"A sunken church with docking ports. Sediment has built up against the lower walls, and long ago choked neglected crypts and crooked tombstones. The interior is sealed; yet the deep peals of the tower's bell can be felt even through a zubmarine hull."[1]
Low Barnet is a sunken church with no altar, no priests, and no god.
"The competition? The best story wins. Cap'n says it's all in the delivery, but you need a fine yarn to spin, too."[2]
Located not far from London, Low Barnet is a church whose organ is wrecked and whose pulpit is nowhere to be found.[3] Rather, this place is a house of stories; the congregation is one of storytellers, and the church is one of tales and great feats. Zee-captains often come here to recite accounts of their adventures zailing the Unterzee.[4] Some may tell tales so revolting the locals flee the room,[5] while others may tell stories so enthralling the locals imagine themselves in the midst of them.[6]
Storytelling contests are held regularly to see who has the most fascinating tales beneath the Zee.[7] The winner is allowed entry to the Bell Tower,[8] which lies behind a well-guarded door. Within lies a single Bell; its peals can be heard from a great distance away.[9] Curiously, those who ring the Bell never return.[10]
Lytton of the Seven Against Nidah has taken refuge in a corner of the church, and his body has become encased in coral.[11]
The Bell
"Are you quite sure you want to know this?"
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"Soon you are within reach of the bell. The metal shape is colossal in the confined space, its exterior still shiny despite, presumably, years beneath the zee. You lean over to look inside. The clapper is covered in a dark residue. And the interior seems soft, blackened, wrinkled. Covered in pieces of-
"Suddenly, you know what happens to those who ring the bell."[12]
The Bell is actually a living creature that devours both the bodies and the souls of those who ring it. This strange amalgam of beast and building was erected by the New Sequence, back when they were still a splinter faction of London's Admiralty.[13] It can be assumed that the Bell's purpose is to gather souls for the Dawn Machine,[12] as its rope seems to avoid the hands of the soulless.[14]
↑Explore the church, Sunless Sea"There is no pulpit. The organ has bent, broken pipes. But Low Barnet is still a house of worship, of a sort. Groups of zailors gather in the aisles. The choir benches are clean, and face a makeshift stage. Lantern-eyed fish pass behind colourful windows of stained glass. The door to the bell tower is guarded by two burly vergers. The tridents are a nice touch. "
↑Trade Stories with the Congregation, Sunless Sea"At Low Barnet, everyday animosities are set aside in the pursuit of a fine tale. Khaganian traders mingle with Royal Navy deserters, rum-addled pirates and Rubbery Men. There is an air of anticipation, and a tolerance for embellishment."
↑Speak of Undercrow, Sunless Sea"You talk of the gut-moths which inhabit every zailor, and provide their nautical instincts. That taste in the throat which heralds a storm front; the ability to digest food even on choppy seas; the welcome fluttering in the stomach at the sight of a sweetheart on shore. Moths, in the gut, growing all the time. Your listeners shift in their seats. One hurries out, clutching his mouth."
↑Speak of Rosegate, Sunless Sea"You describe the gleaming cabinets of cigars; the impressions of far-flung places conjured by each puff. The uplifting bite of freshly cut grass under Surface sun; the dark whiff of lightless cellars stacked with mushroom wine; the sweating, savage scents of London's fleshpots. Your audience inhales in unison, savouring imaginary smoke."
↑Low Barnet, Sunless Sea"The interior is sealed; yet the deep peals of the tower's bell can be felt even through a zubmarine hull."
↑Go about your business, Sunless Sea"An excited murmur runs through the congregation. Although you keep an eye on the bell tower door, the winner does not emerge."
↑A Verger in Coral, Sunless Sea"Lytton stands in a secluded corner. He is inhumanly tall - his lower body is encased in a block of coral that raises him up. Beneath his shirt, his body is lumpen. A tracery of it - lurid and pink - has begun to sprout on his cheek, following the course of his veins."
↑ 12.012.1Ring the bell, Sunless Sea"You are light, all of you. The sun that turns; the touch that burns. The voice of fires and falling spires. The wheel within the wheel within the wheel, contemplating, constructing, consuming. Each click of the cog, the circles colliding and guiding-"
↑Ask about the bell, Sunless Sea"One of the vergers glances up into the tower's heights. The other studies the prongs of his trident. “Bell was here before we were. But it's not from the surface. Royal Navy brought it, they say. But not regulars. Deserters or something. Strange crew.”"
↑Ring the bell (Soulless), Sunless Sea"You scramble up a few rungs of the ladder and stretch for the dangling rope. It swings away from your palm, slithering up into the bell's mouth."
