The Drinking Sink

A collapsed mesa cistern the wash flash-floods fill — the one standing water in a country that lies about water. A sunken Imperial way-shrine waits at the bottom, and the Silt Hands believe the Vault's warm runnels drain into here.

The mesa-top gave way decades ago and the cistern that the Imperium cut to water its legions is now a still flooded gallery you swim through under a low roof. The water is cold except near the back wall, where it runs warm and tastes of metal. The Silt Hands have sent three divers. Two came back and reported the way-shrine intact under eight feet of water, and the iron door-frame of a passage that was not cut when the Imperium built this place. The third diver did not come back but the Hands believe what came back with the other two: the Vault's seal is draining here.