TL;DR
The Bottomless Pit on the Jungle World in System Speculo does nothing until you pass three hidden Awareness checks scattered around the landing site. Clear those first, then interact with the pit to open the real event. Save before you touch it. The clean, no-cost reward is the Champion of the Abyss talent (+2 to Weapon Skill Tests, +5 to Coercion Tests), won by passing a single Toughness test. The other major path sacrifices one of your companions for the Champion of the Darkness talent (+5 Willpower, +5 Lore (Xenos)) and opens the Missing quest. Refusing the pit gives a token amount of XP and nothing else.
Where the pit is and why it looks empty
You find the Bottomless Pit at the Augur's Anomaly landing site on the Jungle World, inside System Speculo. When you set down, the site reads as a large empty hole with no prompt worth caring about. That is the trap. The pit is gated behind environment checks the game never tells you to look for, so most players walk up, get nothing, and leave thinking the area is a dead end.
It is not a code or a sequence. There is no number combination to crack. The work is finding three things on foot, then choosing well once the entity in the pit starts talking.
Step one: pass the three hidden Awareness checks
Before the pit will offer its better options, you need to clear three Awareness checks placed around the landing zone. Walk the perimeter and trigger each one:
- The cabin inscription. Check the cabin to the right of the landing area and read the writing scratched on its wall.
- The northern field diary. A data slab, a field diary left behind, sits in the field to the north. Examine it.
- The fenced area in front of the ship. Enter the fenced zone from its northern point. The wall there carries a line urging you to reach out and touch the darkness.
Each spot needs an Awareness success, so bring a character with strong Awareness or reload if a check fails. Miss these and the pit interaction stays shallow.
While you are sweeping the area, look in the dark space below the left ramp near the ship. An Awareness test there turns up the Staff of Mindsight, a level-12 Telepathy staff. It has nothing to do with the pit reward, but it is free and worth the detour for any psyker leaning into Telepathy. If you are kitting out a caster, our psyker build guide covers where it slots in.
Step two: interact with the pit
With the three checks cleared, walk to the pit and start the event. The opening dialogue runs in order:
- Examine the pit.
- Lean over and stretch your hand into the darkness.
- Submit to the entity's will.
The thing in the pit then speaks. You work through the "What are you?" and "What do you want from me?" exposition before the branch choices appear. From here the encounter splits into stages, and the path you take through them decides which talent you walk away with.
Save now. Every outcome below is permanent, and one of them costs you a party member.
The decision tree: which choices give which reward
The event moves through four stages, each with its own branch. Two routes matter most.
The clean route: Champion of the Abyss (no cost)
The reward most players want is Champion of the Abyss: a permanent +2 to Weapon Skill Tests and +5 to Coercion Tests. Two paths grant it.
The safe version threads the conversation rather than fighting. After submitting, take the Talk it out option (it needs an Awareness check) instead of running or turning to fight. At the ritual stage, choose Pervert the ritual (also gated behind an Awareness check) rather than going through the ceremony or killing the siblings. Having taken both Talk and Pervert unlocks the final Sacrifice the darkness option, which hands you Champion of the Abyss plus 64 XP. No companion lost, no risk on the roll.
The other route to the same talent is the Cut off a piece of yourself option, a Toughness test at the final stage. Pass it and you earn Champion of the Abyss. The catch is the failure state.
The risk: Curse of the Abyss
Fail that Toughness check and you take Curse of the Abyss instead, a permanent penalty reported as -5 to Willpower checks. This is why the talk-and-pervert route is the cleaner read for most parties: it skips the dice entirely. If your Rogue Trader has high Toughness and you would rather gamble than line up the Awareness checks mid-event, the self-mutilation path is fine, but reload on a fail rather than living with the curse.
The companion sacrifice: Champion of the Darkness
The third path feeds a party member to the entity. This grants Champion of the Darkness, a permanent +5 Willpower and +5 Lore (Xenos), but the talent goes to the sacrificed companion, not to your Rogue Trader. The companion then leaves the party and the Missing quest opens.
You can sacrifice item:abelard, item:argenta, item:jae, item:cassia, item:idira, item:heinrix, item:yrliet, item:pasqal, item:kibellah, or item:solomorne. A few characters react differently. item:ulfar refuses outright, item:marazhai counterattacks and inflicts an injury for the insult, and mercenaries cannot be offered at all.
Because the buff lands on a companion who immediately walks out the door, this path is a hard sell unless you are roleplaying a Rogue Trader willing to trade crew for power. Most optimizers take Champion of the Abyss and keep their full roster. If you are weighing which companions are worth protecting, our companion tier list ranks the full crew.
What we would do
Run the perimeter and clear all three Awareness checks. Grab the Staff of Mindsight on the way past if you field a Telepath. Save. Interact, submit, then take Talk it out and Pervert the ritual so Sacrifice the darkness is available at the end. That line gives you Champion of the Abyss and the 64 XP with no roll and no lost crew. The encounter also ties into the achievement "The Not-So-Bottomless Pit," and our achievements guide tracks the rest of the missable list alongside it.
The companion-sacrifice path exists for a specific kind of character, and it is genuinely permanent, so only walk it on a save you are willing to keep. For everyone else, the clean route is the right call. You get a real combat talent and the banked XP, and your party stays whole.