The party and the Nightforge guild land in a deeper cavern as the giant moon goblin grows wings and keeps growing. The guild realizes Wisp can talk and that Orrin‘s new companions are not from here; Caspian warns them to get their story straight, and the four player characters trade confessions around a hole that leads to the actual Forgotten Deep. The guild parts ways with them, and they climb out into the streets of Wriem just as building-sized moon goblins burst through after them — and a man named Mikhail Asimi cuts one apart.
Details
The fall
The episode opens with the party and the guild mid-fall, as the largest of the moon goblins stands back up, its body bulging with new muscle and a wing beginning to sprout (e02 00:08, e02 00:08). Everyone lands on a ledge about 15 feet down, overlooking a ravine with pooled water and a large portal, tilted differently from the others, filling the cavern with moonlight (e02 00:09, e02 00:09, e02 00:09). Below, the biggest goblin looks up at them with eyes blazing red, picks up a smaller goblin, and squishes it between its fingers; it comes back together as an even bigger moon goblin, and it does this again and again (e02 00:10, e02 00:10, e02 00:19).
“You can talk”
The twins ask whether the portals have been getting a lot stronger and more dangerous lately; asked their names, they answer at the same time, one saying Farah and one Thomas (e02 00:10, e02 00:11). Gilbert looks away, shakes his head as if this is way out of their league, and says they’ve got to get out of there (e02 00:11). Caspian says portals from multiple planes immediately make it tier seven, which they can’t take, and that they need to get back to the guild hall (e02 00:11, e02 00:11). Then all four guildies look at Wisp, and Gilbert says, “Wait a second. You can talk” (e02 00:11). Gilbert’s hands go to his daggers and he asks to see Orrin’s letter, “because pretty sure that thing came out of a portal” (e02 00:12, e02 00:12).
Orrin introduces himself as Orrin Vale and says Wisp is under his supervision, as a matter of Magisterium jurisdiction (e02 00:11, e02 00:13, e02 00:14). Caspian tells Gilbert they aren’t allowed to interact with “these things” in any way but clearing them out of their world, because they are not from here (e02 00:13, e02 00:13), and asks Rue and Vargus whether they are civilians who fell in the hole (e02 00:14). He flicks ice daggers into his hands, Gilbert shimmers out of sight, and Thomas, of the Shadow Horn twins, stands with his shield demanding answers; Wisp draws his own sword (e02 00:14, e02 00:14, e02 00:14).
Vargus says he was born in the southeast, spent time in the island chains, came aboard the Black Wake early on, and fell off the front of the boat — “now I’m from here” (e02 00:15, e02 00:15, e02 00:15). Caspian takes him to be from the lost continents, across the sea (e02 00:16, e02 00:16). He relaxes and asks Orrin to say, in front of everyone, that he takes responsibility for these people; Orrin takes full responsibility for everyone found down there and for the one that came out of the box (e02 00:17, e02 00:17, e02 00:17). Gilbert reappears behind Orrin with daggers drawn — “You’re not from around here, are you?” — and tells Rue they are all exhausting (e02 00:18, e02 00:18, e02 00:18).
Orrin’s arm
When Orrin refers to his arm and says the word out loud, a small blue rune of arcane energy comes out of his mouth, his stump aches where the arm was severed, and some of his runes light up (e02 00:19, e02 00:20, e02 00:20). It tastes like fish to him (e02 00:20). He senses a phrase on the tip of his tongue that he really needs to say but can’t remember; the GM says meditating on it and practicing might let him recall it (e02 00:21, e02 00:21). It happens again later when he talks about his arm, and he says he can sometimes control it and sometimes can’t (e02 00:40, e02 00:40).
The way out
Wisp wanders off and leads everyone through tight, sprawling caves; where passages are too narrow, Caspian freezes the rock and the twins shatter it (e02 00:16, e02 00:22, e02 00:22). After about 15 minutes Wisp brings them into a large cavern with natural light and fresh air spilling through a crack about 40 feet up (e02 00:24, e02 00:25, e02 00:25). At its far end is a deep, dark pit that the guild is plainly scared of and avoids (e02 00:26, e02 00:26). Gilbert tells the party he doesn’t trust them (e02 00:27). Caspian says the pit is the actual Forgotten Deep — any deeper and “we’re somewhere else” — that it is illegal to talk about it, and that only the strongest people from the guilds can go deeper (e02 00:27, e02 00:27, e02 00:28, e02 00:28). He says this is his first time in a fissure at all, and that he is nowhere near the strongest (e02 00:28, e02 00:29). Orrin tells the others they may have “tunnel sickness” (e02 00:28).
Caspian’s warning
Whispering so Gilbert won’t hear, Caspian tells them to get their story straight before they get out, because Gilbert is going to tell on them; anyone who says they are from the lost continents or from a portal will be killed, imprisoned, or put in “one of those kennels” (e02 00:29, e02 00:30). He says only one of the four of them is real, as far as he can tell, because he saw the wand (e02 00:31, e02 00:31). Orrin shows them: the wand doesn’t glow for him, and glows bright pink toward the other three (e02 00:31). Caspian says he has never talked to anyone from a portal; he has been told things from portals don’t talk, they just kill, pillage, and murder (e02 00:32, e02 00:32, e02 00:32).
When Gilbert returns, Vargus takes the wand and points it at Gilbert, the twins, and Caspian; it doesn’t glow for any of them (e02 00:32, e02 00:33, e02 00:33). Orrin says it has been acting up recently (e02 00:32). Gilbert tries to snatch the wand from Vargus and fails; Caspian tells him how offensive that is (e02 00:33, e02 00:33). Gilbert tells Caspian he is the only one who can get them out (e02 00:32), and Caspian begins a ritual in the center of the cavern, drawing the mist and moisture toward him and crystallizing it into a spiraling structure of ice, which will take 15 to 20 minutes (e02 00:34, e02 00:34, e02 00:35, e02 00:35).
Gilbert and the twins
Gilbert and the twins sit apart, eating rations and casting glances at the party (e02 00:35). Wisp sits with them; Gilbert gives him a ration to go away, and Wisp tells them he is from a place called the Garden, and most recently from the crate (e02 00:35, e02 00:36, e02 00:36). Orrin casts message to Wisp, and Wisp, startled, tells the guild there is a ghost over his shoulder that came out of the Forgotten Depths and told him not to trust them (e02 00:36, e02 00:37, e02 00:37, e02 00:37). Gilbert alone sees Orrin’s hand move as he casts, and says he feels he’s going to regret not putting them all down (e02 00:37, e02 00:37). Rue tells Gilbert she is from an island called Mutewind (e02 00:38); Vargus says he is a healer, there to bandage those hurt on cave missions (e02 00:38, e02 00:38); and Rue asks whether anyone knows Weston (e02 00:38). Gilbert sends them off to talk among themselves (e02 00:38).
Rocks in the hole
Orrin calls a “staff meeting” by the pit: each of them tosses a rock in and shares a fact about themselves (e02 00:39, e02 00:41).
- Rue sculpts a little Wisp out of dirt with a cantrip and throws it in; she says she likes nature, hates caves, and misses trees (e02 00:40, e02 00:42, e02 00:42). Vargus says a few trees’ worth of lumber would make someone very rich where he comes from (e02 00:42, e02 00:42).
- Vargus says he isn’t legally allowed to set foot on any land or flotilla anywhere, and is wanted for execution in most seas, as a crew member of the Black Wake, a notorious gang of pirates (e02 00:43, e02 00:43, e02 00:43, e02 00:44). Rue calls its skeletal captain an abomination who should be in the ground (e02 00:44, e02 00:44). Vargus says he is a criminal whose job is pillaging and stealing, and being a butcher and surgeon for his crew — which he supposes is now them (e02 00:44, e02 00:45, e02 00:45, e02 00:45).
- Wisp says he has a powerful dark entity bound in his soul, which he calls the Passenger; it hasn’t talked so far, and works like a powerful compulsion to fight things (e02 00:46, e02 00:46, e02 00:46, e02 00:46). He says he is on the run (e02 00:47).
- Rue says she is chasing someone, and invites Vargus and Wisp to come with her to kill the man she is looking for — a crew of three (e02 00:47, e02 00:47, e02 00:47).
- Orrin says he’ll serve as their temporary supervisor, and warns that the Magisterium will probably kill all three of them as soon as they get up there, as deviants; the wand is a tool he was given to check, and as a very low-ranking scribe he imagines the Magisterium has hundreds of them (e02 00:48, e02 00:48, e02 00:48, e02 00:49).
Orrin hands around his dossier, a daily journal of everything he has done and everywhere he has been, which also holds his will (e02 00:50, e02 00:52, e02 00:52). Rue threatens to throw it in the hole (e02 00:50). Vargus warns that keeping a written record is dangerous and that things should be kept in memory; on his ship, if the captain dies, you burn the ship and go down with it (e02 00:51, e02 00:52). The GM gives Orrin and Vargus opposite flaws over it (see Orrin and Vargus) (e02 00:52).
Getting their story straight
Orrin says they all need to be from here and gives them neighborhoods in Wriem to claim: Vargus is from Jovent Square, and Rue from Mirth’s Way, a rough part of town (e02 00:53, e02 00:54, e02 00:54, e02 00:54, e02 00:54). Rue’s story is that she found her half-shop down there and claimed it (e02 00:55, e02 00:55). Wisp’s is that he is a civilian from Crate, where he says he has an apartment (e02 00:53, e02 01:03).
Rue sees that Orrin isn’t lying but isn’t being fully honest (e02 00:56, e02 00:57). She dubs him “Stumpy” (e02 00:57, e02 00:57). Pressed, and at the edge of the pit, he admits he suspects his employers are trying to kill him; he unbuttons his shirt to show runes, sigils, and arcane writing over his body, and says he may have acquired something he wasn’t supposed to, and that the Magisterium may be testing whether he is a weapon (e02 00:58, e02 00:59, e02 01:00, e02 01:00, e02 01:00). He says that if he goes back with the three of them, they will probably try to kill him too, so quitting is a real possibility; Rue invites him to join them (e02 01:01, e02 01:01, e02 01:01).
Parting ways
Caspian finishes the structure — a rough mix of ramp, stairs, and spirals that reaches the roof — and is completely spent (e02 01:03, e02 01:04, e02 01:04, e02 01:04). Gilbert says “that took you long enough” and calls the party the “B team” (e02 01:04, e02 01:04). He tells them the guild has decided this is not their problem: they will go back to the guild and get Mikhail Asimi to come out and handle the situation, and the party should go its own way; if this ever comes back on the guild, the party will be hunted down and killed (e02 01:05, e02 01:05, e02 01:05, e02 01:05). Every portal was closed, the job is done, and they’ll get paid (e02 01:06, e02 01:06). Orrin agrees, reads that Gilbert would break the deal the moment it benefited him, and writes down that all the portals are closed (e02 01:07, e02 01:07, e02 01:08).
Gilbert and the twins scramble up the ice; Caspian walks up it effortlessly, at home on the ice, and Rue carries Wisp on her shoulders (e02 01:08, e02 01:08, e02 01:09, e02 01:09).
Wriem
They come out into a street of a very large city, with stores, shops, and carts as far as they can see — nothing like anything Vargus has seen (e02 01:09, e02 01:09, e02 01:09). The ground shakes: at the end of the street, a square is collapsing into the hole they just left, and a moon goblin the size of a building pulls itself up through it, two more just as big behind it (e02 01:10, e02 01:10, e02 01:11). The biggest one bursts out on four massive wings and flies off, landing further back to the west (e02 01:11, e02 01:11).
As the street clears, one man stays in the middle of the road, his back to them: a long coat, no armor, hands in his pockets, and seven swords of different shapes and sizes lazily orbiting him (e02 01:12, e02 01:12, e02 01:12). As the nearest goblin steps over a bell tower toward him, the swords shoot into the air in single file, weaving through chimneys; the goblin slams down both fists, he steps aside, and its head slides off its neck, the rest of it falling apart into a neat pile (e02 01:12, e02 01:13, e02 01:13, e02 01:13, e02 01:13). Caspian whispers that the man is Mikhail Asimi, and that they need to stay out of his way (e02 01:13, e02 01:13).
Still open
- Orrin can’t remember the phrase that surfaces when he speaks of his arm, or why a rune comes out of his mouth (e02 00:21).
- What lies below the pit Caspian calls the actual Forgotten Deep, and why talking about it is illegal, isn’t stated (e02 00:27, e02 00:28).
- The “kennels” Caspian says people from portals can be put in aren’t explained (e02 00:30).
- What Orrin may have acquired that he wasn’t supposed to isn’t stated (e02 01:00).
- The winged giant moon goblin flew off to the west of the collapsed square, and two building-sized goblins were still climbing out when the episode ends (e02 01:11, e02 01:11).
- Who Mikhail Asimi is, beyond Gilbert’s plan to fetch him and Caspian’s warning (e02 01:05, e02 01:13).
Episode history
- e02 — the guild discovers the party isn’t from here; the party climbs out of the fissure into Wriem; Mikhail Asimi introduced.