Breaking the Chain

While fighting Moroz and his terminadogs, the party realizes that Moroz is mainly amused by their cooperative skills. Mycha grabs the scimitar of speed during the fight and has a vision of his former bearer, Lorilon, a male wood elf and member of the Leaves. The party defeats Moroz's constructs and agrees to help Moroz in finding his former artificer assistant Krampus, who has been last seen by Moroz in Oeble. Moroz thinks that Endolynn Redstream has granted Krampus access to an artifact that enables him to shield himself from divination and scrying spells. They make a deal with the arcanaloth, and he grants each of them a boost in power. Furthermore, he tells them that the heroes of the past used to fight like them, and that he has not seen anybody going out of their way like that in a long time.

After Moroz leaves, Kilijan decides to deactivate the bomb and the party comes up with a plan to make it look that the terminadogs were behind the plan of planting the bomb. They surrender to the authorities and end up in the chambers of Rowan Bluff, the headmaster of the guards, in the barracks near the dam. He interrogates them, and they successfully convince him in their story. Rowan summons a clerk to give them the reward. The party signs a contract and is let go. Rowan shares with them that they are now considered heroes of Oeble and tells them about an old high-elf saying: "The goal in life is to be healty, wealthy, and unknown".

The party returns to the Penthouse and shares the reward with the rest of the crew. As Silis opens the bag, they realize that they received 1000 copper pieces. Marla taunts them and goes to do the dishes. Andre gives a letter to Weneon. As he reads it, he realizes it's from his old companion Safwalyn. She tells him in the letter that she finally managed to track him down and that she expects to hear word from him as soon as he is ready. Mycha joins Marla in the kitchen doing the dishes. She mocks the party for doing Sili's heist, but then tells Mycha to not blame Silis and that misinformation happens in this line of work. Mycha assures her that they will see Silis’s mistake as the mistake of the whole group. Lorkhan joins Silis at the table and starts drinking with him. Kilijan starts engraving his armor in Andre's smithy and joins them as well. Silis, drunk and heartbroken, apologizes for his mistake and tells them that he is devastated since everybody forgot his "death day". Lorkhan asks him how he died and Silis informs him that 100 years ago he tried to steal a ring from a lich, who turned him into an undead. Lorkhan concludes that he wanted the ring to give to someone as an engagement present, but Silis quickly changes the subject and continues pouring everyone a glass of wine. Andre joins Marla and Mycha in the kitchen and helps them out. He then joins the rest of the crew in the common area, while Marla and Mycha stay in the kitchen chatting. She tells Mycha that Silis's death day has not been forgotten, but rather that Silis has no clue what day it is. Andre and her prepeared a surprise for him tomorrow evening, on his actual death day. Kilijan is looking from time to time over and notices that they are getting closer to each other each minute. The party then starts showing off their mediocre magic items to Silis, who looses his shit laughing at them. Weneon starts imitating Andre with his new-found ability, to which Andre knocks him off his chair with his elbow. Around midnight, Marla goes to bed and Mycha joins the crew. He starts talking to Andre about his scimitar of speed, to which Andre responds that it was not forged on this plane of existence. Asking him about the other planes, Andre reveals that his grand-grandfather was resurrected and then had a son, Andre's grandfather. Furthermore, he explains that a common belief is that a lineage tainted with death, like his was, means that it is cursed and unable to be redeemed. Mycha tells him that he should look around and asks him if this looks cursed to him. Andre scans the room and sees all the surrounding happy faces, before answering that Mycha might be right. The party calls it a night around 1 AM, and they go to bed. Silis and Andre stay up a bit longer and continue to drink.

The Penthouse starts to shake at around 3 AM. As the party jumps out of bed and runs to the common area, they see Marla and Silis standing in their rooms. All are surprised and try to locate the origin of the tremble. The basement door is suddenly slung across the room and Andre is crawling up the stairs with a blood covered head. "I am sorry", he manages to exclaim while blood is gushing out of his throat. Marla runs towards him and tries to sop the bleeding. From out of the basement, the chained man (now freed) is levitating above the stairs. "Finally free", he mutters and the party finally hears his voice, not in their head, but from his mouth. "Thank you for not delivering me to the only ones capable of getting rid of the plague I am about to release on this world. My moons will crush my enemies and the world will once again fear the name: Gambino Marino." As Gambino teleports away, the party is stunned by a screeching noise filling the room. They helplessly watch Marla trying to save Andre, but to no avail. The screeching continues while the party sees the light of life leave Andre's eyes for good.