The Berth
The dock at the surface — the one warm, lit place in the whole expedition, and home to the two people who actually run it: Quartermaster Bell and Cartographer Wren.
01 Coming home
Open the Chart (M) and choose the Berth card at the top of the water column, or fly straight into the passage mouth yourself — the slowly turning pale spiral in the water — and press T the moment you’re close. Either way drops you on the dock. Docked, your HUD cards run warm amber instead of cold teal: the game’s own way of telling you that you’re home.
Nothing is collected, sighted or recorded while you’re standing on the dock — but any field you’ve already charted keeps paying the whole time, same as anywhere else with the game open. Close the tab, though, and that stops; earning crystals with it closed takes arming Fleet Dispatch first, covered in The Economy. Two named keepers stand here, each running one real service.
02Quartermaster Bell — Stores & Exchange
Get close and press T to talk. Bell keeps a physical balance on the counter, not a form — the one real trade in the game: crystals for Parts, in either direction.
Pick a direction first, on two small plates at the top of the counter — one direction crystals to Parts, the other Parts to crystals — and the scale answers at once: whichever side you’re paying from carries real drawn goods stacked on its tray, and the beam tips down toward that side exactly as a loaded scale would. The far tray only holds ghosted outlines of what you’re about to receive, so the shape of the trade is legible before a single number is read. Nudge the amount with the stepper, or jump straight to Max, and watch the beam tip further as the load grows — then pull the lever to strike the deal. The confirm control really is a lever, with a knob that slides down the moment the trade goes through.
The counter
03Cartographer Wren — Charts & Passage
Talk to Wren for the same trips the Chart screen itself offers — no fee, no currency involved, just a destination. Instead of a plain list, Wren keeps an illustrated depth strip laid out on the counter: three painted cards, each a small slice of the water it will actually drop you into.
The first two cards are real destinations: pick one, then pull the lever marked “Take the passage” — a small spinning spiral sits in its slot, the same spiral drawn on the passage mouth itself. The third card is deliberately dead. It never selects, and it never goes anywhere; it’s drawn as a jammed signal on purpose, so the strip already shows the shape of a service that isn’t built yet without pretending it works today.
“One day there will be beacons strung the whole way down, and you will step between them like rooms. Bring me the depths first,” as Wren puts it — for now the passage only knows two real marks: the top, and how far down you’ve already been.
For the sonar-scope shortcut to the Chart and how travel reads on the vertical section, see Sonar & Chart.