Editing Old Tom's Well

}}''"'Careful, Captain,' a signaller whispers. 'Lest the well-winds take us.'"''<ref>{{Citation|https://sunlessskies.miraheze.org/wiki/Old_Tom%27s_Well|Log Entries|Sunless Skies}}</ref>

"''Below, beneath the scudding clouds, a speckle of structures cling to a shelf of ice. The well-winds drag at your engine like the frantic clutch of a drowning man. The well gapes."''<ref>{{Citation|https://sunlessskies.miraheze.org/wiki/Old_Tom%27s_Well|Approaching Old Tom's Well|Sunless Skies}}</ref>

This sky-well, surrounded by ledges of black ice, is one of the many space-wells of [[the High Wilderness]]. It is named after the prospector who discovered [[Lustrum]] after making a wish to the well.<ref>{{Citation|https://sunlessskies.miraheze.org/wiki/Old_Tom%27s_Well|Approaching Old Tom's Well|Sunless Skies}}</ref>

Several beehive huts have been built into a cliff of nearby black ice; the inhabitants are mostly prospectors, desperate to repeat Old Tom's luck and strike it rich.<ref>{{Citation|https://sunlessskies.miraheze.org/wiki/Old_Tom%27s_Well|Explore the beehive hovels|Sunless Skies}}</ref> There is also an enclave of the Compassed, followers of the Judas Psalm.<ref>{{Citation|https://sunlessskies.miraheze.org/wiki/The_Pitchkirk|The Pitchkirk|Sunless Skies}}</ref>

''"Old Tom was a prospector during the Promised Days that followed London's arrival in the heavens. For years he combed the Reach, looking for the strike that would make him rich. He didn't find it. Luckless and impoverished, he made a wish here, at the well. The next month, he discovered the Mother of Mountains and the rich hour-veins that riddled her flanks. For a year – before his disappearance – he was staggeringly wealthy. Others come here now – the desperate and the broken – with their final, futile wishes."''<ref>{{Citation|https://sunlessskies.miraheze.org/wiki/Old_Tom%27s_Well|Approaching Old Tom's Well|Sunless Skies}}</ref>

''"The ignorant call us the Cursing Church. But we are the Compassed, who dwell on the brinks. We are the lambs who were torn by the wolf. We are the undone. And the angel of the pit hears us, where it would not hear others."''<ref>{{Citation|https://sunlessskies.miraheze.org/wiki/The_Lank_Minister|Ask about her denomination|Sunless Skies}}</ref>

'''The Psalmists''' are a brand new cult of the heavens. Led by the Lank Minister, they follow their only sacred text, Psalm 109. They'll accept anybody willing to confess their sins - and blame someone for them.<ref>{{Citation|https://sunlessskies.miraheze.org/wiki/The_Lank_Minister|Ask about their holy text|Sunless Skies}}</ref>

{{Major spoiler small}}''"They rage against the sun's death at the hands of a half-sun, a midnight murderer. The killer sent false messengers bearing a well-seed. They planted the seed in the sun's heart, and it bloomed! Bloomed and ravened. A lawless killing! A shameful death, enacted without due ceremony!"''<ref>{{Citation|https://sunlessskies.miraheze.org/wiki/The_Bones_of_the_Sun|Strive to hear the death-cry of a fallen sunt|Sunless Skies}}</ref>

Deep inside the well is the corpse of the missing [[Garden-King]], regent of the [[Reach]]. The [[Halved]] sent a false-messenger bearing a [[Correspondence]] sigil of peace and truce. The regent didn't know that this sigil was fake, and the false-messenger secretly carried a "well-seed," which bloomed inside the star's heart, crushing it instantly.<ref>{{Citation|https://sunlessskies.miraheze.org/wiki/The_Bones_of_the_Sun|Strive to hear the death-cry of a fallen sunt|Sunless Skies}}</ref>

The false-messenger, not knowing its master's scheme, felt guilty for its act. This caused cancerous polyps riddled with sigils of guilt to grow in its heart, killing it as it made its way to Eleutheria. The messenger's rotting body remains in the Reach as [[Faith's Fall]], and its chitinous shell now provides repair materials for skyfarers.<ref>{{Citation|https://sunlessskies.miraheze.org/wiki/Faith%27s_Fall|Faith's Fall|Sunless Skies}}</ref><ref>{{Citation|https://sunlessskies.miraheze.org/wiki/Stinking,_Rotten_Caverns|Search for its heart|Sunless Skies}}</ref>