As a double agent, you've buried yourself deep within the Cult of the Deep Compass, a fanatical sect that worships the Sunken King. Your mission: steal the sacred artifact that could grant its possessor dominion over the seas. But the cult is testing your devotion with a ritual that reads the heart's truth—and your cover is starting to waver. The artifact is within reach, but so is the drowning trap that awaits if you're discovered. Will you betray your mission to survive, or sacrifice everything for the prize?
The story begins
The salt-stained stone was cold against your back as Jael’s fingers tightened around your wrist, their grip a silent accusation. The flooded sanctum stretched before you, waist-deep water rippling with the slow, rhythmic chants of the faithful. Torchlight danced across their hooded forms, casting long shadows that writhed like living things across the carved murals of the Sunken King’s ascension.
“You’re breathing too fast,” Jael murmured, close enough that their breath stirred the damp hair at your temple. “The trial hasn’t even begun, and you already look like a man watching his own grave being dug.”
You forced a smile, the practiced ease of a hundred stolen identities. “Cold water. Cold stone. Cold eyes. Forgive me if I’m not relaxed.”
Jael’s gaze didn’t waver. They’d been watching you for three weeks now, cataloging every misstep, every hesitation. The artifact waited in the inner sanctum, a hundred paces through that bronze door, and the ritual would begin the moment the moon broke through the storm clouds above.
High Priestess Maris raised her arms, water dripping from her sleeves like blood.
“The Drowned Moon rises,” she intoned. “Let the true-hearted step forward.”
What happens next is up to you.
Or read in the app
More like this
The False Meridian
MatureYou chart a cursed labyrinth beneath a dying sea, and the walls sing your name.
The Bone Harvest
You enter a living maze of bone to save your child—but the maze wants you to stay.
The Homecoming's Teeth
MatureYou've returned home to find your father's treasure map in a stranger's hands—and your sister's blood on his terms.
The Clockwork Duel
MatureYou've gambled years of your life to save your brother, but the final arena trial demands you fight the one person you've ever loved.
The Midnight Reckoning
MatureMap the living canyon or die in the dark—your debts are due at midnight.
The Vault's Keeper
MatureYou came to demolish a buried city, but the living vault beneath it has chosen you as its next guardian.