3. What happens

The Recovery Platform (Overworld)

Only found over deep ocean. An offshore rig on four huge pylons: a steel deck with a control house and radio mast, a helipad, shipping containers, fuel tanks, a lifeboat, a floating dock with a ladder — and in the middle, a cross-shaped moon pool with the bell hanging over it from a 30-block gantry. Under the moon pool a lined shaft drops far below the seabed into black water, marked with red depth lamps.

The bell

The inside is a proper vessel now: a control station (console, screens, gauges, operator's seat), an airlock arm with lockers and crates, two passenger arms with harness seats, oxygen racks, pipes along the ceilings, hanging lanterns, posters and a winch hook in the dome.

The briefing

Stand inside for 3 seconds. The door seals, red lamps flash, and the Meridian PA speaks (re-recorded in 1.1 with a far more natural voice, plus subtitles):

• welcome aboard · the hatch seals · your diving gear is fitted · your assignment
• Rule 1 Watch your oxygen · Rule 2 Do not follow the lights · Rule 3 If something calls your name, do not answer · Rule 4 Never exceed your pressure rating
• "Releasing the docking clamps. Hold on to something."

The drop (cinematic)

You're strapped into a seat, and the camera pulls outside: the clamps let go, the bell lurches on its cable, drops into the moon pool with a huge splash and sinks into the dark shaft, lamps glowing, air pouring out of the hull. The screen goes black — only the depth gauge glows, racing past 1,000… 2,000… 4,000 m while the hull groans. Then you're back inside the bell, still falling, in the Abyss: red alarm light, sparks, leaking seams, creaks and bangs, the gauge counting down the last metres… IMPACT. "Cable integrity lost. Return winch unavailable." The centre of the + floor opens. Drop into the water and:

THE ABYSS

Pitch-black water. Your helmet's oxygen is ticking. Use your sonar: an orange guide line appears and leads you all the way to your current objective.

4. The layers

A huge winding chasm called the Throat connects every layer.

5. Survival systems

• Oxygen — your helmet tank breathes for you underwater. Refill in air pockets, at Oxygen Stations, in the warm plume above vents, or with canisters / air bladders. Warnings at 25% and 10%.
• Pressure — Mk I helmet is safe to Layer II. Find a Pressure Seal Mk II (Layer II) and Hadal Seal Mk III (Layer III) to go deeper — or be crushed.
• Helmet lamp (-) — real light around you and a beam where you look.
• Sonar — points to your objective with distance & depth, outlines nearby creatures, and draws a glowing orange route through the water to your objective (it follows the Throat, the tunnels and the story sites). Ping again any time to refresh it.
• Flares — throw them: a tumbling 3D flare with a white-hot core, red halo and sparks, burning underwater for 30 seconds.
• Weapons — the Dive Knife and the new Meridian Boarding Axe (2 scrap metal + 2 sticks, axe pattern), both proper 3D models.

6. The story (spoilers!)

1. Reach Outpost Tethys. Its AI tells you the Ascension Lift home needs three parts.
2. Ballast Regulator — the Whalefall Lab, built inside a giant skeleton in Layer II.
3. Lumen Heart — the Lantern Shrine in Layer III. Taking it wakes something up.
4. The Abyssal Eye — at the very bottom, guarded by THE KEEPER: a 75-block serpent that bursts out of the trench floor in a full cinematic entrance (camera sweep, roar, title card). It swims like a snake — the body follows the exact path of the head — through rock and water. 3 phases: bites on the pass, charges, coils that crush, sonic roars, summons, pressure pulses. You can hit it anywhere along its body.
5. Install all three at the Tethys console and step onto the lift. The platform really rises up the shaft… then fade out, and roll credits.

Six audio logs tell what happened to the last crew.

7. Creatures (18)

7b. Life on the floor

Every layer has its own plants: tube sponges, brine anemones, sea whips and silt grass (I); bone coral, pale tube worms and rib fans (II); lumen ferns and glowing puffballs on moss carpets (III); giant tube worm thickets and bacterial mats (IV) — plus boulder fields everywhere.

8. Helper commands (cheats on / op)

• /abyss descend — skip straight to the descent
• /abyss goto 0-4 — teleport to bell / Tethys / Whalefall / Shrine / Lair
• /abyss site — build a Recovery Platform 48 blocks east of you (best done at sea)
• /abyss letter · /abyss home · /abyss status

Notes for whoever edits the code

• src/main/java/.../world/AbyssGeometry.java — the hand-designed shape of the whole Abyss (layers, the Throat, story caverns).
• story/StoryManager.java + story/AbyssSites.java — objectives and the story locations.
• block/entity/BellCoreBlockEntity.java — the bell's briefing & descent sequence.
• Built with Yarn mappings 1.20.1+build.10, Fabric API 0.92.2+1.20.1.