Moon 9 (Swamp)

Lore & Background

The Company's internal logs describe Moon 9's surface as a 'saturated biome of indeterminate origin,' though no crawler has ever been able to confirm whether the fog is atmospheric, biological, or something else entirely. The moisture seems to seep from the ground itself, pooling in shallow basins that glow faintly with a sickly green luminescence. Crawler testimonials collected by The Company's HR division (a department whose existence is itself a small joke) mention the smell: thick, metallic, almost sweet, like overripe fruit left in a sealed room.

The terrain on Moon 9 is less a landscape and more a suggestion of one. Stone platforms jut out of the murk at irregular intervals, connected by narrow bridges of corroded metal or natural root-structures that groan underfoot. The vegetation—if it can be called that—clings to every surface in dense, dripping curtains, blocking line-of-sight to anything more than a few metres away. The fog does not drift; it sits, heavy and still, as though the air itself has given up on moving. This makes the audio cues from the local fauna far more critical than on any other moon, because by the time you see it, the encounter is already over.

Crews report that the scrap on Moon 9 tends to cluster in slightly more elevated or enclosed pockets, as though the moon's geometry funnels resources toward the higher ground. This creates a natural risk-reward tension: the best scrap is always the scrap that requires you to stand still, on a crumbling platform, in the fog, while something with too many legs circles below.

In Their Own Story

The radio crackled. Not the usual static—something wet, rhythmic, like a tongue dragging across a stone floor. Jax killed his flashlight and held his breath, the beam's absence making the fog around him feel thicker, almost solid. Somewhere below the platform they'd climbed to, something shifted. A low, grinding exhalation that vibrated through the metal grating under his boots.

'Nobody move,' he whispered into the comms. 'Nobody. Breathe through your nose.'

Mara, two metres to his left, was already backing toward the far edge, her fingers white-knuckled on the scrap crate she'd been prying loose. The crate clinked. Just once. Just enough.

The sound below stopped. Then started again, closer, climbing. Jax could feel the platform flex a half-millimetre under his weight, the crumbling stone beneath the metal grating shifting like a held breath about to break. He looked at Mara. She looked at the crate. The crate looked back, indifferent.

'Run when I say run,' he said.

Mara didn't answer. She was already running.

Reader's Guide

Moon 9 hits you first with the fog: a thick, yellow-green haze that eats your flashlight beam at roughly three metres and makes the world beyond feel like a painted backdrop. The air is wet and heavy, and every surface—stone, metal, the strange dripping vegetation—glistens with a faint green sheen that makes it hard to tell solid ground from shallow acid pool.

Dominant terrain features include elevated stone and metal platforms connected by narrow, corroded bridges; dense curtains of hanging vegetation that block sightlines; and shallow pools of luminous green liquid scattered across the lower ground. The most dangerous environmental hazard is the crumbling floor: sections of stone that look stable but collapse under sustained weight, dropping you into the pools below. Dense fog is the constant, turning every open area into a maze of sound.

Scrap on Moon 9 tends to cluster in enclosed or elevated pockets—small alcoves, the tops of broken structures, narrow ledges. You will rarely find it in the open. The entities most likely to spawn here are the faster, more aggressive ground-hunters that use the fog to close distance silently. Listen for wet, dragging movement rather than the barking you'd expect in open terrain.

Practical tip from a crew that made it out: never trust a platform that looks level. Tap the edge with your boot before committing your full weight. And if you hear the fog shift—actually shift, like a curtain being pulled—stop moving, kill your light, and count to ten before you decide which direction to run.

Did You Know?

• The persistent fog on Moon 9 is not a weather effect that clears; it is a permanent atmospheric condition, meaning visibility never improves regardless of time or location on the moon.
• Crumbling floor sections on Moon 9 can be tested by tapping them with your foot before stepping fully onto them, a small but critical habit that separates survivors from those who end up in the acid pools.
• The dense vegetation on Moon 9 blocks line-of-sight but does not block sound, making audio cues from the local fauna the primary detection method for experienced crews.
• Scrap placement on Moon 9 tends to reward vertical exploration, with higher-value clusters found on elevated platforms that require navigating the most hazardous crumbling-bridge sections.