The party continued through the burning remains of the Dunedrift Shanty Town. Fable examined the flames and identified them as magical in nature, resembling a series of Flaming Spheres amplified through metamagic. Whoever had created them was an exceptionally powerful caster and was likely still somewhere within the settlement, controlling the blaze as it spread.
The party rushed toward the Guard Garrison and found it under siege by nearly a dozen gnolls. The depleted guards who had remained behind were being overwhelmed, but the party cut through the attackers and managed to save two guardsmen and Lieutenant Wolfgang Serpentcutter.
Behzad finished the final gnoll with a shot from his revolver empowered by a divine smite. Instead of falling, the ruined body suddenly stood stiff and turned toward Fable. The voice of The Crow emerged from its destroyed mouth.
“See ya soon, kiddio.”
The corpse then crumbled to the ground.
Lieutenant Serpentcutter told the party that he had no idea what was happening. After Asherdalon attacked the region, most of the surviving residents had been relocated to Dunedrift. However, there had not been enough room for everyone, forcing a skeleton crew of guards to remain behind and manage the citizens still living within the shanty town.
This was why the Taimavar’s plan to remove the elves from the refugee camp in the morning had initially seemed justified. Their departure would create enough room in Dunedrift to house the remainder of the displaced population.
Serpentcutter explained that the guardsmen killed during the dragon attack had reanimated as gnolls during the night and begun slaughtering the town’s inhabitants indiscriminately. Fable and Fern immediately recognized that the timing was far too convenient. The attack had not begun until after the Lords’ Alliance agents stationed there during the day returned to Dunedrift, and they were not expected to come back until the following morning.
Had the party not entered the shanty town during the night, the Lords’ Alliance would likely have returned to find the entire settlement dead.
The attack appeared too coordinated and intelligent to have been carried out by mindless gnolls. After hearing the Crow speak through the dead gnoll, Fable feared that he was behind the massacre and continuing whatever plan he had begun in Azmar.
The party continued searching for survivors and reached a bridge where they found a man being torn apart by gnolls. To their surprise, his wounds rapidly regenerated. The man rose, seized the gnolls attacking him, and hurled them from the bridge to their deaths on the rocks below.
He turned toward the party and growled at them not to come any closer.
Nys attempted to calm him, asking whether he was Bruldan and explaining that his sister Melanie had sent them to find him. Fern moved closer and tried to reason with him, but he was still covered in blood from the earlier battle.
The sight and smell of it sent Bruldan into a frenzy.
Bruldan charged Fern, cut through him, and tore into his throat with his teeth, knocking him unconscious. Nys began firing arrows into Bruldan, but his assault did not end when Fern fell. His attention shifted to Behzad, and he bolted toward the Lord of Wolford on all fours.
Behzad fired another divine smite through his revolver, but Bruldan cut the bullet in half with his greataxe. He then shredded Behzad’s pauldron and bit deeply into his neck.
Fable cast Tasha’s Hideous Laughter, incapacitating Bruldan long enough for his rage to end, while Behzad used Cure Wounds to revive Fern.
When Bruldan regained control of himself, he begged the party to kill him. He revealed that he had been transformed into a Vampyre and feared what he had become.
Fable revealed that she shared his condition and assured him that the hunger could be controlled. Bruldan explained that when the gnolls attacked, the Crow appeared and offered him the power to save his town. It was another cursed bargain, similar to the arrangement between ACE and Jasper in Azmar.
The transformation gave Bruldan the strength he needed, but his vampyric hunger amplified his natural barbarian rage. Once it took hold, he could no longer distinguish between enemies and allies. He tore through gnolls, guards, and civilians alike.
When the party asked why he would accept such a bargain, Bruldan admitted that he had mistaken the Crow for an agent of the Raven Queen. Nys pointed out that crows and ravens were not the same.
“Well, I know that now.”
Bruldan decided that he could not safely return to society. He left the settlement to isolate himself until he could learn to control his rage and hunger.
The party continued across the bridge and found a group of civilians sheltering inside a bathhouse. Among them was Johanna, the wife of Guardsman Pierce in Dunedrift. She asked whether the party had found their son, Nandakka, among the rubble.
Fern regretfully told her that they had not.
The party directed the survivors toward Lieutenant Serpentcutter, his remaining guardsmen, and the priest sheltering at the temple. They then continued toward the town’s theater, where they found the Crow waiting for them.
The Crow greeted them with a theatrical monologue beginning with:
“Alas, poor mongrel…”
He explained that he had hoped Bruldan and Fable would fight. The Crow was attempting to summon Fable’s father, Octavian Scarletblood, back from the Abyss, but needed a suitable host for him. Bruldan had seemed like a promising candidate until Fable managed to break through his rage, once again proving why she was “a great improv partner, who always keeps him guessing.”
The Crow then explained the structure of his play.
Azmar had been Act 1: The Slaughter. The hearts collected there had allowed him to create gnolls and new Vampyre Spawns throughout the Sapest.
The destruction of the Shanty Town was Act 2: The Feeding.
Everything was building toward Act 3: The Mutation, when all the pieces would come together for his grand finale.
Fable demanded to know why the Crow wanted to return her father to the world. The Crow explained that with “Daddy Tharizdun back on the board,” Tharizdun would need the Crow at his side for what he called “the Requiem.”
As the Crow put it, he would be “too busy to do his day job full time.” But, alas, someone still had to be the monster parents warned their children about in bedtime stories.
To determine who would inherit his throne as the next Father of Monsters, the Crow was preparing a “heavyweight title fight” between Fable and her resurrected father.
The Crow then began taking control of the chain scars covering Fable’s body. When Fable attacked him with the ooblex in Azmar, she had violated the terms of their dark agreement and granted him power over her. He now used that power to dominate her.
Unable to watch, Fern hurled an elemental blast of fire at the Crow and ordered the party to run.
They fled the theater, but the Crow followed them through a Dimension Door, scolding them for interrupting his monologue. As Behzad and Fern began running down an alleyway, the Crow watched them flee.
“Everyones a critic.”
He then turned toward Nys, the only member of the party who had consistently played along with his theatrical performance.
“Exit stage crow.”
The Crow then cast Circle of Death, blasting Behzad and Fern within an inch of their lives.
Fable begged him to spare them.
“I did! I couldve upcast that!”, The Crow remarked.
The Crow offered Fable another bargain. He promised not to kill her friends for disrespecting him if she traveled to the Charmed Cove and retrieved something he wanted.
He leaned forward and held out his hand.
Fable refused. She told him that she would risk her life before accepting another bargain with him.
“Alright kiddio, go ahead.. roll the dice”, he declared joyfully.
Fable turned to sanguimancy instead. She fed Behzad her blood, empowering it through necromancy to heal his wounds.
The Crow applauded.
By feeding Behzad her blood, Fable had unknowingly completed the ritual he had arranged. The Crow declared that Act 2: The Feeding had been fulfilled. He bowed and teleported away, calling Fable a good sport as he vanished.
As the Crow disappeared, Behzad felt a strange tingling sensation spreading through his body.
The wounded party rejoined the refugees they had rescued and began limping back toward Dunedrift. Behind them, the last remnants of the shanty town collapsed beneath the magical flames. Ahead, the sun began to rise over the desert.