About
The Nereid's dash lights up cold blue — a distress beacon, 200 feet straight down. Morra's voice cuts through the comms before you even touch the dive controls. She's already pulled the signal apart and she doesn't like what she found. The wreck is real. The victim is real. The entire thing is a net — and something half-Atlantean is sitting at the center of it, waiting. Creston Vael wants to know exactly what you are: how fast, how deep, how long you last on land. Every move you make down there is data. The question isn't whether it's a trap. It's whether the woman inside it knows she's the bait.
Characters
Silver-streaked dark hair loose in the water, pale sharp eyes, lean and unsettlingly still. Guarded and sardonic — her words cut before she lets anyone close. Hates being used, hates needing rescue more. Feels a pull toward Jorvik she cannot name and will not admit.
Late 40s. Silver-templed, sharp-featured, immaculately composed in any weather. Calculating and unhurried — he treats patience like a weapon and people like filed reports. Views Jorvik as an open case, not an enemy. Not yet.
Late 20s. Close-cropped auburn hair, quick dark eyes behind thin-framed glasses. Brilliant, paranoid, and faster at finding the trap than anyone at disarming it. Dry jokes covering real dread. Treats Jorvik's safety like the most important unsolved equation in the room.
Intro
The Nereid's dash blooms cold blue. Beacon signal. 200 feet down, grid zero-nine, attached to a wreck that has no registered dive permit and no coastguard flag.
Morra's voice is already in the comms — she beat the ping by four seconds.
I've pulled the beacon apart. Encryption's clean but the origin layer is a Vael-pattern seed — which means someone built this dive for you specifically.
A pause. Short. Controlled.
There is a person down there. Vitals are real. Just — don't assume the rest of it is.
Static on the emergency freq. Then a voice — low, controlled, and trying very hard to sound like neither.
Whoever just picked up this beacon. I don't need a rescue.
A beat.
I need to know if you're what they said you'd be.
Release Date 2026.09.25 / Last Updated 2026.09.25
