Alyviel returns to the Prophet’s demiplane after staging Ollie’s death in the ACE factory, and the party turns its attention to the terrifying question now hanging over them: who is the Investor?
Fable believes she knows.
The Investor is most likely her father, Octavian Scarletblood, a powerful vampire, master necromancer, and one of the only beings she knows capable of conjuring and binding something like an ooblex. He is also, in her mind, the only person cruel enough to demand blood and hearts as payment. The thought shakes her badly. This is not merely a villain. This is the man who scarred her body for fun.
The party rests, preparing for what they believe will be a confrontation with Fable’s long-lost father.
Around two in the morning, they step out of the demiplane and return to the ACE factory. There, they overhear Jasper cradling Ollie’s body like a grieving father, begging to know why Ollie went into the forbidden room. Nearby stands Obsidian, a genasi wielding the flamethrower used to burn ACE’s victims beyond recognition.
Jasper explains that with the ooblex dead, ACE cannot afford to reimburse The Investor for it. He will take his collateral now.
Then the truth comes out.
Jasper did not make the deal alone. Years ago, when Benedict Sev was still Baron of Azmar and the city was facing economic collapse, abdication, and possible occupation by Rosenhall, Benedict bought a scroll from Mezer Dread and used it to summon the Investor. The terms were simple: blood in exchange for prosperity. The deal started small, paid with the bodies of criminals and bandits. But the more ACE produced, the more blood the Investor demanded. Eventually, they ran out of criminals and began killing adventurers and innocents.
The collateral was not money.
As lord of the city, Benedict pledged the souls of everyone in Azmar.
If ACE defaults, the Investor comes to collect the entire city.
Jasper tells Obsidian that the Investor resides beneath the factory, in the old aqueduct, where the blood empties through the factory’s coolant lines. Jasper intends to go to the Sentinel and beg Benedict to end the madness. But before he leaves, he orders Obsidian to go to the tavern, where he believes the adventurers are sleeping, and burn them alive.
The party must choose: follow Jasper and catch the Sevs red-handed, or use this opening to enter the factory while it is exposed and confront the Investor directly.
They choose the Investor.
In the back of the factory, they find a sewer vent leading into the aqueduct. But beneath Azmar is more than a waterway. The party discovers the buried ruins of Lord Sev’s original manor, built around the old aqueduct itself. The place is ancient, forbidden, and unsettling. Statues of a hooded, faceless primordial entity stand in the dark, remnants of a taboo religion from before the Dawn War.
They also find a King’s Tear, an object tied not only to lichdom rituals but also cloning and other forms of dark magic.
Then, in a cell, they find Lieutenant Cecile Addison tied up. The party negotiates with her and sets her free. Though she despises them as traitors, Cecile cannot tolerate a lord selling an entire city to a demon. She agrees to help them face the Investor.
To Cecile, this proves why the Crown should control the Sapest. In her eyes, Azmar has played fast and loose with law and power for too long. Justice should be administered by the Lords’ Alliance according to the constitution, not by a private arms company that acts as executioner because it is wealthy enough to do so.
As the party continues through the aqueduct ruins, they pass sacrificial altars, blood reserves stored to keep payments flowing when bodies are scarce, and more statues of the faceless god. One of those statues speaks to Behzad.
It tells him his friends do not like him.
The voice forces Behzad to relive Alyviel humiliating him for being fleeced by Sand and buying a firearm he could not even use. Then it tears into his faith. It reveals that Bahamut and Tiamat are not natural enemies, but siblings, two halves of one god split apart by the faceless entity now speaking to him. His religion, his certainty, and his noble identity are all shaken at once.
Fern pulls him away, breaking the god’s hold. But the final wound remains: even Fern does not trust him enough to speak to a god. Even Fern has to control him.
Behzad begins to change. He becomes sharper, angrier, more lordly. He will no longer be talked down to by peasants.
The party reaches a large stone bridge spanning the aqueduct’s central pool. There, they find Jasper, covered in blood and trying to flee. Alyviel goes into stealth, orders Behzad to stay put and not ruin the plan, then creeps up behind Jasper and holds a blade to his throat.
Behzad, freshly wounded by the faceless god’s manipulation and furious at being controlled again, storms forward anyway. He loudly accuses Jasper of cowardice.
Jasper tries to explain. ACE was supposed to save Azmar from conquest and occupation. The city was lawless. He believed they could pay the Investor with bandits and criminals who were already condemned. He never knew how quickly the cost would grow. He never understood what the deal would become.
The party tries to pressure him into facing the Investor. Jasper refuses. The Investor is too powerful. Facing him is suicide. Benedict apparently tried to renegotiate the terms and had his heart ripped from his chest.
The Prophet’s vision has come true.
Benedict Sev is dead. His deal is broken. The Investor is coming to collect Azmar.
Jasper begs the party to flee with him, to survive and tell other communities what happened here. They refuse. The argument escalates until Cecile, coldly invoking her authority, threatens Jasper’s son unless he tells them everything.
Broken, disarmed, and out of options, Jasper finally confesses. The Peacemakers are a fraud. He had a real schematic, but ACE could not produce them at scale. Benedict made the deal, and Jasper became its cosigner because the alternative was bankruptcy, occupation, and ruin. He only wanted to bring peace to the Sapest.
Behzad laughs in his face and calls him a coward.
Cecile walks forward and executes Jasper with magic, claiming the act as her prerogative as an agent of the law.
The party passes through the doors, expecting Fable’s father.
Instead, they meet The Crow.
He appears like something pretending to be human: a plague doctor in archer’s bracers, an archer’s hat, plate mail, a desert tunic, winter boots, heavy gloves, and vials hanging across his body. He looks mismatched, theatrical, and alien.
He reaches toward Fable for a hug and introduces himself as her grandfather.
The Crow angrily chastises his dead son, Octavian Scarletblood, for keeping Fable a secret from him. He insists that he hates violence and has no interest in beating his granddaughter. He invites the party to leave, let him eat Azmar, and afterward he will teach Fable necromancy and how to use the power of her scars.
The party refuses.
Combat begins, and the truth becomes immediately clear: Jasper was not exaggerating. Nys and Alyviel fire on The Crow, but their arrowheads shatter against his body. They are wildly outmatched.
The Crow laughs like a madman, insisting he does not want to fight them and will not hurt his granddaughter. Fern rushes past him toward the infernal engine powering ACE’s pact and begins striking it. The Crow teleports in front of him, catches his hand, and scolds him for interrupting his monologue. Fern punches him in the face, cracking one of the glass lenses of his plague doctor mask.
The Crow pauses, nods with respect, and teleports back to the center of the room, telling Fern to carry on. He has earned it.
The party is terrified by how theatrical he is.
Then The Crow offers a deal. Above them, carcasses of flesh have merged into a massive ooblex. He animates it and tells them that if they defeat his creation, he will break his contract and let Azmar live. If they fail, Fable becomes bound to him, just as Jasper and Benedict were.
With no realistic path to defeating The Crow directly, the party accepts.
The battle begins awkwardly. The ooblex is huge but painfully slow, forcing The Crow to create vines of flesh just to push it forward while complaining that he should have thought about its movement speed. The party fights from range, tearing into it while it fails to land a single hit. For a moment, they start laughing. The Crow seems ridiculous. The monster seems ineffective.
They forget how dangerous he is.
When the ooblex finally reaches them, The Crow moves to Fable. Using his control over her scars, he begins to dominate her. He tells her she must choose who the ooblex attacks. Its attack will devour memories. She may choose Behzad, Alyviel, or Cecile, who has already been knocked down for interfering in a deal that was not hers.
Fable cannot choose herself. The Crow will not allow his beloved granddaughter to be hurt.
So Fable chooses him.
The ooblex turns on The Crow and dies trying to consume his poisonous blood.
The Crow laughs. The terms were clear: the party had to kill the ooblex. Not the ooblex killing itself.
The deal is struck.
Fable’s scars ignite. Invisible chains coil up her body. She is now bound to a demonic pact with The Crow. He cheerfully tells her it will not be so bad, just grandfather-granddaughter bonding. He will teach her to use all her lovely powers, beginning with Animate Dead. Her scars glow, and the flesh around them begins to rise.
But while The Crow is distracted, Nys fires a shot into the infernal engine, destroying it and severing his pact with Azmar. The aqueduct begins to collapse.
The Crow shrugs and starts to leave.
Fable, enraged, chases after him, but he turns and drops Behzad with a sickening blast. The party is forced to retreat. Alyviel and Cecile flee one way, while the rest of the party escapes another.
The main group emerges outside the factory just as it collapses.
Alyviel and Cecile, however, take an alternate route, one that leads directly into the Baroness’s throne room. There, Alyviel finally reveals her true identity as a Taimavar agent. She tells Cecile to stand down and abandon her orders to arrest the Baroness, because Alyviel wants Liliana under her own boot.
Then she threatens Cecile directly: if Cecile does not bend the knee and serve her, Alyviel will report her failure to the Lords’ Alliance.
The episode ends with Azmar saved from immediate demonic collection, but at a terrible cost. Benedict is dead. Jasper is executed. The factory has fallen. Fable is bound to her grandfather. Behzad’s faith and pride have been poisoned. Cecile has seen both the corruption of Azmar and the ruthlessness of the party. And Alyviel’s true agenda has finally come into the light.
The party stopped ACE’s machine.
But they may have unleashed something worse.