S03E35 - Crucible, Part 11

## Summary

The "C" Team is ushered outside where they find 3 armies outside, one led by Comet, one by Shlogur, and one made up of Skollan troops, led by an unknown person. At this point, Kate starts playing Comet, Kris starts playing Shlogur, and Amy starts playing Pran. Comet and Shlogur disrespect Donaar by doubting his claims regarding Nace and Vars Maelis. Nace is fetched, to the relief of Comet, but without apologizing to Donaar.

They go back to the throne room where Nace decides to sit on the throne. The siblings start picking gifts to bring up the mountain. They stop at a sort of rest stop before the Crawl starts properly, where they interact and tell stories to each other and Donaar gets bullied by his family. However, a gem that is traditionally slotted into a hole cannot fit inside that hole, as if someone tampered with it. Pran goes to fix it and they go in but notice that the bag full of relics weapons needed to safely go up the mountain successfully is empty. The temple-like passage has statues of the royal family that Comet cannot resist modifying hers. In the process, she discovers that there are 2 representations of Nace between the king and queen. The siblings discuss it but don't recall another Nace or why this representation would be here.

They consider going back down the mountain to go fetch the sword and candle (the relics of the bag). At that point, Pran notices puddles that are seemingly of candle wax and recreates a candle from the gathered wax. The next room is partially destroyed or disassembled but Donaar still gets hit by a trap for 10 minutes, due to the damage of the room, but survives thanks to the candle. As they make their way to the room, Pran gets a vision of the candle falling down and them having to come back through the room without it.

**Break**

They find the next room broken and unable to perform its memory-draining trap. They find some puddles. Comet reaches down to one to try to see the memories of the last person to trigger the trap. In it she sees a dragonborn going through the temple like they had but the traps seem not to trigger. He has 3 fingers, a cane, and can materialize a cane and food, which he eats like an animal. Pran sees herself throwing a letter from her fiancée into the well of Vars Maelis. Shlogur sees someone looking exactly like Nace being shackled into a huge room, while the pool fills up and the king walks away while the queen screams at him.

They reach the hall which marks the entrance to the "main temple". In front of the chamber of Vars Maelis is a 15-foot statue that is seemingly ready to fight the siblings. The statue was once a warrior guardian which was turned to stone by Kemet and then was then offered to Vars Maelis. When they approach, however, it signals a timeout and then asks them not to fight but to do riddles instead or something, why fight? He poses them a riddle he just came up with and then Donaar tricks him by placing his gift for Vars Maelis, a stone that can gain infinite weight at a moment's notice, on the statue's hand, pinning him. The room is marble and has a marble throne in the middle which is integrated into the room itself. The throne has chains and shackles near its arms and bones near its base. At that point, Slogur realizes that the name of the "room of Vars Maelis" could be interpreted as "room where Vars Maelis is from". The bones seem to have belonged to multiple people. At the last crawl, the family (and Donaar) found a sort of imitation of Vars Maelis in the chamber, and he had been missing for over a decade, a fact hidden by the royal family at the time.

At that moment, all the siblings feel the power of Vars Maelis surging inside of them, demanding humility by its power. The man from the vision appears from behind the throne, casting away its gem-encrusted crutch, claiming to have to do things himself. He looks like he could be related to the family. He claims to have made the temple and Vars Maelis. He reveals to be a very ancient Jinaari royal family member. He, Boomar, asks Pran what she plans to do now that she's finally managed to make her way here. Jerry reveals that in the past Pran's been trying to do a crawl and did very well but ultimately she failed and destroyed the tools needed to climb. She reveals that she was playing the game of the Fundamental Court, which she played after her father fell into his coma, and that he played with him again. She played again and that led to their mother's coma. Boomar takes Pran's hand and asks if she can forgive herself, and then asks which kid will become the god of Jinaar. He starts to become less corporeal. As they debate who should sit in the chair, Donaar decides to sit in the throne. His consciousness explodes as his body starts ascending, and he decides to appear next to his siblings to watch the event for himself.