What Waits Beneath (mid-2020 version) by Nevyn Holmes
The diving log of a salvager looking for treasure and finding memories.
Underwater claustrophobia and drowning risk, visions or hallucinations, death.
I'm Ordin (they/them), and officially I'm the “cleaner of the Imperial Duck Pond”.
Well, the emperor has a… certain sense of humour. The junk and wreckage of old generations is down there and he wants it in his museum.
The things that live here aren't ducks, but that's what people call them. My mentor didn't come up last time they went down, and now I have their job. Still, the pay is very good. I'm sending it all back to my family—any money left with me when I die will just go back into the imperial coffers. As for the treasure, that goes to the emperor.
Found nothing yet. Feeling it out again this season. Just a dull light, and an odd warmth. Stairways all broken, stone eaten by algae. I got down as far as the where the old water level was before the succession and the changes.
Notes: A ten-hand iridescent feather left by a “duck” drifted by and triggered a mnemonic relapse. Lost half my breath on that alone. Odd memories, not mine. A father with his child, sitting by the old duck pond. Underwater now. Shield your eyes.
Another exploratory dive. Got to lay the groundwork early: ropes and pins down the walls, pneuma flowers planted in holes in the stone slabs. It'll make this all a lot easier.
Notes: When you reach the duck pond floor, you'll find a hole in the centre. It leads to the first of the deep chambers, much wider than the pond. Don't follow its ceiling and walls, just pull ropes taut between the hole and chamber floor. There's a reason beyond saving on rope. Be sure you wear padded boots and brace yourself for the drop. Weight is different here. A terrible hex is upon this place, unbreakable, not that the emperor wants it broken. Don't try to swim, you'll only get hurt. Watch out on your way down. The whole floor of the deep chambers is piled with towering rubble.
Hammered my good pins into the lip of the hole. The top has to be firm. Be safe.
I've recovered from the first day of diving, I think. The emperor is busy, at any rate. I could rest easy during the week. Today went off without a hitch: exploration and mapping of the first deep chamber. More skeletons than I expected. No treasure, but no problems.
Think I found the old emperor's body, going by the robes. Picked clean, with two daggers stuck in the ribs. Well, that's the way it goes here.
Notes: There are two types of crawling isopods in the deep chambers. You can find preserved remains in the museum. Yellow-horned are harmless, blue-horned can create scorching plasma with their mandibles. Both types will eat your corpse.
Success! Found an old metal drum in the deep chamber. The skin had long been torn to tatters, but the rest was intact. Pulled it out of the muck. Scattered some sleeping yellowhorns.
Notes: A “duck” drifted right past me as I turned. Silent. Horrible smell of soapy dead bodies. Don't know how the smell gets into your suit. I shut my eyes at once. Prayed it'd just eat me. If you're lucky they'll ignore you. If I didn't get lucky I wouldn't be writing this. Horrible creatures. Avoid at all costs. They nest in the third and deepest chamber.
The emperor has a new instrument for his museum. Old technology. Good for him.
I found a little locked box my way back. I'm keeping it. It doesn't count as treasure.
I have unfortunately encouraged the emperor. He insisted on personally watching my next dive—on his schedule. I haven't recovered, and worse, I have to please him. I have to bring something back.
A relief. I'm relieved that I found a relief; a slab of rock inscribed with ancient warriors. Hard to carry back under normal circumstances, worse thanks to the hex, even worse thanks to getting just one day's rest. The emperor was pleased. It'll go nicely in the museum.
Notes: Be very careful in the deep chambers. The weight can dislocate parts of you. Use as much rope as you need.
Not enough time to recover, but I had to be back in the water. Down the duck pond, into the first deep chamber. Almost at what I believe to be the hole leading down to the second deep chamber. Then: “Duck” feathers drift up over the lip of the hole.
Another mnemonic relapse. I'm a young woman in a simple diving suit. The deep chamber is well-lit, glowing fronds, beautiful fish, the water is warm, I can see the sun overhead—there's no ceiling, no duck pond. Safe. Open. Ducks—real ones—swim on the surface.
Notes: Do try to avoid this. This one almost killed me. Little oxygen left after, but I did scavenge a ring from the first deep chamber on my way back. An unusual symbol, crossed quills. Another museum piece.
Gave myself time to recover. Got bad feelings about the coming season. I'm already right: things are already going bad. The “ducks” are more aggressive. Didn't find anything this time, nearly died. One of them looked right at me. Feathers spread out like a wall, like a prison of eyes.
Another mnemonic relapse. My mentor's mentor, surrounded by “ducks”. Terrible smell and burning feeling.
Flailed around with my pin-hammer until I bashed the thing's beak. It tried to bite my arm off, but only got the hammer. That seemed to satisfy it.
Notes: Mnemonic relapse feels like being transported elsewhere, into a memory, but it's not. You're still there. You're still vulnerable. Keep hold of your fear, act based on what you know, not based on what you sense or otherwise feel.
I take it back, today was the first time I really have truly nearly died. Second attempt at second deep chamber. Too much actual garbage in the first, not enough treasure.
They blocked me in. Two of them, many-fingered, webbed-skinned, bastard “ducks”. Feathers out, blocking my view, but I was ready, threw clouds of dust and got into a crevice between some rubble while they tore up the water where I used to be.
Almost asphyxiated while they patrolled round the hole up to the first chamber. Eventually they gave up their hunt. I made it back to the surface with just the air in my lungs.
Notes: Obscuring your vision underwater is perhaps the worst thing you can do ordinarily, but trust me, it's better to become momentarily lost than fall prey to the “ducks”.
Treasure again. Second deep chamber had an ancient terrible crown. Looks like a torture device if you ask me. The emperor loves it. Pride of place in his museum. “Ducks” could've killed me this time, I swear, but they held back in the murk. Watching.
Notes: I've noticed it takes me a moment to get in the water now. This might happen to you, too. You need just one moment of bravery, though. Once you're on the ropes you'll get your confidence back, I hope.
Ducks, all feathers and teeth. Those are the two things they have in common with the real thing. I got a very good look at the teeth today when one of the bastards snuck up on me. I saw my own reflection staring back from a hundred hundred teeth.
Luckily, seeing the teeth meant I didn't see the feathers, so I was able to get free instead of being easy prey. Found another relief back in the first deep chamber. Part of the same one from before. Warriors, killing a “duck”. The emperor was ecstatic.
Notes: My mentor changed before their final dive. They knew they were going to die. So do I, so will I. The feathers trigger mnemonic relapse, but the teeth, I don't think anyone has described what effect seeing the teeth has yet, and with good reason. I'm going under today. Not the emperor's orders. I just can't not do it.
To my successor: Take the job, take the money, take the treasure. Leave my body in the water. I buried the box in the seventeenth water garden, the one one that shares a wall with the Northern barracks. Good luck finding a key; you can keep whatever's inside. Light a candle in my name.
🕯️
First posted on twitter on the 18th of June 2020, and edited in a few places.
I didn't make notes of what I picked from the Treasures and Fates oracles (what the cards were for) when I was actually playing, so the ones I added in this play-through were my best guess.
Here are my thoughts from that thread, posted after posting the play:
This was a cool little game with a neat memory mechanic! If you were playing the card game alone then you'd find matches pretty quickly, but looking stuff up on oracles / results and writing journal entries makes it harder to get matches.
The only thing that wasn't clear to me is whether there's a specific way you're meant to split cards between Treasures and Fates when you find treasure—I just chose which card to use for Treasure and which for Fate.
The scenario I made and built on also kinda restricted things, for good (a clear story, more to build on) and bad (probably a little harder to come up with problems to face).
It might be handy to have a list of gear / equipment / possessions (or prompts to help you create your own). That was one of the few issues I had—coming up with stuff to lose, when I hadn't actually used much stuff in the first place.
The game got a new version released between when I originally tweeted this playthrough and now, and I dunno if there were any changes affecting any of these things.