Last episode, Myka found out she has ovarian cancer. This one starts with her doing research online about treatment options. Pete comes out (he’s ready for his 3 AM sandwich, even though it’s only 1 AM) and notices something’s wrong with Myka. She considers telling him and imagines several strong reactions (including laughter, which seems unlikely), but decides not to say anything. Claudia and Nick come in from clubbing, ready to steal Pete’s sandwich … Claudia’s quite disappointed he’s already eating it. Artie comes in next, saying he’s got the mission of a lifetime. After sending Nick to bed and giving Claudia shit because Nick’s still there (she was supposed to find a place for him quickly), Artie tells them he’s got a lead on some artifacts he’s been looking for his entire career … the treasure of Roaring Dan Seavey.
Artie explains that Seavey attacked a ship called the Avalon which was laden with artifacts from Warehouse 12. Seavey made off with all the artifacts and left a dead Warehouse agent behind. (Agent Wolcott, who was H.G. Wells’s partner in 3…2…1.) Seavey and the treasure disappeared completely, but Seavey left a strange puzzle box behind, which Artie believes leads to the loot. Artie “borrowed” half of the puzzle box from the Smithsonian years ago, and now a black marketeer is willing to sell him the other half if they can get to Buffalo in a few hours. The next morning, Claudia stumbles out of bed to find Steve working on backlogged mission reports. He was worried about her the night before and warns her to be careful around Nick, who’s been lying or evading questions since he got there. Claudia says Nick is a fifteen year-old street kid, so of course he won’t be open with authority figures. Steve tells her to keep her eyes open. Nick is lurking nearby, listening to their conversation.
Of course, we saw last episode that Nick is actually working for Charlotte Dupres and that she directed him to get access to the Warehouse through Claudia. Nick sneaks out to meet with Charlotte (who turns out to be his mother) and she gives him a burner phone and a gun. Later, Nick talks to Steve at the boardinghouse and apologizes for lying. Nick says he’s had a shitty life and is tired of all the crap he’s had to put up with; he just wants to live like a normal person. Steve’s lie detecting sense tells him Nick is sincere and he says he understands. Steve is surprised when Nick hugs him, but says he has to get back to his paperwork, which Nick observes looks like a mountain’s worth.
In Buffalo, Artie’s shady seller turns out to work for Charlotte Dupres. She has the other half of the puzzle box and wants their half. Naturally, they don’t trust her—nor she them—so she proposes they combine the halves and look for the treasure together. Pete and Myka don’t like that idea, but Artie figures she probably wants the gold and gems from the treasure and points out that she might have a better inkling as to its location than they do. They can’t afford to have Charlotte find the artifacts on her own, so they agree to combine the puzzle halves. Myka again considers telling Pete about her cancer, but again decides not to.
Artie and Charlotte put the puzzle box together and it opens briefly to show some numbers, which Myka interprets as latitude and longitude coordinates. The numbers lead to a cemetery and the teams split up to look around. Myka finds a headstone with “Jonathan P. Tann, Seaman” inscribed on it (which Pete finds hilarious). Tann was Seavey’s first mate and the stone is made of concrete. Artie uses Rodin’s chisel to show what’s inside the stone, an old-fashioned electric meter and the initials “N.F.P.C.”. Artie says they have to lose Charlotte and her bodyguard before they can go after the treasure, but Charlotte anticipated that and tasers them. At the boardinghouse, Nick plays the put-upon teenager and Claudia falls for it, saying she’ll get Steve off Nick’s back. Nick hugs her in gratitude.
At the cemetery, Pete, Myka, and Artie wake up and realize Charlotte double-crossed their double-cross. Artie says the initials they read stand for Niagara Falls Power Company, who built a generating facility in 1897, the same period when Seavey was active in the Atlantic and the Great Lakes region. They head to the old generating plant and Myka wonders if Spider-Man lives there; Pete quickly corrects her, saying Spider-Man lives in Queens with his aunt … the abandoned power plant would be a much better fit for Batman. (Artie: “Pete, moderate your Comicon panel later.”; Myka: “What’s Comicon?”) In the monitoring room there’s a wall full of power meters like the one they saw inside the headstone. Myka notices one meter is free of cobwebs and dust; she manipulates it, unlocking a hidden door that leads down into the plant.
At the boardinghouse, Claudia is ready to give Steve shit about Nick, but he points out that the intruder alarm on her laptop is beeping. She checks and it shows someone has gotten into the Warehouse, so they head over. At the power plant, Pete, Myka, and Artie find Charlotte’s henchman dead, his neck broken. He has an antique dagger in his hand, but there’s no blood on it, so they figure Charlotte might’ve used an artifact to kill him. Artie notices Myka is a little out of it, but he knows they have to find the artifacts and neutralize them before Charlotte comes after them. At the Warehouse, Steve suggests Nick is the intruder, but Claudia says Nick doesn’t even know about the Warehouse. They find the lights off in the office and as soon as Claudia fixes them, she checks the computer’s thermal imaging scans. Steve points out the Bronze Sector, saying it’s a perfect place to hide since the bronzed people give off faint heat signatures. He heads down to check it out, telling Claudia to watch his back. She gives him a Tesla just in case.
At the power plant, Artie and company find a room that looks just like a pirate ship. They figure Seavey must’ve recreated his own ship down there, and their speculation seems right when they find a skeleton dressed in pirate rags on a bed. They separate to look for the artifacts. In the Warehouse, Steve calls Claudia and says he thinks someone’s sneaking up on him. She confirms it and gets really worried as Steve freaks out about whoever’s down there, saying he can’t possibly be there because he’s dead. Claudia rushes down to help Steve and runs into Marcus Diamond, who died when Claudia shut off the metronome controlling his heart.
In the plant, Myka is attacked by Charlotte, but she kicks her ass quite easily. Charlotte swears she didn’t kill her bodyguard and that they aren’t alone down there. In the Captain’s cabin, Pete and Artie search for a hidden passage to the treasure hold. Artie looks at a chest, brushing some gold coins off the top. He’s attacked by a smoke monster with a skull face that tries to strangle him. Pete Teslas the monster but gets slapped down. Artie’s foot accidentally hits a bell hanging on the wall and that makes the monster cringe back. Pete figures noise can hurt it, so he and Artie make as much noise as possible, Pete by hammering on the wall and Artie by ringing the bell. That drives the smoke monster away, forcing it to retreat under a rug. Myka calls to tell them Charlotte has some wild story about a smoke monster killing her bodyguard and Artie says it’s not so wild after all.
In the Warehouse, Diamond catches Claudia and tells her he bronzed Steve. She distracts him with a fireworks artifact and heads to the Bronze Sector. In the plant, Charlotte says her bodyguard was attacked by the smoke monster after grabbing the dagger and Artie figures the monster attacked him because he disturbed the gold coins. They figure the monster must protect the treasure and Artie pulls the carpet up to reveal a hatch. They look for a switch to open the hatch and Pete finds it (accidentally, while screwing around with the ship’s wheel), dumping Artie down the hatch. In the Warehouse, Claudia finds Steve in the Bronzer, but needs a sample of Artie’s DNA to reverse it. She grabs a screwdriver and opens the panel to bypass the security device. Diamond sneaks up and observes her … except it’s not Diamond, it’s really Nick in some kind of disguise.
At the plant, they climb down into the hold and find Seavey’s treasure, including crates of artifacts from Warehouse 12. Artie says they have to find the artifact that controls the smoke monster before they can bag the rest, so they start looking around. Charlotte finds some kind of stone and sends Nick a text saying she’s found half of what she was looking for. Artie notices her acting suspiciously and realizes she was really after the artifacts all along. Charlotte tries to cover and says she only cares about the treasure, grabbing a gold cup to prove her point. The smoke monster manifests, grabbing her by the throat. The others make noise to drive it away, but it doesn’t work and the monster snaps Charlotte’s neck.
Artie figures the bell might be what drove the monster away before, but it’s too late to help Charlotte. Myka figures the smoke monster is a manifestation of Dan Seavey, still protecting his treasure after all these years. Artie tells them to check the Warehouse crates to find out what artifact is responsible and Myka finds one that’s empty. The label says it contained a hexagram amulet belonging to Aleister Crowley. (Pete: “Aleister Crowley? The guy from the Ozzy song?”) Since Crowley was interested in astral projection and finding the “one true self”, Artie figures Seavey used the hexagram amulet to protect his loot even after death. Myka remembers seeing a hexagram in the skeleton’s hand upstairs, so they all head up.
At the Warehouse, Claudia hotwires the DNA machine but finds a weird magnet in her back pocket. She suddenly realizes it was Nick, not Steve, who came to the Warehouse with her. She bags the magnet and calls Steve, telling him to check his pockets. He finds another magnet and bags it, making his mountain of paperwork disappear. Claudia says the magnets belonged to Franz Mesmer and they make people very suggestible. Obviously Nick slipped them in their pockets during his hugs. Claudia sees that someone else is in the Bronzer, ready to be de-Bronzed. Before she can tell Steve who it is, Nick shows up and holds the Tesla to her head. Claudia is pissed off at herself for falling for Nick’s bullshit and tries to talk him out of de-Bronzing the guy in the machine. Nick Teslas her (and actually does seem kinda sorry about it), then initiates the de-Bronzing sequence.
The guy being brought back is Paracelsus, originally Bronzed in 1541 (played by Anthony Head, of Buffy fame). He stumbles out of the Bronzer, speaking German and glad to be awake again, even if he has trouble wrapping his head around the fact it’s 2013. He thanks Nick and notices Claudia. Nick says she’s no threat, but Paracelsus says if works for the Warehouse, she’ll have to be dealt with. In the power plant, Artie, Pete, and Myka prepare to grab and bag the amulet, but the smoke monster is too quick. It grabs each of them and Myka drops the bag and amulet. Charlotte shows up out of nowhere and bags the amulet, which makes the monster—and Seavey’s skeleton—disappear. Charlotte re-introduces herself as the Countess of St. Germain, wife of Sutton (the Count, who they met in Paris).
Myka realizes Sutton must’ve faked his death in Paris and Charlotte says it makes it easier to get away when people think you’re dead. Myka asks why Charlotte didn’t just take off instead of coming back to save them. Charlotte says she’s been dealing with Warehouse agents foe almost 500 years, but these three are the first ones who ever tried to save her life. Artie asks what she took from the crate and she shows him … the Philosopher’s Stone. (Pete: “From Harry Potter!”; Artie: “From the Magnum Opus!”) The Stone can extend someone’s lifespan, but Charlotte only has half of it. She tells them she wants to use the Stone to become mortal. They all think she’s nuts (Pete: “Immortality? You might live to see the Browns win a Super Bowl.”), but Charlotte explains that immortality is really a curse. Having to keep your distance from everyone so they don’t notice you aren’t aging, watching people you know get old and die over and over, always being isolated from the rest of the world … and then she says she definitely doesn’t want her son to do that forever.
Artie realizes she means Nick and that he’s been a fifteen year-old for over 500 years. Charlotte says Nick deserves to grow up, to fall in love and grow old with someone else. Myka reminds her of the downside of being mortal … dying, which is sometimes messy and inconvenient. Myka starts losing it and Pete takes her aside to talk. She finally tells him she has cancer and in spite of all her fears of him overreacting, he just hugs her. Steve calls from the Warehouse to tell Artie Nick broke in and freed Paracelsus. Steve says Nick and Paracelsus are gone and Charlotte says that wasn’t part of the plan, that they were supposed to wait for her. Steve tells them the Bronzer controls are wrecked and Claudia has been Bronzed. How will they un-Bronze Claudia if the controls are smashed? We’ll find out next episode.