James A. Hunter

Backrooms 2: Kiosk Kingdom - Chapter 33

Thirty-Three – The Fireworks Stand

As per the Keep-What-You-Kill rule of the Backrooms, Jakob and Temperance took the liberty of looting Kevin, while I picked through the eviscerated Kathy’s spatial core.

The haul was better than I could’ve hoped for and after wading through the same type of low-level Relics for weeks on end, it felt good to finally get something new. Kathy had three Relics—two Rare-grade and a single Uncommon—as well as one Rar...

Backrooms 2: Kiosk Kingdom - Chapter 32

Thirty-Two – Lawnmower Man

Kevin lumbered forward with an incoherent roar. As he closed the distance, a blade of blue light exploded outward from his belly, whirling toward me with the force of a canon blast. Although the physical lawnmower blade continued to spin away inside his torso, this projectile appeared to be a perfect replica.

I acted on instinct and reached out with a strand of telekinetic power, attempting to snatch the projectile from the air before ...

Backrooms 2: Kiosk Kingdom - Chapter 31

Thirty-One – Sunnysiders

When I climbed out of the truck, I discovered that my eyes were lying to me again. Instead of a bloody-red sky, a vast field of robin’s egg blue stretched out above us in every direction. There wasn’t a single cloud in sight, and it was the perfect kind of day that only happened once or twice every summer. The sun beat down on us like a hammer, cooking the freshly laid asphalt, but I didn’t mind.

After months stuck under buzzing ar...

Backrooms 2: Kiosk Kingdom - Chapter 30

Thirty – You Scream

I inched my way over to the window.

When I glanced out, the breath caught in my chest. I’d been fully expecting a hoard of nightmare goblins, conjured from the deepest pits of hell, all fully ready to rip the flesh from my body and wear it around like a cheap costume fished out of the Spirit Halloween bargain bin. Instead, I found a pack of completely normal looking kids, just sitting on their bikes and looking at us with big happy eyes. Th...

Backrooms 2: Kiosk Kingdom - Chapter 29

Twenty-Nine – Ice Cream

I pushed my way through the metal freezer door, fully expecting to step out into a kitchen or maybe a school cafeteria. That sort of fit with what I was expecting of a level called the Everlasting Suburbs. I was willing to bet dollars to donuts that there were at least a few school zones. But nope. I was dead wrong. Instead, I stepped out into the cramped confines of an ice cream truck. One of those old-school boxy ones from the late eighties o...

Backrooms 2: Kiosk Kingdom - Chapter 28

Twenty-Eight – Way Down We Go

Using Unerring Arrow and the Variant Kiosk Network Map, it only took us a few hours to make our way toward the first entry point, which would bring us all the way down to floor nineteen.

I’m not sure whether it was the Barracuda in a Barrel title driving all the natives away or the fact that I floated a few feet above the floor and looked like I was itching to murder something, but we didn’t see a single Dweller along t...

Backrooms 2: Kiosk Kingdom - Chapter 27

Twenty-Seven – Runic Upgrades

As eager as I was to immediately head down to the nineteenth floor and turn some Dwellers into meat paste with my new abilities, Jakob was still hard at work in the lab, and I had a few more provisions to prepare.

I only had a handful of Health Grenades left and I’d burned through all of my offensive spell Grenades during the showdown against the Shart-Stain Golem on the fifth floor. Although the store’s tennis ball selection ha...

Backrooms 2: Kiosk Kingdom - Chapter 26

Twenty-Six – Gift Horse Offerings

We spent the next day preparing for the descent.

Jakob was the only one who’d visited the nineteenth floor but surprisingly, he only had a few vague tidbits to share which basically boiled down to be ready for anything. Especially mind-fuck games. The entire floor was what the Cendral referred to as a “Cognition Hazard.” Apparently, some levels were so incredibly toxic to life, they came with their own warning labels.

Backrooms 2: Kiosk Kingdom - Chapter 25

Hey everyone, I wasn't particularly happy with that last chapter, so I took another stab at it. This one feels a lot better. More natural. Love to hear what you think! 

Twenty-Five – The Vote

“There’s no way we can trust her,” I said, staring at the handful of items laid out on my private hotel room table: A Rare-grade Relic called Mental Amplifier, a pair of odd Artifacts, a truly impressive Sigil Stone, and a...

Backrooms 2: Kiosk Kingdom - Chapter 24

Twenty-Four – Proxy War

“If you hurt my dog,” I growled at the woman, blood still streaming from my nose, “I swear to the good Lord above that it’ll be the last thing you ever do.”

The woman looked at me and offered an easy tight-lipped smile.

“Why would I ever want to hurt your poor, sweet, precious pet?” she asked, raising a single eyebrow. “I know exactly how much the beast means to you, Dan. I was only trying to ensure nothing ...

Backrooms 2: Kiosk Kingdom - Chapter 23

Twenty-Three – Party Crashers

Six Aspirants to be exact.

All congregating around one of my third-floor doorway anchors. The one closest to my fancy new kiosk.

There was no doubt about who we were dealing with, since I could see them clearly on the CCTV screens in the security office. The whole lot of ’em looked like extras from a Mad Max flick—crude body armor, tacky mohawks, and leather studded with spikes. All of them were also missing wide swatches ...

Backrooms 2: Kiosk Kingdom - Chapter 22

Twenty-Two – Backrooms Bullshit

Even though my Grand Reopening was going as smoothly as could reasonably be expected, it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. This was the Backrooms after all, and in the Backrooms, there was always bullshit of one sort or another to deal with.

This particular bullshit had a name.

Jackson.

Tribune of the Hold, cult leader, minor local celebrity, and the same brohole who’d assaulted Temperance and had...

Backrooms 2: Kiosk Kingdom - Chapter 21

Twenty-One – Grand Reopening

There were furries everywhere.

In a past life—one before the madness of the Backrooms—this would’ve been my worst nightmare. In fact, I was pretty sure I’d actually had a nightmare just like this once or twice in the before-fore times. Instead of being horrified, however… I was elated. One word I never would’ve associated with furries. Not in a million years. Yet here I was, over the moon, as countless H...

Backrooms 2: Kiosk Kingdom - Chapter 20

Twenty – Title Change

Although the Codex regularly provided me with valuable insights about the Dwellers who inhabited the Backrooms, this was the first time I’d seen a direct research report. It lacked the general assholishness of most of the entries, which meant it probably wasn’t being delivered by my Localized Administrator. This was also the first time I’d ever seen an inquiry directly contributed to the Researcher—though interestingly, it was marked as a...

Backrooms 2: Kiosk Kingdom - Chapter 19

Nineteen – Doctor Frankenstein

While Camo Joe went about his business, I snagged the rest of the security cameras and shoved the whole lot of ’em into my personal storage. My new Security Chief’s assessment was right—scaling up my security would be a challenge, especially with finite resources. But after seeing how well the first camera had integrated with Camo Joe, I had a new idea about how I might be able to use them. To put my plan into action,...

Backrooms 2: Kiosk Kingdom - Chapter 18

Eighteen – Upkeep

The Brownies were every bit the miracle workers that Ajax had made them out to be. They were zealots of the highest order, their religion was laundry, and there were none more devout. By the time I made it back to the Spin Cycle, my bathrobe had been washed, dried, pressed, and neatly hung with care. Unfortunately, it was still an ass-ugly knock-off Versace, which made me weep for humanity, but now it was only hurt my eyes and not my nose. 2024-04-16 20:19:21 +0000 UTC View Post

Backrooms 2: Kiosk Kingdom - Chapter 17

Seventeen – Land of Plenty

We found Bertrim and the rest of the priests celebrating in the laundromat, and this time they weren’t alone. There had to be at least three hundred or more of the laundry brownies—some wearing baggy overalls, others wearing floral dresses.

“Well now, this is certainly an unexpected turn of events,” Jakob said, as we eyed the gathering of brownies from a distance. The Cendral sounded both shocked and mildly amused.

Backrooms 2: Kiosk Kingdom - Chapter 16

Sixteen – Resonant Mana Signature

The three of us immediately started to pick over the corpses, all with varying degrees of success. Unfortunately, the Silent-but-Deadly Assassin I’d fried with my Sterilization Field hadn’t left any Relics behind. It seemed my spell had obliterated the creature so thoroughly that not even its spatial core had survived the attack. The only trace of its existence was the putrid black blade, which had almost killed me.

All in a...