The Tidebreaker's Job
MatureYou dove for treasure, but the real prize is the truth the patron can't let you surface with.
You're the best salvager in the archipelago, known for pulling miracles from the depths. When a masked patron hires you to recover a relic from a sunken city, you expect a lucrative dive. But the moment you touch the city's defenses, the patron broadcasts your every move to the world—and reveals the job was never about the relic. It's about retrieving a piece of tech that could expose their crimes, and now you're the only one who can survive the plunge. In a race against time and the patron's ruthless agents, you must navigate the dangers of the deep and the betrayal of the surface to uncover the truth and stay alive.
The story begins
The deck of the Sea Serpent rolled beneath your boots as you cinched the drysuit's final seal, the salt spray stinging your eyes. Captain Okafor stood at the helm, her weathered face a mask of tension as she glanced at the dark water churning below. The sun was a pale disc behind a veil of cloud, casting the world in a gray-green gloom that pressed against your chest like a held breath.
The masked Patron stood near the winch, a tall figure in dark oilskin, gloved fingers steepled before them. The voice that emerged was filtered, metallic. "The relic is in the central chamber. Bring it up, and the remainder of your fee is wired before you surface."
You'd taken impossible dives before. But something in the water's silence, in the way the gulls had gone quiet, made your gut tighten. The city below had been dead for centuries. It didn't feel dead now.
Okafor caught your eye. "You feel that?" she muttered. "The water's wrong. Too still."
The Patron's head tilted. "Time is money, salvager."
What happens next is up to you.
Or read in the app
More like this
The Anchor's Oath
You guard a sunken temple's deepest vault, but an expedition with the key to your locket has come to tear the reef apart.
The Maw and the Inheritance
MatureYour grandfather left you a key and a mountain that devours expeditions—now you must climb it to bury your mother.
The Frozen Echo
A distress call from a forty-year-old expedition knows your name and warns you not to come.
The Inherited Storm
You inherit a lighthouse that isn't on any map, and the first storm brings a ship that shouldn't exist.
The Binding of the Deep
MatureYou swore to guide a doomed crew to a sunken city, but the price is your very soul.
The Last Dowsing
You are the last water-finder, and the desert's final hope lies in your hands—but the source you seek feeds on hope itself.