Soldier's Benthic Waterbreather of the Afflicted

Soldier's Benthic Waterbreather of the Afflicted hangs from a salt-streaked chain, a brass collar lacquered in a greenish patina, with barnacles that rustle as you move. A curved glass sphere nests at its center, bulging with a pale, viscous light that seems to inhale and exhale with your breath. The surface is pocked with marks from long nights in the pressurized gloom, as if a hundred fingers rubbed it to coax comfort from the deep. Delicate etchings trace kelp fronds and half-buried runes along the body, a soldier’s signature scratched when the war wove the sea into a weapon. In the dim, flickering glow of lanterns, the waterbreather’s valve hissed softly, promising that with enough patience you could sip the ocean’s air without a single gargle of salt. The lore around it runs like a current: forged for those who walked shipwreck lanes where the Afflicted’s banners drooped under the pressure, the device is said to have been tempered in brine and sorrow. Soldiers who wore it learned to read the sway of the water as if it were a map, trusting the swell’s memory more than their own heartbeat. When the surface world grew loud and dry, this thing became a quiet oath—a relic that allowed a living breath to stay steady beneath the weight of an abandoned ocean. It is at once a tool and a reminder: the sea, which devours and preserves, will always demand more of you if you listen closely enough. Used properly, it transforms underwater exploration from gamble to ritual. Divers slip it over the neck, seal the lungs against the brine, and press on into sunken holds where the light fails and the current writes its own language. You can search for ancient channels and sealed crates, or shadow the Afflicted’s own patrols in the wrecked hulls of escort ships, feeling the water pressure push back against your chest in a reminder of what is truly earned. The breath becomes longer, steadier, even as the world around you grows colder and more silent. It won’t do the diving for you, but it makes the deep more intimate, like sharing a confidant’s breath in a crowded room. Walk through any dockside market and you’ll hear the telltale clink of coins and the soft hum of bargaining. At Saddlebag Exchange, traders skirt around it with a reverent hush, trading rumors as much as metal. A buyer might lay down a price in silver and a carved shell trinket, arguing that the piece belongs with someone who understands kelp forests and ship-borne ghosts. The seller smiles, knowing the clockwork of scarcity favors patience, and pockets the exchange with a careful gratitude, pocketing the memory of the ocean in a keepsake that can be worn or lent to another diver who needs a breath between two worlds. Its price waxes with tides and tales, but its value endures in the mouths of those who have heard deeper silence and answered. Some keep it as a keepsake; others as a tool.