Yellow Jacket

Overview

The Brine Throne rests at the floor of a drowned valley on Hemera's continental shelf, its lays a few hundred meters below the surface. Despite centuries underwater, it radiates warmth, strong enough that currents around it feel alive, pulsing like breath. Its surface is a mosaic of corroded bronze, saltstone accretions, and tangled sea growth, yet the outline remains unmistakable: a throne built for someone immense.

The Structure

The Throne is carved from a metal unknown in any quarry or forge, its corroded bulk disguising its original form. Strange grooves mark its back and arms, as if they once held adornments long since dissolved. Nearly four meters high, it dwarfs any human seat, shaped for a giant or something less human.

The Waters

The valley around the Throne is strangely crowded with life. Schools of fish spiral in endless loops, never breaking their patterns. Crustaceans pile at its base but do not climb the seat itself. Within three meters, the water grows warm, as if something inside the Throne still breathes. Divers describe their lights cutting only a short distance before vanishing into a gloom that feels almost deliberate. In storm season, bubbles rise from the stone below, carrying the stench of sulfur and rust.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

Superstitions

The Seat of the Drowned King.

Sailors whisper it belonged to a monarch who once ruled the seas. To sit upon it, even in armor and gear, is to invite drowning.

The Heat of Hunger.

Fishermen say the Throne's warmth is not comfort but appetite, waiting for a body to claim.

Never Anchor Nearby.

Old charts mark the valley as cursed. Ships that linger too close report broken hulls, fouled nets, and storms that form without warning.

Encounters

Divers' Accounts.

Those who reach it often describe hearing a low hum through their helmets, as if the Throne itself vibrates. Some surface with vertigo, nosebleeds, or nausea.

Wreckage.

Several fishing vessels and one Princedom cutter lie in pieces near the valley, their hulls torn apart from within.

Sightings.

Rare divers speak of a shape seated on the Throne, too vast to be human, too indistinct to be trusted.

Theories

Volcanic Vent.

Some scholars insist the heat comes from cracks in the seabed, the Throne a coincidence.

Imperial Relic.

Others claim it was forged in the Empire's last days, when even thrones were weapons, perhaps tied to drowned war machines.

Living Metal.

Fringe cults argue the Throne itself is alive, digesting centuries in silence