opening up policy, a new important base-the Ghost City has been established.

**Excerpt from Dryad Review**

But it is the new economic policy of the BC Outroom Branch that has further accelerated the polarization between the rich and the poor in the ghost city. So, why BC—the so-called thriving wanderer group—still turns a blind eye to the poverty of the bottom wanderer? This is because the new policy has greatly reduced the prices of various resources by squeezing the interests of the wanderer at the bottom! And this is absolutely irresistible to BC... They will not care about the sweat, tears and blood condensed on the product, just like the parasites on the whale fall, they will not care about the life of a whale.

### Муравейник (Anthill)

* Wanderer outpost.
* Located on the outskirts of the Ghost City, next to the coast where whale falls are frequently spawned. In fact, it is responsible for the mining of whale falls.

**Notes from a Wanderer 0.72**

When the tide is low, on the white sandy beach, Mercury Sea has left a few bays of Mercury. Under the dappled sunlight, a small amount of mercury in the outer room fluttered up, forming several strings of mercury beads of different sizes suspended in the sky; under the sky above, another floating whale cast a shadow like a cloud. Then the sky darkened. The smell of rotting flesh filled the damp air. The wanderers drove away a few fleeing corpse rats, and began to nail the scaffolding to the giant whale's body. On the side, there were two people holding mercury guns on guard. Several men wanderer, wearing air-purifying masks, began cutting a large area marked with white dotted lines with a chainsaw on the whale's body. An overwhelming stench swept me quickly, and when I staggered and was about to fall, someone pushed the atmospheric mask to my mouth. He held my shoulder, patted it, and walked towards several trucks beside me. He is the driver of the transport card. The sea breeze is getting stronger and stronger, and the black clouds are condensing. As they dragged the cuts to the shipping card, it finally started to pour. I run back to the truck. Silver raindrops are densely covered on the plastic raincoats of wanderers being torn by the wind. I watched the raindrops rolling on the black sand beach wonderfully, converging into streams and merging into the sea of ​​mercury. That scene reminds you of shooting a lotus leaf with a water gun. That is the mercury in the Outrooms, and the local wanderer call it "Yin". But now, time belongs to life and entertainment. The heavy rain brought a rare opportunity to rest. In the dormitory, a few people played cards behind me. The special chips will not be suspended in the special atmosphere of the Outrooms, but a few cards will inevitably spin in the air. I took off my plastic boots and sat on the bed for two rubles a day. The temperature in the rainy season is only about 10°C, the stove is shining with crackling light, and there are bursts of laughter and singing; I think, maybe it will be tomorrow, and I should go. I'll entrust a copy of the note to the homeless here for safekeeping. They revealed that the last level of the Nine Levels, which they called the Land of Arrows, was a place where there was no horizon, orange fuel tanks, secondary thrusters, and launch pads.

## Entrances and Exits

### Entrances

* Jumping to Level 00.4, the pool of mercury marked with the relevant elements of whale fall will fall into the sea of ​​mercury.

### Exits

* Completely immersed in the sea of ​​mercury, when the mercury around you flows down, you will eventually be at the bottom of the Level 00.4 waterfall.
* Standing in (Sea of ​​Mercury) Mercury, able to get stuck at depths such as Mercury in the Mercury Pool at Level 00.4.
* Facing the building or the wall of the container, it can be stuck to the staff residence of Level 00.8 "Arrow's Land".