"There’s nothing under your bed. Nothing in your closet. Nothing waiting in the hall. You are surrounded by nothing. You cannot escape it. Welcome to Night Vale."
A vague yet menacing government agency needs a special message delivered. Plus, Cooking Stuff with Earl Harlan, a mysterious thank-you card, and strange goings on near the haunted baseball diamond.
Tropes present in BRINY DEPTHS include:
- Flock of Wolves: Everyone in Night Vale is a secret agent.
- Plot-Based Voice Cancellation: When Cecil gives out the address of the radio station to solicit fan mail, everything but "Night Vale" is replaced with funny noises (in order: the ocean tide, a noisemaker, crowd laughter, and a paper shredder).
- Rule of Three: Cecil has to say "Briny Depths" three times before all the agents manage to hear it.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: The first time the vague yet menacing government agency gets Cecil to say "Briny Depths", they tell him it's certainly not related to "any ongoing deep undercover operations that they can only communicate with using codewords subtly buried in local radio broadcasts". He completely believes them, and even complains later that he wasn't warned.
- Trigger Phrase: The shadowy government agency tells Cecil to say "Briny Depths" on the air, poorly hiding that it's obviously some kind of code word for a sleeper agent. After three repetitions, it turns out to be for everyone in all of Night Vale.
"Today's proverb: I let my haters be my motivators. Mostly they tell me I suck, and then I get sad. This was a terrible idea."
