Overview
The Hollow Metropolis is an endless urban Node formed from the echoes of cities that once lived, collapsed, and repeated their final days across countless worlds. Towering buildings scrape against a sunless sky, roads remain unnervingly intact, and abandoned vehicles sit as if their owners vanished mid-commute.
The city feels paused rather than dead. Neon signs still flicker in shifting, unreadable languages, old advertisements hum through broken speakers, and unseen watchers seem to observe from behind every window. From nearly any street, the Black Dome can be seen in the distance, acting as the only reliable landmark in a city that refuses to stay fully mapped.
Access / Entry Conditions
The Hollow Metropolis is most commonly accessed through doors, elevators, and interior passageways found inside unstable buildings. These access points usually appear ordinary until crossed.
Entry is considered easy compared to deeper Nodes, but return routes are unreliable. Doors may reopen into different floors, different buildings, or entirely different streets. Elevators are especially unstable and may descend into areas that were not present before entry.
Environment
The Hollow Metropolis resembles a vast modern city capable of housing millions. Its streets, towers, shops, apartments, transit stations, and commercial districts appear functional at first glance, but most are abandoned or frozen in partial use.
The climate follows a normal urban cycle, including rain, fog, heat, cold, and storms, though these patterns may shift faster than expected. Some districts appear pristine, while others show signs of collapse, fire damage, overgrowth, or long-term decay. These states may alternate without warning.
Buildings can generally be entered, but doing so is discouraged. Interior spaces are more likely to shift, loop, or separate groups from one another. Streets are safer for navigation, though not safe enough to cross carelessly.
Anomaly Behavior
- Red-Light: Crossing a street while the traffic light is red can trigger an anomalous event. A car will drive out of nowhere to hit anyone crossing the street.
- Temporal Split: Objects, buildings, and vehicles may alternate between pristine and ruined states with each blink, camera flash, reflection, or sudden change in light.
- Watcher Windows: Windows may reflect scenes that do not exist, including alternate streets, missing companions, past events, or glimpses of other Nodes. Some reflections appear aware of being watched.
- Echo Commerce: Abandoned kiosks, vending machines, and terminals may activate on their own. They sometimes print receipts, dispense unknown currency, or offer transactions no living person remembers making.
Objects of Interest
- The Black Dome: A massive structure visible from nearly anywhere in the city. It is believed to act as either a stabilizer, gateway, or boundary marker connected to a Safe Zone.
- Abandoned Vehicles: Many vehicles remain intact. Some can still be powered on, though their navigation systems may display impossible routes or destinations that do not exist on known maps.
- Stock Broker Building: A massive high-rise associated with market-based anomalies, debt-bound entities, and the presence of the Broker Wolf. It is considered a high-risk landmark.
- Unknown Currency: Coins, notes, receipts, and digital balances produced by Echo Commerce events. Their use is unclear, but some entities appear to recognize them.
Entities
- Ticker Wolf: Quadrupedal constructs bound by debt, contract, and collapse. Their numeric displays are believed to indicate the time remaining before a target’s debt comes due or before a local anomaly triggers.
- Broker Wolf: A high-ranking negotiator within the Wolf Market. Known to trade in souls, debts, broken promises, and impossible contracts. Direct negotiation is strongly discouraged.
- Phantom Observer: An unconfirmed reflective entity believed to inhabit windows, mirrors, screens, and polished surfaces. It may mimic the voices of companions or display scenes meant to lure targets away from safe routes.
Survival Rules / Countermeasures
- Do not cross against red lights, even if the street appears empty.
- Do not rush across multiple blocks without stopping to reorient.
- Avoid entering buildings unless shelter, pursuit, or mission objectives require it.
- Do not trust reflections, advertisements, or voices coming from windows.
- Keep the Black Dome in sight whenever possible.
- Do not accept printed receipts, coins, or offers from abandoned kiosks without containment procedures.
- If separated, do not follow a companion’s voice unless visual confirmation is maintained.
Current Status
The Hollow Metropolis remains active within the general Node cycle. It is considered partially mapped, but no map remains reliable for long. The Black Dome remains the most stable landmark and the primary point of interest for Divers, factions, and entities operating within the city.