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World 0
The smallest, most dangerous and best hidden world. It lies inside the Whole Matryoshka (see Hidden Dolls) and opens once your group has beaten the Unfinished. Using the Whole Matryoshka takes you in; the Threshold of its entry hall takes you back to where you opened it.
It holds the Artisan's room, as he left it, and the truth about the Unfinished. Finishing it gives the third ending, Set Down the Tools.
A sealed hollow of painted wood and lacquer, with no sky. Its walls cannot be broken. It reads as a warm red dusk: the lacquer carries its own light, the haze opens from 12 to 112 blocks, and gold dust hangs in the lantern light (see Visuals).
| Part | What waits there |
|---|---|
| Entry hall | The Threshold back out |
| First chamber | The laws of worlds 1 to 3, and their elite guards (Chitin Guard, Slag Golem, Executioner) with three of their kin |
| Second chamber | Worlds 4 to 6, almost without light (Island Warden, Shadow Mother, Broken Mirror) |
| Third chamber | Worlds 7 to 9, flooded in places (Bell Crab, Hour Keeper, Walking Column) |
| The Artisan's room | His bed, his bench, the first Scroll on its lectern, an empty doll your size, and a cracked doll holding a tiny Surface |
Each chamber is shut by a sealed gate that opens once its guards are gone. The guards of World 0 are at least as strong as the colossi of the Giant Workshop.
World 0 replays no single law: it holds the one behind all of them. Every finished gesture feeds the creature.
- Holding something raises the Obsession gauge (more for the main hand than the other hand).
- Every blow you strike raises it more.
- Empty hands lower it quickly.
| Obsession | Effect |
|---|---|
| 50 | Mining Fatigue: your hands slow down |
| 75 | Weakness |
| 100 | You take damage every second and the Shadow heals |
9000 health, 55 damage. It wakes in the room. It borrows the law of a different prison every fifteen seconds and fights with it. It cannot be finished: brought near death, it stitches itself back together. Its animations keep in step with the world whose timing it borrows: see Boss attacks.
Spoiler: once it has stitched itself back, put everything down (both hands empty), kneel (sneak) on the red carpet in front of the bench and stay there for ten seconds. The Shadow stops and kneels with you. This plays the third ending, Set Down the Tools: you receive the Blank Scroll and the hidden achievement of the same name. See Endings and the New Cycle.
In the code and data, world number 0 is the Surface. World 0 is the dimension matriochka:world_zero, with the internal number 11. Operators can enter it with /matriochka world zero.
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