The Chromium Tides: A Song of Salvage and Ruin

By Evan Harrington and AI (Editor)

1927. The world is a fractured archipelago of colossal iron islands, remnants of a shattered Earth. Humanity clings to these metallic behemoths, their skies choked with soot, their lives fueled by mountains of coal. But beneath the churning chromium tides, whispers of a forgotten age beckon, promising technologies beyond comprehension.
Captain Tress Varnor, a woman hardened by loss and driven by a secret past, commands the salvage vessel *Harbinger*.  She prowls the treacherous waters, seeking solace in the deep, her crew a motley band reflecting the archipelago's harsh realities. Their latest quest leads them to the Whispering Deeps, a submerged city of impossible architecture, where an unparalleled energy source pulsates with an eerie bioluminescent glow.  It's a siren's call, and Tress cannot resist.
But the city does not welcome visitors.  Ancient biomechanical guardians awaken, leviathans of metal and flesh animated by the very energy that drew Tress to this place.  Their directive: eradicate all analog technology. The *Harbinger*, with its coal-fired engine, becomes their prime target.  Escape is a harrowing fight for survival against creatures that defy the laws of nature.
Survival, however, is only the beginning. The bioluminescent tide spreads, threatening the fragile ecosystem. Ruthless rivals, sensing opportunity, close in, led by the ironclad dreadnought *Nemesis* and its merciless captain, Aaron Stone. He sees Tress not as a competitor, but as prey.
Forced into an uneasy alliance with the reclusive inventor Theodore Evans, Tress must confront the ghosts of her past and the horrifying truth: she helped create the very technology now threatening to consume their world. As the tides rise and alliances crumble, Tress must choose between her obsession and the fate of the archipelago.  Can she master the chromium tides before they consume everything she holds dear?  Or will her past, and the secrets of the deep, ultimately be her ruin?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publishdrive
• Release date: Jan 13, 2025

Book preview

Prologue

The year was 1888, and London was a city on fire—not from flame, but from the relentless combustion of ambition. The skies, once pale and wide, were now cloaked in a shroud of gray, a thick and acrid smoke that clung to the city like a second skin. The air tasted of coal dust and iron, a bitter tang that stung the nostrils and coated the throat with every breath. The streets were alive with the pulse of industry, a cacophony of hammer strikes, clanging gears, and the hiss of steam engines. It was a city that roared with the promise of progress, its heart beating faster than ever before, as if it could sense that time was running out.

Gas lamps flickered along the cobbled avenues, their golden halos struggling against the encroaching fog. The lamps cast long, wavering shadows on the faces of hurried pedestrians, their expressions pinched with worry or sharpened with purpose. Above them, skeletal frameworks of steel and iron reached skyward, the unfinished skeletons of skyscrapers that promised to pierce the heavens. They stood as monuments to human ingenuity, yet their jagged, incomplete forms whispered of hubris, of a future that might never arrive.

Beneath the grandeur of this industrial symphony, London’s underbelly hummed with a different kind of energy. It was here, in the hidden corners of the city, that the boundaries of possibility were being rewritten. In forgotten basements, in abandoned warehouses, and in the labyrinthine tunnels beneath the streets, men and women worked in secrecy, their hands stained with oil and their minds aflame with ideas too daring for the surface world. Among them was Dr. Elias Thorne, a man whose ambition rivaled the city itself.

Thorne’s laboratory was buried deep within the foundations of an old textile mill, a place where the air was thick with the smell of ozone and the faint, metallic tang of machinery. The room was a marvel of controlled chaos, its walls lined with shelves crammed full of glass vials, copper wiring, and brass instruments of unfathomable complexity. Steam hissed from valves, and gears turned in a hypnotic dance, their polished teeth catching the dim light of the gas lamps. In the center of the room stood Thorne himself, a figure both commanding and disheveled, his coat speckled with ash and his hands encased in heavy, grease-stained gloves.

He stood before his greatest creation, an intricate apparatus that seemed almost alive. Copper pipes snaked across its surface, connecting reservoirs of viscous, shimmering fluids to a tangle of gears and pistons. In its heart, a bulbous glass chamber pulsed with a faint, bioluminescent glow, casting eerie shadows on Thorne’s gaunt face. He adjusted a dial, and the machine emitted a low, resonant hum, a sound that seemed to vibrate in the very marrow of the bones.

Beautiful, Thorne murmured, his voice barely audible over the machinery’s rhythmic thrumming. His eyes, sharp and fever-bright, reflected the glow of the chamber as if he were lit from within. This is it. The future, held in the palm of my hand.

For years, Thorne had pursued the dream of biomechanical fusion, the seamless integration of flesh and machine. To him, it was not merely a scientific endeavor but a philosophical one: a way to transcend the frailties of the human body and the limitations of nature itself. He envisioned a world where humanity could reshape itself, where limbs of polished steel and hearts of synthetic muscle could defy the caprices of disease and time. He was close now, so tantalizingly close, and the thought of it made his chest tighten with anticipation.

Yet even as Thorne toiled, the earth beneath his feet began to grumble. It was subtle at first, a faint tremor that rippled through the floor and caused the tools on his workbench to rattle. Thorne frowned, glancing up from his work. He had felt such tremors before—London was no stranger to the occasional seismic quiver—but this was different. There was a weight to it, a resonance that seemed to come not from the earth but from something deeper, something older.

The hum of his apparatus faltered, its rhythm disrupted by the vibration. Thorne cursed under his breath, his hands moving quickly to stabilize the machine. But the tremors grew stronger, the floor beneath him heaving like a living thing. The gas lamps flickered wildly, their flames struggling against the encroaching darkness.

Then came the sound—a low, guttural growl that seemed to rise from the very core of the planet. It was a sound that defied description, a symphony of grinding stone and tearing metal, of roaring fire and crashing waves. It rolled through the city like a tidal wave, shattering windows and toppling chimneys, sending people fleeing into the streets with cries of panic.

Thorne staggered as the ground bucked beneath him, his hands clutching the edge of his workbench for support. The laboratory was in chaos now, shelves toppling and vials shattering, their contents pooling in iridescent puddles on the floor. Sparks flew from the apparatus as its components strained against the upheaval, the bioluminescent glow within its chamber flickering erratically.

No, Thorne hissed, his voice rising in desperation. Not now. Not when I’m so close!

But the earth did not heed him. The tremors reached a crescendo, and with a deafening crack, the ceiling above him split open, a jagged fissure that revealed the night sky beyond. Through the haze of smoke and dust, Thorne could see the city in turmoil. Buildings swayed like drunken giants, their iron skeletons groaning under the strain. Fires raged in the distance, the flames licking hungrily at the sky. The Thames had risen, its swollen waters spilling over the embankments and sweeping away anything in their path.

And then, as suddenly as it had begun, the tremors ceased. The silence that followed was almost more unsettling than the chaos, a heavy, oppressive stillness that seemed to press down on the city like a shroud. Thorne stood motionless, his chest heaving as he struggled to catch his breath. Around him, the laboratory lay in ruins, his precious apparatus reduced to a smoking, sparking wreck.

For a long moment, he simply stared at the wreckage, unable to comprehend what had just happened. But then his eyes were drawn to the chamber, the heart of his creation. It still glowed faintly, a flickering light in the darkness, and he felt a pang of hope. Perhaps all was not lost. Perhaps—

The ground lurched again, a sudden, violent jolt that sent him sprawling. This time, it was not the earth itself that moved, but the forces beneath it. A roar erupted from somewhere deep below, a sound of such raw, primal power that it seemed to shake the very fabric of reality.

And then the sky began to rain ash.

It fell in great, choking clouds, darkening the air and coating the city in a layer of fine, gray powder. The air grew thick and acrid, the smell of sulfur and burning coal mingling with the metallic tang of blood. Thorne coughed, his lungs straining against the toxic atmosphere. He stumbled to his feet, his eyes burning as he tried to make sense of the scene before him.

The city was dissolving.

The ground beneath London fractured and sank, whole districts swallowed by the earth or submerged beneath the rising waters of the Thames. The gas lamps had gone out, leaving the streets in an oppressive darkness that was broken only by the eerie, flickering glow of uncontrolled fires. Above it all, the ash continued to fall, a relentless deluge that blanketed the ruins and muffled the cries of the dying.

Thorne’s mind raced, his thoughts a chaotic tangle of fear and determination. He could not let it end like this—not here, not now. His work, his vision, it had to survive. Stumbling through the wreckage of his laboratory, he gathered what he could: blueprints, notes, fragments of machinery. He stuffed them into a satchel, his hands trembling as he worked. The apparatus was beyond saving, but its essence—its soul—could still be preserved.

He was about to turn and flee when a new sound reached his ears, one that froze him in place. It was a whisper, faint and elusive, like the rustling of leaves in a distant forest. Yet it carried with it a strange, almost melodic quality, a rhythm that seemed to resonate in his very bones.

He turned toward the sound, his eyes narrowing as he peered through the smoke and ash. And then he saw it—an ethereal glow emanating from the fissures in the earth, a bioluminescent light that pulsed and shifted like a living thing. It was the same light that had filled the chamber of his apparatus, the same light that had fueled his dreams.

For a moment, he felt a surge of exhilaration. The light, the energy—it was real. It was alive. But as he stepped closer, his exhilaration turned to dread. The glow was spreading, seeping into the ruins of the city, creeping along the fractured streets like a tide of liquid metal. It moved with an almost predatory grace, consuming everything in its path.

And from within the light, shapes began to emerge.

They were vast and grotesque, creatures of metal and flesh, their forms twisted and unnatural. Their eyes glowed with the same bioluminescent light, and their movements were accompanied by the grinding of gears and the hiss of steam. They were biomechanical nightmares, and they were alive.

Thorne stumbled back, his heart pounding in his chest. The creatures moved with purpose, their glowing eyes scanning the ruins as if searching for something—or someone. One of them turned its gaze toward him, and for a moment, their eyes met. In that fleeting instant, Thorne felt as though the creature could see through him, as if it understood him in a way that no human ever could.

And then it turned away, its attention drawn to some distant point in the ruins. Thorne did not wait to see what it would do next. He turned and ran, his satchel clutched tightly to his chest, his mind racing with thoughts of survival.

Behind him, the city continued to crumble, the light spreading like a malignant cancer. And in the depths of his heart, Thorne knew that this was only the beginning. The world he had known was gone, swallowed by the Sundering. But the light—the chromium tide—it had only just begun to rise.

Chapter 1: The Harbinger's Hunt

The Harbinger skimmed the restless surface of the chromium tides, the vessel's articulated wings slicing through the spindrift like the outstretched pinions of a great metal bird. The air was dense with the tang of iron and salt, mingling with the faint acrid burn of coal smoke wafting from the distant Cinder Isles. Above, the bruised sky churned with thick clouds, their edges frayed by an unseen storm gathering strength in the distance. Veins of pale lightning flickered now and then, illuminating the horizon, where a spectral silhouette loomed—a derelict ship adrift in the roiling waters, a relic of a world long consigned to ruin.

Tress Varnor stood at the helm, her figure braced against the persistent spray that dampened the bridge. Her gaze was fixed, unyielding, on the distant wreck. Every contour of her face, every taut line of her scarred jaw, seemed to embody the unrelenting determination that had carried her through decades of loss and discovery. She adjusted the Harbinger's course with a practiced hand, the wheel responding to her as though it were an extension of her own will. Beneath her boots, the ship hummed with life—not the rhythmic thrum of a typical engine but an uneven, almost organic vibration, a result of Gregory’s ever-evolving modifications to its power core.

Denise Morales entered the bridge, her boots heralding her arrival with deliberate clicks against the metal deck. She carried herself with her usual resolute efficiency, her sharp eyes scanning the instruments arrayed before her. We’re closing in, she announced, her voice cutting cleanly through the ambient noise of wind and water. Her tone was calm, professional, but there was an undercurrent of concern. The derelict’s caught in a slow drift, likely snagged in one of the deeper crosscurrents. If we don’t move fast, we’ll lose it to the tides.

Then we won’t lose it, Tress replied without looking away from the horizon. Her voice was low and steady, but there was a sharp edge to it, a blade honed by years of command.

Denise hesitated before continuing. That wreck’s barely holding itself together. One wrong move, and we could be salvaging scraps from the ocean floor—or worse, joining it down there.

Tress finally turned, meeting Denise’s gaze with a flicker of something that might have been impatience or resolve—or perhaps a mixture of both. It hasn’t sunk yet, she said, her words clipped. And as long as it stays afloat, it’s ours.

A faint, muffled clang reverberated from below, followed by a triumphant whoop that could only belong to Gregory Nichols. The engineer burst onto the bridge moments later, his wiry frame practically vibrating with excitement. His hands, smeared with grease, clutched a scribbled design on a scrap of parchment. Captain! Oh, you’re going to love this! I just recalibrated the stabilizers to compensate for the tidal interference. The sheer elegance of it—you’d weep if you had any sense of mechanical beauty!

I’ll weep later, Tress said dryly, though a faint glimmer of amusement softened her expression. Right now, I need you to make sure every system on this ship is running at full capacity. I don’t want any surprises when we board that wreck.

Gregory grinned, his teeth flashing white against the grime on his face. Full capacity? Captain, I’ll have this ship singing an aria by the time we’re done. You’ve got my word.

Good, Tress said, her attention already returning to the derelict. Go do it.

As Gregory disappeared below deck, muttering to himself about torque ratios and harmonic oscillations, Anya Sharma appeared at the doorway, her presence a calming counterpoint to the engineer’s frenetic energy. She stepped onto the bridge with a measured grace, her dark eyes observing everything with quiet attentiveness. A satchel hung at her side, its contents clinking faintly with each step.

The tides are restless today, she said, her voice gentle but firm. I’ve been watching the patterns. They’re unpredictable—more so than usual. We should tread carefully.

Denise nodded in agreement. She’s right. I’ve seen phantom lights out there, flickering just beneath the surface. Tide-wraiths, maybe. Or worse.

Tress’s fingers tightened on the wheel. We’ll proceed with caution, she said. But we’re not turning back.

Anya approached the helm, her gaze lingering on Tress’s face. No one’s suggesting we turn back, she said softly. But there’s a difference between boldness and recklessness.

Tress’s jaw tightened, but she said nothing. Instead, she turned her attention back to the horizon, where the derelict loomed larger now, its skeletal frame etched in stark relief against the storm-darkened sky.

The Harbinger drew closer, its movements precise and deliberate as Tress guided it alongside the drifting wreck. The derelict was immense, its once-proud hull now a