◆ Stage 1 — Scotland · Artifact 1 / 3 in Loch Ness

Nessie Artifact — Where It Hides in Loch Ness

The little blue plesiosaur the game tucks onto a rock shelf in Loch Ness — your very first artifact, and the easiest one in the run to swim straight past.

▶ TL;DR

Nessie is the first artifact you can grab in Scale the Depths, hidden on a dark rock shelf in the opening Loch Ness world. MrLeLedg's 100% walkthrough catches the pickup at the 1:20 mark, just before the Red Switch chain at 1:34. Drop past the ruined stone stairway, follow the kelp ledge down and to the right, and the tiny blue Nessie sprite is sitting on the shelf — no fight, no scaling, just hook and retract.

▶ Clip1:20 – 1:34 (14s)·Video by MrLeLedg·Watch on YouTube ↗

◇ Step-by-step pickup

  1. Start your Loch Ness dive — this is the opening world.

    Loch Ness is Stage 1, so there are no prerequisites. Dock at the loch, cast your line, and begin descending. Nessie is one of the first secrets in the run, so you don't need any line upgrades to reach it.

  2. Drop in over the ruined stone stairway.

    The opening chamber is a sunken ruin — stepped stone masonry on the left, a red-handled lever set into the right wall. This is the landmark in frame 1 above. Nessie is not on this level; you need to continue down past the stairway.

  3. Follow the kelp ledge down and to the right.

    Past the stairway, a rock ledge fringed with yellow kelp leads downward. Track that wall. The scroll-shaped object you pass on the left is a separate collectable — keep going, the shelf you want is lower and to the right.

  4. Spot the small blue plesiosaur on the rock shelf.

    This is the moment in frame 3 above. Nessie is a tiny pale-blue sprite — about a tenth of the screen — resting on a flat, dark rock shelf on the right. There's a pink collectable sitting just past it; both are reachable on the same descent.

  5. Touch Nessie with the hook to collect it.

    It's a static object — no struggle bar, no scaling minigame. Drift the hook onto the sprite and the 'Artifact' counter in the top-left ticks up immediately. Grab the pink collectable beside it while you're here.

  6. Retract (R) up the chute toward the surface.

    The return path is the narrow vertical chute up and to the right, back across the ruined wall. Artifacts only bank when you successfully resurface, so don't snap your line fighting a fish on the way up — Nessie is worth more than any single catch this early in the run.

◐ Walkthrough Keyframes

Drop in over the ruined stone stairway. The stepped masonry on the left and the red-handled lever on the right wall are your entry landmarks — the shelf you want is below, not on this level.
1:20Drop in over the ruined stone stairway. The stepped masonry on the left and the red-handled lever on the right wall are your entry landmarks — the shelf you want is below, not on this level.
Follow the kelp-covered ledge down. The yellow seaweed and the scroll-shaped object on the left rock confirm you're tracking the correct wall toward Nessie's shelf.
1:23Follow the kelp-covered ledge down. The yellow seaweed and the scroll-shaped object on the left rock confirm you're tracking the correct wall toward Nessie's shelf.
There it is — the small blue plesiosaur sits on the dark rock shelf to the right, with a pink collectable just beyond it. Drift the hook onto the sprite to trigger the pickup.
1:27There it is — the small blue plesiosaur sits on the dark rock shelf to the right, with a pink collectable just beyond it. Drift the hook onto the sprite to trigger the pickup.
Pickup confirmed — the artifact counter ticks over (top-left) the instant the hook touches Nessie. Now the line is in the narrow vertical chute heading back up.
1:30Pickup confirmed — the artifact counter ticks over (top-left) the instant the hook touches Nessie. Now the line is in the narrow vertical chute heading back up.
Retract up and to the right, back across the ruined wall toward the surface. Plenty of fish in this chamber if you want to bank coin on the way out.
1:33Retract up and to the right, back across the ruined wall toward the surface. Plenty of fish in this chamber if you want to bank coin on the way out.

✦ Tips

  • Nessie is one of the first secrets in the whole game, so do it on your very first Loch Ness run — you don't need any line-length upgrades to reach the shelf.
  • The red-handled lever on the right wall of the opening chamber is a Loch Ness switch, not part of the Nessie pickup. Note where it is, but grab the artifact first.
  • Hold L (mouse-lock) when you nudge the hook onto the small Nessie sprite — the pickup box is tiny and a locked line is much easier to land than a free-drifting one.

⚠ Warnings

  • Don't confuse Nessie with the scroll-shaped message-in-a-bottle you pass on the kelp ledge above it — that's a different collectable on a different shelf.
  • The pink collectable next to Nessie is easy to grab by accident and miss the artifact itself. Make sure the 'Artifact' counter — not just the item counter — ticks up before you retract.
  • Retracting before you've actually hooked Nessie counts as a miss. Watch for the counter change in the top-left, then pull up.

⌕ Common Questions

I'm brand new — is Nessie really the first artifact I can get?
Yes. Loch Ness is the opening world and Nessie sits near the top of it, at the 1:20 mark in the walkthrough. You can grab it on your first dive with the starting line, before any upgrades.
I see the rock shelf but I picked up a pink item instead of the artifact.
That pink collectable sits right next to Nessie and the hook grabs whichever you touch first. Re-approach and aim for the small blue plesiosaur sprite specifically — watch the 'Artifact' counter in the top-left to confirm you got the right one.
Where does Nessie sit relative to the Loch Ness switches?
The Nessie shelf is in the same opening chamber as the red lever you see on the right wall. In MrLeLedg's run the Red Switch 2/4 comes right after at 1:34 — so once Nessie is banked, you're already standing next to your next objective.

★ What you get

Completion
Counts toward the Loch Ness 100% Secrets achievement — the first artifact tick in the run.
Endgame impact
Combined with the other two Loch Ness artifacts, completes the Stage 1 secrets set.
Sells for
Nessie cannot be sold. Artifacts exist for lore and 100% completion only.

✎ What Players Are Asking

Real questions from Steam Community discussions, archived as they appeared.

  • “Feed fish to the Loch Ness monster. Yes, really.”
    — Scale the Depths (official)·Official social channels·2026-05-29

    Why this matters: Nessie isn't only an artifact — she's also one of the mythical customers you serve scaled fish to. The game leans hard on the Loch Ness legend, which is why this is the artifact most new players go looking for first.

⌬ Related Secrets

Full world breakdown — every Loch Ness artifact, switch and secret
Loch Ness — Stage 1 Overview →
Index of every Stage 1 secret
The master index across all four worlds
All Secrets — Every World →
Loch Ness → Huatulco → Outer Banks → Point Nemo
The 'first artifact of a world' on the opposite end of the run
Loaded Support Sphere — Point Nemo's first artifact →
1:15 in the Point Nemo walkthrough
A fitting cross-reference: the 1934 Nessie hoax used a toy submarine
Toy Submarine — Point Nemo →
3:49 in the Point Nemo walkthrough
Why the game's first artifact is a tiny Loch Ness Monster

Loch Ness is a long, deep freshwater lake in the Scottish Highlands near Inverness, and its monster is one of the most famous legends in the world. The earliest tale dates to 565 CE, when the Life of St. Columba describes the saint facing a 'water beast' in the River Ness. The modern legend began in 1933, when an Inverness Courier article first called it a 'monster.' The most iconic image — the 1934 'Surgeon's Photograph' — was later exposed as a hoax built from a toy submarine with a carved wooden head. Glass Gecko Games making Nessie the first thing you fish out of a Scottish loch is the most on-the-nose joke in the game.