Vredging — ~upd~

With a mechanical roar, the floor of the cargo hold opened up. The recovered tech, the glowing cubes, the ancient bones, and the deadly mud slid back into the sea. The ship groaned, suddenly buoyant, lifting violently upward.

The crew moved with the sluggish, heavy motions of men who had not seen the sun in weeks. Vredging was not for gold or jewels. The era of pirate treasure was long dead. This was the era of the Harvest. The wars a century ago had dumped millions of tons of "dead tech"—rusted mechs, spent fuel rods, and tangled quantum processors—into the Trench. Now, the world above was running on fumes, desperate to reclaim the copper and lithium sleeping in the muck. vredging

As they rose, the pressure dropped. The gas trapped in the haul expanded. With a mechanical roar, the floor of the

Elias stood on the heaving deck of the Cinder , his knuckles white as he gripped the railing. He was a Vredger, a dredger of the deep, though the old sailors called it "vredging"—a word that sounded like the wet slap of mud against steel. The crew moved with the sluggish, heavy motions