A ship of people long forgotten, sacrificed to the ocean god. The remnants of their lives scattered across the ocean floor: an old boot, a broken porcelain doll, a tarnished pearl necklace. Periodically, the ocean god heaves a heavy sigh, extending an ancient tentacle, and pulls a token down into the sand. Soon, it whispers, there will come another sacrifice.
Codex - Leviathan Miscellany
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A ring, buried so deep in the detritus raised in the fishermen’s nets that only the most thorough or desperate would find it. Though corroded, a vein of iridescent metal at the centre draws the eye. The finger that wore it is still attached.
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Welcome Alicia!! 
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I love these codex threads. The writing is usually pretty inspired
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1- A small chest of coins minted to celebrate the victory of England over Spain in the Battle for Cartagena. It wouldn’t be difficult to find collectors happy to pay for such memorabilia that remains frozen in time.
2- In the year 2100 the NET can be accessed everywhere fast thanks to satellite connections. Nonetheless, old cables lie in the bottom of the ocean used by governments and megacorps to transfer private information. As risky as it is, reaching the data stream can provide to the ambitious hackers precious and unique information.
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Colossal bones, white in the depths with a faint glow, create an oasis of life in the cold abyssal desert. The ancient wreck of some great humanoid – a skull the size of a building, covered in waving bristle worms and home to sleeper sharks, hagfish and lobsters. The antediluvian corpse offers no clue beyond its size, but for the religious it can only be the remains of one of the fallen Watchers, or their Nephilim children, decried in the Book of Enoch.
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Deep below the surface, where no light penetrates, there is a plaza surrounded by cyclopean monoliths. It is only lit by three dancers who glow with an inner blue light. It is said the tides rise and fall to their rhythm, and should the dance falter the waters shall devourer the land.
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The Sunken Library sits at crushing depths, mapped out through reinforced windows by scientists who aim various sensors, sound-emitting gizmos, and extendable probes at this well-documented mystery. Far from the sun’s light: a chair, a side table, a tea cup, shelves, and volumes of books hosting a riot of desaturated corals and translucent slimes. Is it an illusion, the mind seeing patterns in eroded rocks? A sunken and forgotten art happening? Or a true treasure for whomever dares to have a seat outside their pressurized bubble?
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People who sail the southwest portion of the Mütter Sea talk about the sparkling lapis water, so deep and blue that painters struggle to faithfully capture the color. Some talk about the brief glimpses they have of the pearly white sand that lines the seafloor, too deep to reach by diving but sometimes bared by the strongest winds. In truth, that is not sand, but rather the pearly white thighs of the great mother, who sleeps there beneath the waves, her breathing driving the tides.
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If, while walking on the beach, you find a conch shell apparently carved from obsidian, I’d urge you not to listen to it. All shells contain the roar of the waves, but the darkest ones contain the voices that murmur beneath them. Those who hear the voices can listen to nothing else, and while they may be restrained on shore long enough to live a full life, it will not be a happy one, and it’s far more merciful to let them shrug off their clothes and walk into the water.
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We have all heard tale of Atlantis, that beautiful city lost beneath the waves, but few talk about her sister city, Pacifica, who remains afloat. You can visit Pacifica, though getting ashore is difficult - the coast is lined with boats of every shape and size, all long abandoned. The buildings are beautiful, and filled with precious offerings. But, it’s best you stop your ears with wax if you choose to visit - Pacifica lives in tribute to the goddess Tristitia, who was driven mad with grief for her sister. She cries beneath the city, and those who hear her voice tend to dive into Pacifica’s central well in their eagerness to console her.
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My dad was lost on a fishing trip when I was young, so my mom would take me clamming with her every night. We’d walk barefoot on the beach, looking for the bubbles between our toes that marked the presence of the critters. Sometimes I’d be so engrossed in the texture of the sand and the barking of the seals all around that I’d lose track of my mom. I always thought it was just my negligence, until one dawn I saw her shucking the sealskin. She saw me see her, and shrugged the skin back on, crying, running back into the waves. Reckon both my parents are lost at sea now, and soon as I can find the right skin, I will be too.
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♫ At the bottom of the sea, lass, the bottom of the sea, is a door that will not open, tie-dee-dee / At the bottom of the sea, lad, the bottom of the sea, is a door that will not open tie-dee-doe / But if we all go together, in a bladder made of leather, when the sea’s becalmed for weather / Shall we go? Oh shall we go? / For all doors are meant to open, shall we go? ♫
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At the very lowest point of the reef stands a ring of hand-carved statues. Nine maidens, clad in flowing robes of marble and granite and hair of black basalt. Kelp and coral grow from the statues’ hands and clothes, but their faces shine uncovered and unweathered. Stars glint in their obsidian eyes, reflections of the waves above. How long do you dare lock eyes with them?
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There is a cave, deep in the darkest parts of the ocean, where a collection of children’s dolls have been gathered. A small table and chairs have been carved from rock, and the dolls are having a tea party. Close inspection reveals the eyes have been removed from all of the dolls: this far down, eyes don’t help you see.
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A diving bell, but it’s inverted, ascending from somewhere deeper beyond the light. It aims towards the surface of the ocean. A halocline of sorts prevents you from seeing inside, but it’s easy to pass through, to reach within.
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Those on land know the scarcity and value of Tyrian purple. The the dye makers crush the innards of Murex brandaris with indigo-stained fingers, casting aside piles of empty shells, some of which slide back into the sea. They have done this for 3500 years.
Beneath the waves is a different part of the supply chain, less well known. An enormous blue glaucus (Glaucus atlanticus) spends its languid days scooping up young mollusks drifting past. It imbues each with a bit of its own indigo pigment, then casts them into the current. The glaucus grows a bit more pale with each passing century.
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It’s not fiction, but the Antikythera mechanism. Thinking about that thing keeps me up at nights. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism
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Once there lived a jolly maid
Jolly maid, jolly maid
Once there lived a jolly maid
Named Fair Mary
On some brine lord’s sea gilt beach
Sea gilt beach, sea gilt beach
On some brine lord’s sea gilt beach
She did tarry
Soon some wedding vows were shared
Vows were shared, vows were shared
Soon some wedding vows were shared
They did marry
Then he took her to the deep
To the deep, to the deep
Then he took her to the deep
We made merry
Now she haunts our glist’ning shores
Glist’ning shores, glist’ning shores
Now she haunts our glist’ning shores
Left unburied
(to the tune of London Bridge)
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Queeetktk loved being on-mission. The oxygenator allowed her to stay down for six hours straight, and let’s face it lads, the wetsuit was just dead sexy on her. This was the third time she’d faced off against the Chinese agent, this time among the tidal generators off Borneo. She knew that this time only one of them would leave the depths alive. He had her in bulk and raw power, of course, but no Commie Orca would ever match an American-born Bottlenose in sheer chutzpah.
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Cebrexelus was beginning to think that placing his fiendish oubliette full of dastardly traps and ravenous horrors beneath 750 feet of salt water may have been a bit too diabolical. With reluctance, he commanded the bored sirenoids to swim up to Coastwald so as to combat the rumor-mongering of its lightless, crushing horrors, and start pitching it as really not that bad as dungeons go if you didn’t mind a bit of a swim.
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