As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
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Episode 2: The Oh No Plateau
- The survivors of a fire elemental attack are casually introduced to Fearne and Mister, and are shaken to the core to learn that someone out there had tamed a fire elemental like it was nothing, after seeing so many of their own die horribly to them. One of them is unable to physically stomach its presence.
Episode 4: By The Road
- Opal and Ted's argument in episode 4 is this in spades. While it starts out as a typical argument for the two, it quickly escalates when Opal starts to make fun of Ted, causing the latter to lash out at her for being a bitch. Ted then tearfully confesses that all she wanted to do was to protect Opal, and she thought that taking away her powers would teach her to protect herself better. Opal could only listen in silence at this revelation. When she's revived, she's crestfallen for the rest of the trip to Byroden.
- Once the group to get to Byroden, Opal is confused with the fact that Ted no longer lived there as she left three days after Opal had. The local assumed the sisters had kept in touch, and all Opal can do is attempt to run away while taking in this information. Her last fight with Ted likely making her feel guilty at what she said to Ted, as well as wondering what Ted meant when they said they had given up everything to protect Opal.
- After winning the pageant, Opal makes a pit stop by her home. She looks back into the room she shared with Ted, and places her crown onto her sister's bed before she leaves.
Calamity
Episode 1: Excelsior
- The opening make it clear that Zerxus has had a pretty tragic life to this point, as he has lost his husband and become estranged from his son.
Episode 2: Bitterness and Dread
- We find out more about what happened to Evandrin (Zerxus' late husband). Something magical happened to him, and he faded away in a matter of days. Laerryn wonders if she should blame herself for it. Luis even teared up during the description.
Episode 3: Blood and Shadow
- All of the scene where we learn that Quay is still very much in love with Laerryn, and what he would do for her. In the same vein, when he is referred to as Laerryn's husband and not ex-husband.
- "There are many stories of mortals who stumbled their way into the Feywilds and fell in love with an enchanting faery that they met there. But there's one story of a faery who stumbled into this world and fell in love."
- The Ring of Brass implodes, and it's heartrending to watch. It starts when Loquatius and Laerryn hold on to their secrets in the face of Zerxus' need to get the full truth out. Nydas keeps them all together, but when Laerryn admits that she still plans to plane shift the city after everything they just learned, Cerrit abandons them to their devices in hopes of saving his family... but not before pointing out that their secrets will kill them all. The final blow comes when Laerryn tries to destroy the Tree of Names, bringing Loquatius to her side while Zerxus sided with Nydas to stop her. Patia's single-minded focus on the Tree inadvertently prevented things from getting out of hand, but it was too late. The Tree's defensive actions caused Laerryn to destroy it, thus freeing Asmodeus from his prison and starting the Calamity.
- Cerrit's desperation as he reaches out to his son to try to get him and his sister to come home while trying not to panic them was also difficult to watch, both for the viewers and the cast (and Travis himself, being a father). He took another heavy blow when he saw that his old partner was killed.
- Additionally, the scene also offers a peek into what the rest of Avalir is doing, celebrating the Replenishment and oblivious to the approaching end of the Age of Arcanum and their imminent deaths. Maya is just a young girl at a party, sneaking out, drinking for the first time, flirting with another girl. Kir is just a young boy living out his superspy dreams, following his sister and investigating her, just like his dad's day job.
Episode 4: Fire and Ruin
- The fallout of the tree's destruction severs Patia's arm and sets off an explosion that kills her as the others watch.
- As she dies, Patia realizes that all of her knowledge is useless if it dies with her.
- As he is hit, Nydas feels that he failed the city he loved.
- Laerryn can only look at Loquatius even as Asmodeus emerges into the world, and is very sorry.Laerryn: It wasn't supposed to be like this.
- Zerxus once again tries to cast the ceremony of atonement on Asmodeus, but this time Asmodeus is back in the world.Asmodeus: You tried to make me atone... but I didn't do anything wrong.
- Sam rolls two more failed death saves, dying. However, the moment's gravity is blunted by Sam Riegel being himself. See Funny.
- Cerrit reunites with his children, and sends them off to their mother with the Runes of Recall. He tells them that he'll tell them everything when he meets up with them again.
- Kir bursts into tears just before Cerrit breaks the Runes to send the kids away.
Kir: Dad? Did I do something wrong?- After they are sent to safety, Cerrit takes a moment to reflect on how much family time his job has cost him. Cerrit starts a fire in his office, and takes a moment to really look at his childrens' rooms before he leaves his home to do his duty.
- Most of the cast were in tears during this segment. Even Sam.
- Zerxus briefly reunites with Evandrin in the Astral Plane, and after they speak Zerxus realizes that Evandrin will not be able to say their son. Zerxus chooses to take up the Mace so that he may return to the world. Evandrin is sorrowful, but resolute, vowing to find some way to save his husband. Crosses over with Heartwarming and Awesome.
- The first thing that Zerxus says when he reunites with Evandrin? "Don't touch me."
- Vespin Chloras does everything he can to help Zerxus with the time he has, and he asks Zerxus to not tell anybody about what he has just done.Vespin: Above all else, I wanted to be remembered, and I know that the Lord of Hells will make sure of it.
- Zerxus is able to briefly meet Elias, and says goodbye without saying goodbye. Elias tries to apologize, because he has an unsent spellkite, that he didn't get around to sending before it was too late. This moment utterly breaks the cast - audible sobbing can be heard, and Travis puts his head on the table in his folded hands. As Zerxus leaves and the children are taken to the skyships, Elias has to be dragged away while yelling for his dad.
- The gradual realization that Patia, even more so than the rest of the group, has absolutely no one else in her life — despite clearly being capable of caring deeply for others, she's sacrificed every single opportunity for personal happiness in favor of the ideal of Avalir, and at the end of the world she's left pouring her heart out to a statue of the grandfather who set her on this path in the first place. By removing all her memories of her parents, who "disappointed him" in some unspecified way. As Brennan put it in the wrap-up, "Patia's alone, and it's really fuckin' sad."
- The Ring of Brass are able to teleport the Primordials out of Exandria, foiling Asmodeus' plans... but three of them die in the attempt, Zerxus is dragged to Hell, Loquatius and Laerryn do not escape the fall of Avalir. Cerrit is the only one to escape the city thanks to Nydas granting him Bardic Inspiration, Loquatius throwing him a Pact Boon Talisman, and Laerryn showing him the way through the telepathic bond.
- Brennan's epilogue narration had this heartbreaking bit of lore that completely caught the cast and the audience off-guard.Brennan: The continent of Domunas will have been unfamiliar to most people prior to the beginning of our story. Because in the modern age of Exandria... the chain of islands known as the Shattered Teeth is all that remains.
- Even worse when one recalls Brennan's earlier quote as Asmodeus before Avalir was destroyed.
Asmodeus: If Domunas is the smile of Exandria... let's shatter her teeth!- Just that fact that an entire landmass that once held some of the most powerful magic users of the time has been reduced to a turbulent collection of rocks, jagged islands, and chaos, and there is nothing left of this ancient history to record or remember, left to be forgotten by everyone in Exandria, save for barely a handful of people.
