New Vance City

Echo Sump Delta is a drainage nexus turned rendezvous zone deep within the Black Market’s underbelly—a reeking, multi-tiered reservoir where forgotten runoff and digital contraband intersect. It once funneled wastewater from the upper levels of New Vance, but now it hums with covert signal traffic, pirate uplinks, and Syndicate chatter bouncing off the corroded walls. The sump’s acoustics make it perfect for cloaked negotiations—voices vanish into reverb, impossible to trace or record. Runners use it as neutral ground, where weapons are watched but rarely drawn. Data brokers, illicit modders, and memory-surge peddlers set up pop-up stalls on rusted platforms or suspended crates, selling corrupted secrets and ghost-code straight from the flow. Occasionally, the sump belches up old tech from deeper systems—useful, dangerous, or both. It’s a place that smells like oil and old secrets, where sound vanishes and silence itself can be a currency.

Echo Sump Delta sprawls in a yawning pit of rot and circuitry—a massive circular chamber filled with ankle-deep sludge reflecting shifting hues of digital light from overhead projectors. High above, broken filtration fans spin lazily in the moist haze, their shadows sweeping across rust-streaked walls adorned with tangled wires and faded hazard glyphs. Platform catwalks zigzag across the space at staggered heights, supported by creaking gantries and reinforced scaffolds. Makeshift vendor stalls float on repurposed bulkheads and hover-discs, anchored by chains that rattle when the water shifts. AR signs flicker half-visible above stalls, displaying glitched symbols and obfuscated pricing. The entire sump pulses with low-frequency resonance—like a subterranean heartbeat—emitted from a half-submerged signal core at its center. Steam coils from warm vents, casting silhouettes that blur and stutter under harsh violet LEDs.