The Crushing Dark
In the E Meridian, there is no day or night, only the eternal, crushing dark of the abyssal plain. Here, light is not a right; it is an achievement. The cities are grown, not built, from colossal spires of living coral that pulse with a cold, internal light. These spires, interconnected by shimmering bridges of solidified energy, are the only sanctuary from the immense pressure that would instantly pulverize any surface-dweller. To exist here is to be in a constant, delicate balance with an environment that is actively hostile to all forms of unprotected life.
The Tentacrodions
The rulers of the deep are the Tentacrodions. Their cephalopodic forms drift silently through the dark waters, their thoughts as alien as their environment. They communicate not with sound, which is warped and useless at this depth, but with complex, shifting patterns of light across their skin—a language of pure, cold logic. Unburdened by the chaotic emotions of the surface world, they have watched the ages pass with detached curiosity, their society a perfect, humming machine of silent observation and data collection.
The Stirring Deep
For millennia, their isolation was perfect. Now, the eternal silence is broken. A new tremor resonates through the deep—a pressure that is not of water, but of something ancient and waking from the seabed below. For the first time, the flawless logic of the Tentacrodions must account for a variable they cannot observe, a concept their language has no word for: an external, existential threat. The dataset is incomplete. A decision must be made: remain hidden and risk annihilation, or rise to the surface and confront a world they have only ever watched from afar.