The Vault of the Traveler

"The Vault of the Traveler", also titled "Episode 5", is the fifth and final episode of Telltale Games' Tales from the Borderlands.

Chapter Summary[]

Handsome Jack tries to take control of Rhys' body by grafting a robotic endoskeleton into him. Fiona, Sasha, and Gortys take the upgrade to Helios' hangar. To kill Jack, Rhys sends Helios on a collision course with Pandora. In the hangar, August, Finch, and Kroger betray Fiona and the others, revealing they planned to take only Gortys back to Pandora. August has a change of heart and turns on them, but Fiona and Loader Bot are still left behind. Loader Bot sacrifices himself to ensure Rhys and Fiona get to the escape shuttles. In the wreckage of Helios, Jack downloads himself into Rhys' cybernetics and attempts to kill him. However, Rhys removes his cybernetics, and chooses to destroy Jack by crushing his eye implant or keep him imprisoned in it. Vallory uses the fully upgraded Gortys to open the Vault, but the monster protecting it kills her. Gortys instructs Fiona and Sasha to destroy her, closing the Vault and banishing the monster. In the present, Vaughn, having become the leader of Helios' survivors, captures the stranger, revealed to be Loader Bot. Having survived Helios' crash, he witnessed Gortys' destruction and, feeling betrayed, rebuilt himself with Jack's endoskeletion to seek the truth. He asks the group to rebuild Gortys, kill the monster, and free Gortys of her programmed mission. With aid from former associates, the monster is killed. Rhys and Fiona enter the Vault; together, they open a chest and are teleported to an unknown location.

Plot[]

After becoming CEO of Hyperion, Rhys finds himself forced into the unfortunate position of being indebted to Handsome Jack. Jack unveils his model robotic endoskeleton and a plan to shove them – and his AI – into any disobedient Hyperion employee, dead bandit, or general corpse. He tells Rhys that he has the privilege of being the first person to have this done to him, causing Rhys to flee his office.

Jack puts Helios on lockdown and orders everybody to help find Rhys. In an attempt to kill the Handsome Jack AI, Rhys shuts down Helios' main power source. If Yvette accompanies Rhys to the power core, she has the possibility of being sucked out into space when Handsome Jack tries to eject Rhys from Helios.

Sasha and Fiona capture their captors and try to escape through the mayhem. On the way to to the caravan, they encounter a hallway full of monitors displaying Handsome Jack, who tries to get Fiona to tell him where Rhys is. August appears and shoots down all of the monitors, temporarily evading Jack. The group move onward toward the bay and are greeted by Finch and Kroger. Finch lures Gortys into the caravan and Kroger pulls out guns on the crew, saying that there had been a change of plans. At the end of the fight, Sasha departs in the caravan alongside Finch and Gortys, and Fiona is left to escape on her own. She makes it to an escape pod and follows after the caravan.

Rhys calls Loader Bot for help to try to find a way off the falling space station. Jack mocks Rhys, asking him if he really believes there are enough escape pods for everybody. Rhys runs down the line of escape pods, all of them having already been deployed. He and Loader Bot manage to find one. If Yvette is with them, Rhys lets Yvette escape without him. If not, then a random Hyperion employee takes it instead.

Kroger, who had been abandoned on Helios by Finch, arrives, and tries to shoot Rhys. Jack tell them that they're all going to die, and deploys a wall-mounted gun. Rhys tells Loader Bot that it's just them two now, and expresses his gratitutde over their friendship. Loader Bot grabs Rhys and starts pushing him in the opposite direction of Kroger, who shoots Jack's gun and follows after Rhys. Loader Bot takes out another wall-mounted gun and brings Rhys to a busted escape pod. Rhys objects that it's a death trap, and they won't both be able to fit anyways. Loader Bot forces the busted pod's doors open and pushes Rhys inside, deploying the escape pod and sacrificing himself. Inside the pod, Rhys screams and bangs against the glass as he sees Kroger catch up and shoot Loader Bot.

When Fiona comes to after crashing on Pandora, Gortys has been completed and activated. The Traveler is unleashed upon Pandora, and she is unable to defeat it. Vallory dies by the hands of the Traveler as she attempts to kill Gortys, who begs to be destroyed in order to seal the Vault and the Traveler with it. Gortys cries out for Fiona to grab the rocket launcher and destroy the yellow orb, which will kill her. Fiona struggles to lift the rocket launcher, but is soon joined by Sasha, who helps her fire it at Gortys.

In the destroyed city of Opportunity, Rhys makes his way out of the rubble surrounding his escape pod. He comes across the wreckage of Jack's office, several of the giant screens heavily damaged but still intact. The screens come on and Handsome Jack expresses regret and the beginnings of remorse over what happened. He congratulates Rhys on his dedication to defeating him, despite the damage to the space station he worked so hard to have built. While Rhys' back is turned, the port jack comes out of the remains of Jack's chair and plugs itself into Rhys' temple, reinstalling Jack's AI.

Jack feels betrayed by Rhys and tries to kill him, using Rhys' own robotic arm to start strangling Rhys. Despite Rhys' protest that it will kill both of them, Jack says it's a sacrifice he's willing to make. To stop Jack, Rhys backs up into a protruding metal bar to tear his metal arm from his shoulder. Jack tells Rhys that as long as he has the cybernetics, Jack will always be part of him, waiting for the chance to finally kill him. Rhys knows this is true, so he picks up a shard of glass and tears the cybernetic implant from his temple and begins to pull out his ECHO eye. Handsome Jack then falls to his knees and begs Rhys not to send him back into oblivion, but Rhys pulls the ECHO eye out entirely and is left with the decision to keep Jack trapped in the ECHO eye, or to crush it. Now suffering from severe bloodloss and trauma, Rhys blacks out.

Back in the present, a captive bandit shows up, escorted by Kroger. The bandit was meant as a trade for Fiona and Rhys, but the Stranger kills Kroger. The bandit raises his hand to seemingly aim snipers at the trio before kicking down the stranger and releasing Rhys and Fiona from their tape prisons. After removing his mask and tying up the Stranger to prevent him from doing harm, the bandit is revealed to be Vaughn who had been nursed back to health by Cassius. The sniper lasers are also revealed to have been laser pointers for the sake of intimidation.

Vaughn escorts Rhys and Fiona to his base, which he'd built in the remains of Helios. Vaughn was deemed the leader of a band of Hyperion refugees named the Children of Helios since they had come out "like newborns" with no knowledge of how to defend themselves on Pandora. They all bow to Rhys because he was the one that released them from the chains of corporate bondage, and they even have a decapitated Handsome Jack statue with Rhys's name etched on it in red marker to further revere him.

Once inside the base, Fiona and Rhys with the back-up of Vaughn begin to question the stranger about who he is and why he captured them. The Stranger is revealed to be Loader Bot, who explains that he needed both Rhys and Fiona to put together Gortys again so they could get into the Vault and defeat the Traveler. He had disguised himself so he could get the truth from them, since he'd seen Fiona and Sasha kill Gortys and wanted to know why. They had given him a statisfactory explanation of their version of events, and now he wants them to help defeat the Vault guardian. Rhys and Fiona agree, and Vaughn joins in with the rest of the Children of Helios.

After choosing three other possible people to join you as Vault Hunters (August, Felix, Athena, Springs, Zer0, Cassius, or an "unknown" character that you can purchase with money that you've gained within the game which is revealed to be Claptrap), a plan is set out. Sasha and Fiona are to set up in the caravan to soar into the Traveler's crystalline stomach so they can blow up the gland that allows the Traveler to teleport. To get the Traveler in position for Sasha and Fiona to enter, Rhys will have to direct Gortys on where to lure the guardian. The rest of the group will flank from the sides and do additional damage, but Vaughn will stay back in the base and prime a moonshot for when Fiona and Sasha disable the teleportation gland.

Not everything goes according to plan. Vaughn sets off the moonshot too early and Gortys initially refuses to cooperate. She doesn't want her friends to get hurt because of her, and she feels that, like the last time, it will be impossible to defeat the Traveler. Rhys manages to convince Gortys to trust the plan and becomes the co-pilot of her giant mech form. They fight the Traveler and begin drawing it towards Fiona and Sasha's position. When that succeeds, the pair soar with the caravan into the crystalline stomach, only to find that the gland is protected by two Guardians. They make use of the low gravity environment to clamber up the rocks and avoid the Guardians to attach the charge.

The rest of the team join Rhys as co-pilots and work to fight the Traveler. However, the Traveler changes course and moves towards the Children of Helios base, causing Vaughn to panic. Sasha and Fiona enter the caravan and begin to boost their way out; when they feel they are a safe distance away, they try to detonate the explosion but learn that they are out of range. Sasha decides to take the detonator and go back to detonate the explosion. Fiona escapes in the caravan, and the explosion goes off moments later.

With the moonbeam primed once more, Vaughn fires it, giving Gortys enough time to conjure a plasma sword to cuts through the Traveler in one final blow. Gortys releases the Vault Hunters and the group celebrates, but not for long. They discover Sasha's body shortly afterward. Although she is still alive, she doesn't have much time. Fiona and Rhys rush to her side, and Fiona grabs Sasha's hand. Rhys cries over her. When she asks him what he's doing, he says that there are so many movies where tears have healing powers, and he just felt that maybe it could work in real life.

If Fiona kept Felix's gift, Sasha will ask for it. The gift is revealed to be a watch with the phrase "time heals all wounds" engraved on the back. Sasha appears to die, but after a few moments, she tells them that she isn't dead yet. The watch hovers over her and lifts her body, glowing red. It is revealed to have healing properties and heals her to almost full health before it drops her and breaks her arm. Everyone crowds around her, thankful for her life, before separating and going to loot what the Traveler dropped.

Rhys and Fiona split from the main group and head toward the Vault itself, racing each other. Once they arrive, Fiona presses the issue of Rhys's potential crush for Sasha. The player has the option to have Rhys say he does have feelings for Sasha, he doesn't have feelings for Sasha, or that he has feelings for Fiona instead. After getting the conversation out of the way, the pair enter the Vault and climb up, talking about their adventure and their future plans. Once reaching the chest, they both say that they should open it together as it would only be fair (mirroring their conversation at the end of Episode 1 when they were in the Atlas facility). The Vault opens, and the two of them disappear in a flash of bright light.

In-Game Decisions[]

Fiona:[]

Rhys:[]

Impact[]

Characters[]

Rhys
Handsome Jack AI
Fiona
Sasha
Vallory
August
Finch
Kroger
Loader Bot
Gortys
Vaughn
Felix (determinant, voice only)
Yvette (determinant)
Athena (determinant)
Janey Springs (determinant)
Zer0(determinant)
Claptrap (determinant)
Cassius (determinant)

Deaths[]

Handsome Jack AI
Yvette (determinant)

Transcript[]

Episode Transcript

Achievements[]

Name	Description	Points	Trophy
A Maze Of Twisty Passages, All Alike	Completed Chapter 1 of Episode 5	20	Bronze
Unforseen Consequences	Completed Chapter 2 of Episode 5	20	Bronze
Give And Take (Mostly Take)	Completed Chapter 3 of Episode 5	20	Bronze
Definition Of Insanity	Completed Chapter 4 of Episode 5	30	Bronze
Time's A Wastin'	Completed Chapter 5 of Episode 5	30	Bronze
What's It Worth?	Completed Chapter 6 of Episode 5	30	Silver
Tales Twice Told	Completed Episode 5	50	Gold
We Had Fun, Didn't We?^[1]	Completed Tales from the Borderlands	-	Platinum