Your name is Stanley Stache, and you arrive one day to find your coworkers unusually missing. Curious, you ask your boss where they are, and he tells you they are in a party for successful members of the division, the sole exclusion being you. Chuckling, he ends the call, leaving you standing miserably in the center of the office workspace. You had always dreamed of being here in Vortex’s Artifact Recovery Division, and yet you have always been sidelined by other members taking credit for retrievals made off your research. Even Echo learned of your presumed incompetence and refused to let you switch sides. Left with no future prospects, you decide to take a long shot at the dreaded Abyss Run. It’s been on the division’s radar for a while, but was considered ooficidal due to the twenty oof row inmates sent to retrieve the artifacts grisly fate. Research had been underway on a massive shard of pure light that could provide unlimited clean energy when the facility experienced a cyberattack by a rogue Echo operative unleashing other high value experiments, with a loss of contact ensuing shortly after.
Seeing as you have no other reason to live, at least this way your family gets a check if you fail. And in the unlikely event you succeed, none of those bastards cna take credit for this. With a rare sense of purpose, you apply for the mission and report to the Fishtopia Subnautics Facility the following morning. After a briefing by Cpt. Buck, you enter the VST Gimfish and descend to the Abyssal Plain.
Upon arriving, you are stranded within a darkened docking bay, an automated system requesting you retrieve any files you come across whilst progressing towards the Central Lab. Donning your SCUBA suit, you proceed into the flooded halls of the research base, with only a faint flashlight to guide you through the murky darkness. After some time, you hear noises behind you, turning to see a Carver Shark fast approaching, having been designed as a defense against intruders, they now roam the halls hungry for any Gim unlucky enough to cross their path. You quickly duck into a locker and let it pass before going further. Reaching a sealed bulwark, you backtrack to a collapsed tunnel that leads out into a colorful reef perched on a cliff overlooking a formation of geothermal vents known as Nocturna’s Maw after some old folk legend. Wary of Carvers and the local parasitic Skaras that swarm those who stray from the bioluminescent path through the reef, you eventually find another opening, into the maintenance halls beneath the research chambers.
Solving a series of circuits to restore power to the lift into the main facility, you stop near a mysterious grotto labeled Shady’s Supplies, where a hooded figure trades you a code breacher for some of the files you had collected. Continuing up the shaft, you emerge into the Central Reactor, where you spot the Shard. Snatching it, the facility’s power fails, triggering a self-destruct sequence, causing you to flee as a swarm of Carvers converge on you. Barely making it to the evac site, you scramble in as it jets back to the surface.
Expecting a hero’s welcome, you are shocked to find a pair of Agents awaiting to take you to an unmarked van. You are driven back to your division HQ, where your boss gives you a check for 2 million Gimbucks before promptly fring you after forcing you to sign an NDA. Not exactly what you had hoped for, but a gilded cage is better than nothing you suppose. Vortex Command covers up the recovery by saying a systems malfunction triggered the self-destruct, causing the Shard to be lost, thus preventing further Echo incursions. And you are forgotten, tossed aside as your coworkers make billions off your labor through the Shard’s power after you handed it to your boss to be contained before leaving with your hush money.
ALTERNATE ENDING
Utilizing Shady’s code breaker, you steal the shard from its container after signing the NDA. You can then either fight your way out and defect to Echo, or fake the crystal’s destruction and live life on the run.