Behzad is standing before the sarcophagus of the Faceless God, staring down what he believes to be the root of all evil.
He is ready to confront it.
Nys immediately tears into him, calling out how reckless he has become and questioning whether he is even thinking clearly anymore. The two argue in the hallowed chamber, the tension that has been building between Behzad and the party finally spilling into the open. Eventually, Nys manages to calm him down, but while they are distracted by the argument, Vulmer closes the doors behind them and looks back toward Fable, who is unable to enter the sacred room at all.
In a quiet moment between old friends, Vulmer confides in Fable what the chamber truly means.
Before he was a revolutionary, Vulmer was a collector of magical items. He recognizes the shapes carved into the sarcophagus. These were not ordinary relics. They were the Tides: seven of the most powerful artifacts ever created. Rumor says that at the end of the Dawn War, when the gods were near extinction, and only twelve remained, the seven greatest surviving gods poured their divine power into these artifacts, creating weapons of mass destruction. Asmodeus wielded them to smite the Faceless God into the Abyss, then raised Hell over the wound to keep it contained forever.
But every slot in the sarcophagus is empty.
Someone already took them.
Behzad finds an old, crumpled letter resting on the sarcophagus, written by Lord Sev and addressed to someone named Tuppet. The letter reveals that Lord Sev removed the Tides himself, believing he could destroy them and prevent the Chained God’s awakening. It also reveals the truth behind Azmar: Lord Sev did not build the Dam merely to keep bandits and monsters out of the Sapest. He built it to contain what slept beneath Azmar and Wolford.
The letter is strange, intimate, and deeply personal. Sev is not writing like a distant ruler issuing a warning. He is begging someone he once knew to turn back.
Vulmer loses his composure. Shaken by what he saw in the sarcophagus room, he pushes the party onward and lies about hearing Fern somewhere ahead. Another explosion shakes the cavern, blocking off yet another exit and forcing the party deeper into the ruins.
To cross a flooded cavern, the group relies on Fable’s spider climb. But as Behzad holds his sword above the water, a hand bursts from the underground lake and drags his greatsword, his original knightly weapon, down into the depths.
Behzad drops to his knees in the sallow side of water, stunned by the loss.
Vulmer, already shaken, snaps. He lays into Behzad, telling him that he has no idea what they are facing and that his confidence is wildly overjudged. Then Vulmer breaks entirely, screaming that they are all going to die.
The party manages to regain control and continues forward into another hall, where the walls are covered in ancient art. The drawings depict worshippers of the Faceless God displaced by the Dawn War, their homes conquered and colonized by paladins. In one image, Fable sees her father, Octavian, welcoming a group of cultists into his castle. In another, the party sees the very pyramid they are now trapped inside.
Nys, remembering a toy pyramid she found earlier, realizes that it opens. The top of the toy pyramid fits onto a hidden nub in the portrait, revealing a secret door.
Beyond it lies a chamber filled with statues. One statue is carved like a great eagle’s mouth, with a bracelet resting within it. The party tries to retrieve the bracelet, but everything goes badly.
Fable throws a rock through the eagle’s mouth and hits Behzad directly in the face. Behzad, furious, moves to the other side of the room, only for Nys to try shooting the bracelet loose with an arrow, which passes through the mouth and embeds itself in the back of Behzad’s armor. Now fully irritated, Behzad tries to yank the bracelet free with a javelin, only for the weapon to snap and impale him with splinters.
The party wisely decides to leave the bracelet alone.
They move on and find a chamber full of petrified statues. One statue wears a headdress made of eagle feathers. Uncertain and wary, the party chooses another route and enters a room filled with rotted bodies suspended from the ceiling, offerings left to keep the Faceless God fed in the afterlife.
Farther ahead, they discover a room filled with resurrection diamonds and guarded by Malcolm Monsterblade, the missing captain of Wolford.
Malcolm explains that the Golden Rat Syndicate has infiltrated the caverns. The explosions the party has heard were mostly his doing: he has been killing Golden Rats and accidentally igniting the gas in the air with his shotgun while protecting the diamonds. He thanks the party for rescuing his father, Hugo, then confidently begins kicking in doors, leading them forward to hunt down Big Ears.
Fable is secretly happy to hear that Big Ears survived the destruction of Crackjaw.
The session ends with Malcolm throwing open a door into a room full of rubbish and beetles. Behzad uses his lightning breath weapon, igniting the flammable mine air again. The explosion incinerates the beetles, but also badly bloodies most of the party.
They are barely through the first section of the dungeon, with at least three more layers still ahead.
And if Behzad keeps acting recklessly, the party is no longer sure they will make it back to the surface.