Episode 12 - The Map

## Episode Synopsis

### Recap

The team were stuck escaping Glimpse but figured out a way to get across the open planes of the moons. They were helped by an assassin named Guntrem who they learnt knew Zippy, or at least clone Zippy. Guntrem mentioned he was sent there by The Flock to kill Sariel and take the kid who could sever tethers. They eventually left, taking their own bubble bugs and ended up under the surface facing many buzz saw creatures. They made it out and found a city in the distance. As they drove, there was flashes of red lights following them from far off. They came to a sign which read Glimpse: Wesnian Outpost.

### Episode Summary

Zippy is driving Dariun and Norman down a road to the city. They see the flashing red light of something coming behind them. They see the city coming up close and the very tall buildings ahead. The lights now come into view and they see they are not lights, instead are gazer symbols marked on the walls. The broken moon hangs high overhead as they drive through the grid like city. Norman and Zippy spot a glimmer from a building and they see inside some sort of place for eating. There a booths for people to sit and find under one are some boots and a little monocle placed on top. He picks up the monocle and can tell it's a gazer glass. He looks on the bottom of the old boots and can see on the souls are gazer symbols. Where he lifted them, he sees small gazer symbols on the ground.

Norman looks at his Mir tattoo on his arm and looks around for anything that resembles it. He finds an old coin that has the same Wesnian symbol on it. Zippy takes a look at it and accidentally snaps it in half. Dariun asks about the tattoo and Norman explains the connection of the Calm Cloud monks and Wesnia. They look around and Dariun speculates if the moon above them is the result of a gods division and the release of the gods potentially caused the abandoning of the city. He tells them a story he learnt when he was in the Feywild where gazers observed a division and saw two moons in the sky. Norman goes to a window and looks up to the cracked moon. He notices lots of grey specs floating around which appear to become more concentrated near the egg.

They discuss where they will go next and recall a very tall tower more to the center of the city. They decide to head there next and end up in a courtyard area. It's a wide open area in front of the tall tower, just below the moon with with foliage all over the ground. The towers close have foliage growing up the sides and they see grey flowers, resembling that of the blue flowers described by Valentine. They realize the grey dust from earlier are flower petals falling from the cracked moon. In the courtyard is a large statue of a queen, kneeling with their hands cupped. They have four eyes and a wide mouth and they know they have never seen anyone of this race before, a race they assume is Wesnian.

They park the bike behind the statue and see her back and bare feet. Norman grabs a bunch of the roses, rubbing one in between his fingers. It disintegrates as it's very fragile. They see a large open arching doorway leading into the large tower. They go up some stone stairs and enter a large foyer with an alter in the center. The alters resembles two hands blossoming out with steps leading up to an elevated platform. All along the stone, carved deep, is the symbol of Wesnia. The walls around them have various symbols of Salem etched into the walls. There are also two stone knights next to the alter. One with a sword in the ground and the other with a shield, both in full suits of armour. The see the an empty space above them opening to the sky.

Norman feels this place may be a place of worship potentially, as Dariun points out, to Salem. Dariun questions how powerful Salem is with the capability to hide the grand treasures. A flash of red comes over the room as they see the ball of red light comes closer. Norman draws his sword, keeping watch as Zippy approaches the alter. He sees a place in the blossomed hand for an object. They decide they need to make a move. Zippy asks for some help on how to solve a puzzle and they suggest just putting the piano key in the hands. Zippy drops the key in the hands.

The hands start to move as if they are alive and the fold, cupping the key. The stone around it starts to rise and encases the hands forming a box. Flashes of light start tracing across the box forming a keyboard with Wesnian language keys. Norman looks at the symbols and makes out a few symbols from what he learnt in the Calm Cloud Monastery but not enough to know exactly what to do. Norman presses a key on the side and it sinks in and lights up. He presses another and it lights up. They both go red and darken. As fast as lightning, the sword statue grabs Norman's neck. He sees a monocle embedded in the helmet. It looks up and teleports into the sky.

Norman sees he is at the top of the tower and can see all the way down. Still in the grasp of the knight, it starts walking to the edge and Norman can't break free. Zippy sees the same symbol from his boots on the ground where the statue was. He looks up and sees another symbol to teleport to using his monocle. He grabs Dariun, warning him something is going to happen as he teleports by looking up to the symbol. They zip up and see Norman being carried to the edge. Dariun throws Zippy across the gap to Norman and Dariun misty steps towards where he thinks Norman is, banging his head on a railing. Zippy runs over to the statue and Norman.

Norman is still being carried and is getting close to the edge. He uses dimension door and they fall through the floor and teleport into the open air. Norman tries to break free before opening another dimension door but can't get out of the stone statue's hand. They come back to the edge, now with the statue closest to the edge but still holding Norman's throat. Zippy tries to run to the statue and cast stone shape but the statue stabs itself with its sword and grabs onto Zippy's throat, leaving a blind Dariun to help the situation.

Dariun uses his Genala mail and activates fury of the lion. He runs at the statue and grabs the statues arm that holds Norman. Dariun is able to break it's grasp on Norman and he falls to the ground. The statue now turns and holds Zippy over the edge. Norman pulls out his sword and strikes the statue using psychic blades. A bit of stone falls off the back but it is not affected by the psychic damage. From the statues feet, small etchings become visible. A burst of magical energy comes over the area and only Norman is affected and feels gravity push him down. Zippy is released and starts to fall slowly with moon gravity, unaffected by the statues spell.

Zippy transforms into a giant octopus, stretching out and enclosing on the area around the statue. Zippy's tentacles wrap around it and locks it in. Dariun gets his bearings where he pulls out his spectral katana. Another version of himself appears behind the statue and attacks it at the same time. Dariun swings and the helmet slowly falls to the ground. Zippy throws the magicless stone statue away and climbs back on the ledge. Norman can't get the monocle out of the helmet so puts it into Dariun's bag of holding for now.

As they stand there, they see another flash of red and can see the orb is in the city. Neither Norman or octopus Zippy can tell what the shape is but estimates it'll be here in 4 minutes. Zippy grabs Norman and Dariun and jumps down the middle of the building. He uses his remaining arms to get down the building. They get down and Zippy restrains the shield statue. Norman approaches the box once again and closes his eyes to attempt to speak to Royce, asking if he has any answers. Norman lets his gut take over and he starts hitting numbers but it goes red. Norman flips back and Zippy can feel the shield statue try to get out of his grasp.

Dariun runs up and starts smashing keys and Norman and Zippy can see it light up then go red over and over. Norman and Zippy are looking around the room to find some sort of pattern but can't see anything. The red light flashes and they see above an outline of a person descends and the red light focuses and blows off the head of the stone shield night. The light goes down and they see behind it is someone familiar. The red orb is transfixed to a mechanical arm coming from a backpack that is attached to the man from the Beroger spire, Clive. Clive thanks them for helping him back at the Beroger spire. Norman introduces himself and asks what the relation is here. Dariun explains the business transaction that happened at the Beroger Spire and Zippy comes out of octopus form and yells at him for giving them a bad rap.

Clive tells them he has been here heaps of times to scan stuff and is just wanting to scan his clues and go. Dariun asks what he means and Clive tells them he puts stuff in to find out if it's a grand treasure clue or not. Dariun asks if Clive could remind them what the passcode is so he agrees and heads over to the box. He enters the code, reminding them the acronym is HUPHUP. He enters and the area starts to light up. Clive keeps with Greeder's honour and turns away to not peek on their clue. Dariun asks about the gathering of the top 10 Greeders and Clive tries pretend like he doesn't know anything about it. Dariun can tell he is lying but Clive keeps tight lipped.

Norman reaches and hits the final key. It sinks and lights up. Cracks start to form and illuminate and magical lines form. The shoot off in different directions and start forming a massive pillar of light. They see different levels form in the light and they know this as their reality, the planes stacked on top. The middle layer, the prime material plane, starts to glow brighter and they see a symbol of Salem shines. It replicates their symbol and the crosses intersect different locations on the map.

One of the crosses that have formed is greyed out, showing where the piano key they have was originally found. Gilbert had told them he had found it in the mountains of Pokarok however, the greyed out part on the map in the plane of Shadowfell. The map rotates and zooms in on the prime material plane. They see a picture forms that details a new location in Jadu. They see a vast, wide open room with mini ziggurat temples. It resembles a vault with individual relics on top of the ziggurats one of which is the piano key. The final key is shown a few planes down, in the deep. A new image is formed of an elaborate cathedral with a large obsidian spiked throne. Behind is a large grotesque demon sitting at a pipe organ playing music. They are lost in the music. Fire starts erupting from the pipes and the music is cut short. Norman recognizes this as Crasis, the demon who killed Royce and usurped his throne. Crasis turns and they see his face come into view. Four blood red eyes with wide toothy grin looking, almost as if they are staring back at Norman. Crasis holds up the piano key and laughs as the image fades away.

The light disperses and the stone opens and the hands arise, revealing their piano key. Norman takes it, squeezing the key and his hand goes black. Clive sees they're done and goes up to the podium to scan his items. Zippy asks if he can help them get to Liik's Garden. Clive is pretty surprised they used that route as it's super old school, explaining he got right onto the dark side with his option. After some convincing and Dariun giving him his blouse of reversing his digestive tract whenever dragons are nearby, Clive is pretty chuffed and thanks them agreeing to help. He tells the team its north east of here, they'll find a crystal where a portal will open up to Sanguine.

Clive does offer them one last bit of help to get the Liik's Garden and goes with them on their bike into the open moon. Clive uses his backpack red light. The red light circles around and the ground becomes see through all the way through to the other side, showing Ome. Norman looks through the gazer telescope and looks for Liik's Garden. He spots the church and zooms in. They feel the magic building and they teleport back to Ome.

## Quotations

* Jacob "Can I get a bloop bloop for octopuses?"
* Adam and Seth "Bloop bloop!"
* Connor "Why? Why octopus!?"

## Featured Characters

### Main Cast

* Norman D
* Dariun Branch
* Zippy Westborrough

### Returning Characters

* Clive (Tower thief - 9th Greeder)
* Crasis

## Locations

* The Moon
* Glimpse: Wesnian Outpost

## Trivia

### Episode Tidbits

* The piano key Team 8 has was not found in the mountains of Pokarok as first said by Gilbert. It was found in the plane of Shadowfell as shown by the map on the moon in the Wesnian ruins.