The Maze

The Maze is a liminal realm - one of the places that exist between worlds, connecting to many. It is built from empty spaces and endless corridors, with millions of doors - most of them locked, or opening onto blank walls, or simply false.

The corridors of the Maze are stolen from anonymous places where people don't live - spaces meant only to be passed through. The entire realm has an institutional feel, its rooms and halls taken from deserted office buildings, abandoned hospitals, and unused hotels. Back hallways are common, with plain concrete walls and linoleum floors.

None of the corridors or rooms have windows - there is no way to see outside, if an outside even exists. Most spaces are lit by fluorescent lights that buzz, flicker, and never go out.

The Maze is quiet - too quiet.

The lights buzz overhead, but that only sharpens the silence. Every so often, faint noises drift from behind one of the doors - indistinct voices, or a few notes of distant music.

They always cut off when you get close.

There is no day or night in the Maze - no way to measure time at all. Clocks don’t run, and time stretches. Those lost in the Maze can never say how long they’ve been there - but it always feels like a long, long time.

Always the Same, Always Changing

The corridors and rooms of the Maze have an unrelenting sameness to them - you can walk, and walk, and walk, and still see the same hallway again and again, the same dusty closets, the same empty breakroom with its lukewarm coffee. Everywhere evokes the conflicting sensations of déjà vu and jamais vu - a place you've seen before, and yet one that remains strange and unfamiliar.

At the same time, the Maze is always changing. Anything you aren't looking at may move. The corridor behind you, or around the corner, or behind a door - they don’t exist unless someone is in them. You can step around a corner, change your mind, and turn back - only to find the place you just were is gone, replaced by another, nearly identical space.

If you are in the Maze with a companion, never leave each other's line of sight.

Not if you want to see them again.

What Lies Within

There are many rooms inside the Maze. Office breakrooms with nearly-empty refrigerators, the remains of a cake, and pots of lukewarm coffee. Abandoned janitorial closets with ancient supplies. Bathrooms - mostly deserted and rarely clean, but usually with running water. Sometimes you'll find an empty security station, with monitors showing static, or grainy footage of the Maze’s empty corridors.

There are elevators, escalators, and empty subway platforms. Occasionally, you'll come across basement laundry rooms with coin-operated machines - if you can find the right kind of coins to feed them. And there are thousands of vending machines.

These machines are varied. Some only provide ice and require no payment. Others carry goods from across the multiverse - strange foods, or more mysterious items. People have reported vending machines that dispense soiled underwear, tiny robotic pets (which break after a few days), obscene stickers, and poker chips. But food is the most common offering - and many who are lost in the Maze come to depend on the machines for it.

"Let’s see - this one has a bag of… I think that's Green Tea Cheetos? And a Smuckers bar, and something that looks like mini brownies with a ketchup center. I’ve seen weirder."

— A drifter in the Maze

Adapting to the Maze

Learning to live in the Maze means adapting to its conditions. Those who are lost - known colloquially as Drifters - learn what tools are worth carrying, and what isn't. There's no way to store anything unless it's on your person, so bags are essential. If you're lucky, you might find a shopping cart in an empty underground parking garage, or a wheeled garbage bin you can haul behind you.

When you find a room, always check for food, tools, and petty cash. Some vending machines can be broken into; others are completely impregnable without the right coin - and they can be picky about what counts as valid currency. Drifters often carry a patchwork collection of coins and bills from a dozen worlds, developing a kind of instinct for which machine will accept what.

Don’t bother making a map. It won’t be worth the paper it's written on.

And when you sleep, keep everything close. Better yet, if you have a partner, sleep in shifts. The Maze tends to shift while you're unconscious - more than one Drifter has woken to find everything they owned gone, simply because they took off their pack to rest.

Be careful what you eat. Most of the time, it's fine. But not always. What's edible in one world - or for one species - isn't a universal guarantee.

Can openers are among the most valuable things you can find.

"I say, never eat the cake. It won't kill you - but it's always disappointing. There's something about stale, leftover cake in a soulless office breakroom... it can break you, with the taste of emptiness."

— Drifter wisdom

Getting Out

There are millions of doors in the Maze. Most won't help you - but some lead out, to somewhere else. You may not like what's on the other side... or you may not care, so long as it isn't endless corridors and flickering lights.

Some drifters are too afraid to leave, worried what lies beyond might be worse. Others crash through every door they find, desperate for an exit.

Either way, you get what you seek - whether you want it or not.