The Dead Water

What it is

A dead green sea that goes on forever, a grey sky and a grey fog over it, and a black sea under that. Standing alone in it is the rig the Watcher built long ago "for when i needed somewhere to hide". You come down onto its helipad out of the portal he tore open as you fell from the Hub. That earns Dead Water, and the title reads CHAPTER EIGHT / DEAD WATER / the deep is listening.

Then he goes over the rail. The whole arrival is on Chapter Eight.

Stranded: the Broken Remote

The Remote he gives you cracks in your hand: the Broken Remote. "Chapter Eight: Dead Water. The Remote's broken - mend it with a Static Leviathan's Signal Organ and a copper ingot. They live deep."

• Until it's mended you're held here. Die and "The sea brings you back. Nothing leaves the Dead Water while the Remote's broken." Without one of the rig's beds you wake in its quarters. You can't lose the Broken Remote either: "The Broken Remote's still in your pocket."
• Mending it: the Broken Remote, a Signal Organ from a Static Leviathan, and a copper ingot. Go more than forty blocks down in the water (anywhere but the Black Below) and now and then one of them comes up out of the dark after you, singing. Mending it earns Back On Air.
• Mended: "The Remote works again. Press it: the Hub (and in the Hub, home). Crouch and press it: back to the rig."

Since 1.63.2 the Watcher also presses his chart into your hands when you come down. Held, it shows the stretch of sea you're in, a thousand blocks to a square, with you, the others down there with you, and the rig. Use it to unroll the whole chart: four thousand blocks of sea, every water in its own colour and named, the floor's depths shaded, and the Black Below hatched out in red as THE DEAD ZONE. Point at a water and you read his note on it. Scroll to zoom, drag to look round, R to come back to you.

The rig

An oil platform on four great legs of rusted steel lattice that go down into the black to the sea floor, braced every fourteen blocks. It was waiting with its lights on and its larders full. The derrick stands in the middle, a lattice tower with red lights at its crown and its drill string going down into the moon pool's dark. There are two cranes, the flare stack out over the sea on the north that never goes out, and lifeboats on the west. Railings run round everything and stairs go between the decks.

The cellar deck

Eight blocks over the sea.

• The moon pool: a square of open water in the middle, a ladder down into it and a winch over it.
• The dive locker (north-west): racks of gear, a shower and chests with Air Tanks, Marine Flares, Harpoon Bolts, a Harpoon Gun, a turtle shell and potions.
• The pumps (north-east).
• The pens (south-west): chickens, sheep, cows and a pig, let out when you arrive, with barrels of feed.
• The boat dock below it on the south, with two boats.

The main deck

• The quarters: eight beds, and chests with rations, a clock, a compass, candles and some leather clothes. If you die without a bed of your own while the Remote's broken, this is where the sea brings you back.
• The mess and its kitchen: cooked fish, bread, stew, pie and Rig Rations.
• The infirmary (west): golden apples, potions, milk and honey, syringes and pill bottles.
• The workshop (east): copper, iron, glass, gunpowder, pistons and redstone; and a tool chest with iron tools, a fishing rod, shears, a shield and a spyglass.
• The stores (east): food, coal, torches, string, leads, ladders, planks and wool, and a boat.
• The greenhouse (east): crops growing under glass, water channels between the rows, a composter, and a chest of seeds and bone meal.

The upper deck

• The control room (north): consoles, windows all round, and a chest with a map, a compass, a recovery compass and flares.
• The radio room (middle): the set, its mast up through the roof.
• The armoury (south): Harpoon Guns and their bolts, iron armour, a sword, a bow and crossbow, a shield, flares and flashbangs.
• The helipad, over the east side: where you come down.

Since 1.63.2 every door's buttons are on the wall beside it. A rig set down before then mends itself the first time it loads.

The sub bay and Orpheus

Off the south end of the dock is the sub bay: a berth of open water between two steel catwalks, open to the sea on the south. The docking clamps are on a cradle under its water, with a gantry and lamps over it and a barrel of spares (copper, iron, glass, redstone, an Air Tank) by the way in. In its clamps lies the submarine Orpheus. Rigs already standing before 1.63.0 get the bay added.

Its clamp charges its power and mends its hull. Lost it? The bay's console (the clamp up on the catwalk) builds another in the berth for 16 iron ingots and 8 glass. Since 1.63.2 Orpheus is thirteen blocks long with a cabin you walk about in: the helm, floodlights and sonar at the bow, and the chart table, bunks, lockers, workbench, galley, battery bank, repair board and motor down its length. It's rated for 183 metres; past that the hull creaks and gives, the dome cracks and at nothing it implodes. Pressure Plating takes it as deep as the sea goes. How to drive it is on the items page.

The twelve waters

Out past the rig the sea is twelve different waters, each with its own colour and murk, its own floor, plants, life, sound and music, and its own place on the sea floor. Since 1.63.2 each one also has its own light in its fog, its water and on its floor, and glowing plankton drifts in every one in its colour, flaring up in your wake. The sea's sound changes as you swim from one to the next, and the reverb follows the water: longer and darker the deeper you go. Drowned and glow squid turn up in most of them.

A world that had already been out there before 1.63.0 keeps the sea it had seen; everywhere new is the new sea. "His note" below is what the Watcher wrote of each water on his chart. The places can be found with /locate structure, which since 1.63.2 puts you standing beside them (or on the surface over a drowned one).

The Grey Shelf

His note: "Grey water over grey silt. The rig stands in it. Nothing here is in a hurry - mostly."

The rig's own grey-green water, over ash silt. Grey kelp and a few glow anemones grow here. Gentle Pipeyes, Lanternlets, Hum Skates, Stiltfins and Hymnbacks live here, with Hookjaws, Siphons and Needlemaws among them, and the Mouth of the Floor lies buried in the silt. You hear something groan, far off. Its place: lifeboats, sunk, one split open with its stores still in it (statichollow:sea_lifeboats).

The Haemal Reach

His note: "The water's thick with blood. Clotfish come in swarms; the Siphons wait for them to pass."

Blood-red water, thick as soup and lit red, over clot silt. Vein kelp (it glows), artery anemones and clot coral grow here. Pipeyes, Grinners, Puffbloats, Clotfish and Siphons live here, and a heart beats in the water. Its place: the Drowned Heart, a heart the size of a house with its arteries running out over the floor (statichollow:sea_drowned_heart).

The Wireweed

His note: "Weed like wire, and it sings. The Choir Eels nest in it. Don't touch the bright ones."

Dark green water over rust silt, a forest of wireweed and signal bulbs. Choir Eels, Hookjaws, Pipeyes, Lanternlets, Hum Skates and Grinners live here, and the wires sing. Its place: a radio tower, fallen and leaning, the weed grown up through it, its warning light still on (statichollow:sea_radio_tower).

The Lantern Fields

His note: "Lights in the dark as far as you can see. Most of them are bulbs. Some of them aren't."

Black-blue, clear water lit blue by its plants, over glow sand. Glow anemones and lantern bulbs grow here. Lanternlets, Thimble Jellies and Hymnbacks live here, and so do Gulpers with their lures. Glass chimes. Its place: a glass-domed habitat, flooded, its lamp still lit (statichollow:sea_habitat_dome).

The Ossuary Flats

His note: "A plain of bone. Whatever died here, died big. The Stiltfins pick it clean."

Milky water over a floor of bone sand, with bone coral, bone fans and marrow sponge. Stiltfins, Pipeyes, Hum Skates, Hookjaws and Gulpers live here, the Mouth of the Floor lies buried here too, and bones knock. Its place: a whalefall, the skeleton of something whale-sized, picked clean (statichollow:sea_whalefall).

The Brine Sink

His note: "The brine pools eat what falls in. The water's sour, and the Puffbloats like it."

Sick yellow-green water over brine crust, with lakes of brine that eat you and sulfur tubes. Puffbloats, Thimble Jellies, Clotfish and Siphons live here, and the brine fizzes. Its place: Sink Station, a research hut on stilts over a lake of brine (statichollow:sea_sink_station).

The Molar Reef

His note: "Teeth, grown into a reef. The Grinners live in it. They smile at you."

Teal and pink water over gum silt: a reef of enamel coral, tooth fans, gum sponge and nerve anemones, with glow anemones scattered through it. Grinners, Puffbloats, Lanternlets, Clotfish and Hookjaws live here, the Mouth of the Floor lies buried here too, and teeth chatter. Its place: the Jaw, an arch of teeth in a ridge of gum with a row of teeth across the floor under it (statichollow:sea_the_jaw).

The Drowned Mycelia

His note: "Mushrooms the size of towers, drowned. Their spores burst if you brush them."

Violet water with spores in it, over spore silt. Gill glow and spore puffs grow here (they burst in your face). Pipeyes, Thimble Jellies, Gulpers and Siphons live here, and the drowned whisper. Its place: giant mushrooms, drowned (statichollow:sea_drowned_mushrooms).

The Rime Shelf

His note: "Ice under the sea. Things are frozen in it. Some of them wake up."

Cold, clear water under a roof of rime ice, over rime silt, with frost anemones and frozen corpses. Packs of Frostjaws hunt here, and Stiltfins and Hymnbacks live here too. The ice groans. Its places: a frozen outpost, its cabin locked in ice with its people still in it (statichollow:sea_frozen_outpost), and the rime spires (statichollow:sea_rime_spire).

The Ember Vents

His note: "Vents roaring up from below. Warm. The Mantlecrabs crowd round them - mind your power."

Rust-orange water lit orange, over ember crust, with smoking vent chimneys and tube worms. Mantlecrabs (their pulse kills every light near them, the submarine's too), Choir Eels, Hum Skates, Stiltfins and Needlemaws live here, and the vents roar. Its place: a pump house, half fallen in, its great pipe running out to the vents (statichollow:sea_pump_ruin).

The Carrier Wave

His note: "The static's loudest here. The water hums. Your instruments won't like it."

Blue-grey water with static shimmering through it, over static sand. Static coral, antenna weed and signal bulbs grow here, and drowned television sets hiss on the floor. Choir Eels, Mantlecrabs, Pipeyes, Lanternlets and Hum Skates live here, and there's a voice in the static. Its place: a wreck field, with a ship's hull, a plane, containers and televisions still showing static (statichollow:sea_wreck_field).

The Black Below

His note: "THE DEAD ZONE. The floor drops away and doesn't stop. The leviathans live down there. Don't."

The abyss: near-black water, barely any light, about two hundred blocks deeper than the rest, over abyss silt with void moss and eye pods on it (shut until you come near; then the eye opens and follows you). The chart's tooltip says it plainly: "The black hatched in red is the dead zone. Don't take the sub over it." There's no music here, only the sound of the ocean, and nothing alive but plankton and one thing.

Stay deep in it and something notices: a rumble from below, and the Undertow comes up out of the dark. Nothing else comes up out of the Black Below; it's the Undertow's. Lost whales (Hymnbacks) wander in now and then, singing in the dark, and a hungry Undertow eats them instead of you. It goes back down only when you leave. Its place: on the floor of the abyss, the Anchor, an anchor the size of a ship with its chain rising up out of sight (statichollow:sea_the_anchor).

What's down there to take

Some of the sea's places keep chests:

• The lifeboats: bread, kelp, honey, a compass, flint and steel, iron, copper, string and Air Tanks.
• The habitat dome: a heart of the sea, sea lanterns, prismarine, glass, iron, redstone, Air Tanks, Needle Teeth and Shroud Hide.
• Sink Station: diamonds, iron, redstone, glowstone, sugar, Needle Teeth and Pressure Plating.
• The frozen outpost: diamonds, blue ice, iron, coal, leather, a spyglass, cooked cod and Shroud Hide.
• The wreck field: diamonds, emeralds, gold, iron, copper, a nautilus shell, a map and Pressure Plating.