The Uninvited

After mourning Andre for the rest of the night, the party divides up duties for Andre's funereal. Weneon commits to organizing the coffin. He visits Maltser, who sets him up with a carpenter friend. Kilijan prepares for engraving the coffin with a motif of the party's celebration after the wine heist. Mycha talks to Silis and learns from him that Andre was foolish to think that to compensate for his own burden, he had to free Gambino from his chains. Mycha later tries to speak to Marla, but she was knocked out by potent drugs in her room in order to sleep. Lorkhan is intrigued by the way Andre manages to free Gambino, but could not figure out how, even after examining the chains in the basement. As the coffin arrives at the penthouse, Kilijan decorates it with the image he prepared and the party gets ready for the funereal. Mycha helps Silis pick out an appropriate outfit before they leave for the cemetery.

At the Grey Cemetery, the party waits for the gravedigger to finish digging the grave. Through the dusky, rain-filled air, the party notices two guards on a hill just outside the graveyard watching them through a looking glass and taking notes. The party then notices a group of shady individuals on the other side, much closer to themselves, bowing their heads in respect as the gravedigger finishes his work. Mycha decides to approach the shady group and notices that two of them are dressed expensively, while the rest are covered in rouge gear, acting as security for the two wealthy individuals. Mycha couldn't make up any more details, since he was promptly stopped by one of the bodyguards, who told him with a wavy hand gesture to return to where he came from. Mycha returns and tells the rest of the party what he noticed. Kilijan and Lorkhan speculate that the guards are here watching the shady individuals. As Andre's coffin is lowered into his grave and the gravedigger starts filling it up with rubble and soil, one of the wealthy individuals starts approaching the party. They realize this individual's immense stature as soon as he steps next to them. As he removes his scarf and hat, they see a 60-year-old looking male dragonborn with pale orange skin, asking them to introduce themselves to him. The party obliges and tells them their names. After they finish, he tells them his name, Phendrel Crow, and immediately asks them what Andre was to them. The party tries to reveal as less as possible, but Silis gives them a sign to not cause trouble with Phendrel. The party then tells Phendrel what Andre meant to them and their connection to him. Phendrel's voice is calm but timbers with intimidation as he tells them to watch out what they're doing in the Underways. He also points out that Andre and his little crew from the Penthouse were protected by the other fractions, but that this protection does not grant the party the possibility to do whatever they want underneath Oeble. He then nods his head towards Silis and says: "That's something this lousy undead should have told you as soon as you arrived here." As he investigates the party, he learns that Mycha is from the famous Ichtorius family, known for their knowledge of horses. When asked by Mycha if he knew him or his family, Phendrel reveals that he never met any of them, but that he heard a lot of good things about their heritage. Phendrel then turns to Andre's grave and utters the words: "May you remain unknown, my friend." He picks up a piece of soil and throws it on the grave before returning to his group. The gravedigger is about to put a wooden gravestone up, but Marla interrupts him, saying that Andre's grave shall be unknown. She then calls Silis to her and privately tells him something, to which Silis replies by nodding his head. She then leaves without a word to the rest of the party. Mycha immediately asks Silis what the whispering with Marla was about, to which Silis answers: "Something private." He then proceeds to tell the party that Phendrel is the leader of one of the factions on the Underways called The Crows. And that the other wealthy looking guy probably was Grivijan Fuchs, leader of The Hungry's, but Silis is not completely sure, since they were too far away. When asked why Phendrel came here, Silis reveals that Andre was once part of the Crows, but managed to leave without repercussions. It starts to rain, and the party decides to return to the Penthouse to plan what to do next. As they go home, Mycha calls Marla on her ring, asking if she's OK. She answers swiftly, telling him not to worry and that she has to do something.

The party arrives at the Penthouse and rest for the rest of the day, arguing about how to proceed further. Lorkhan is eager to visit Neverember and tell him about Gambino's escape. Weneon and Kilijan are not sure what to do next and fumble with ideas of going to the desert to deal with Krampus, or leaving for another city until things cool down a bit. Mycha is worried sick about Marla, but cannot manage to reach her. At around 23:00 the Penthouse front door opens and Marla pushes a tied up individual to the floor. The meager man has a sack over his head. As she removes it, she asks: "Is this the one who gave you the quest to deliver the box?" The party sees before them a male tabaxi and immediately recognize Rychain in front of them. Furious, they start interrogating him violently. Silis protests while Marla leans back on her chair, seemingly enjoying what happens before her eyes, telling Silis to calm down and let them do their thing. Rychain is brought to the basement and hung up on one of the meat hooks. As the party takes their turns interrogating him with various tactics and torture methods, Rychain confesses that he does not know what the package was about and from whom the delivery order came. The party does not believe him and continues the torture. Weneon starts pulling out his fingernails and pouring wine down his throat. Mycha tries to intimidate him with his dagger by implying to cut him open, but then drags him out of the basement to the common room. Sitting him down at the table and cutting him free from the rope he was tied in, Rychain crumbles in fear and pain, pulling his bleeding fingers to his chest. Through tears, he tells them that he told them all he knows, but that he can help them find out for whom the delivery was. He suggests to set up a meeting with the individual who gave him the quest. Mycha insists on Rychain telling him who the client was, but Rychain begs them to believe him that he received the quest from an anonymous source. Marla now witnessing close up Rychain's wounds, stands up and runs to her room. At that moment, Mycha asks Rychain again, threatening with his dagger, ⁣ to tell them what he can do to assure them to trust him. Rychain, out of words and ways to assure them to trust him, asks Mycha in return: "What would you do in my place?", to which Lorkhan leaps forward, grabs the dagger out of Mycha's hand and stabs Rychain to death. The room falls silent. The rest of the party is shocked. Marla sees the scene play out as she was coming out of her room with a first aid kit for Rychain's wounds. She drops the bandages. Silis's voice starts trembling at the sight of Rychain's body falling to the ground and bleeding out on the floor. He runs to Marla to hold her and tells the party to get out of the Penthouse. Mycha starts to wipe the floor, but Silis yells at him, telling him to get out immediately and leave it to him. "You've done enough here", he exclaims as the party picks up their equipment from the guest room and leaves the Penthouse behind.

As the party wanders the streets of the Underways in silence, reminiscing what just happened, they intuitively arrive at the southern harbor and the black Black Sheep Inn. They decide to lodge for the night. Kilijan dreams of his own tormentor from the past beating him up, only to then see Weneon's face instead of the face of his torturer. Mycha dreams of riding horses with his sister Myscha Ichtorius. He then turns around and sees how she is butchering the horse on the ground. Before he wakes, he sees his hands covered in blood. Lorkhan dreams of him and the rest of the party riding on horseback towards a city while people applaud them and cheering them on. Weneon dreams of trying not to hurt anyone, but then finds himself inside the staircase in the makka house they raided a few weeks back. He sees the wood-elf corpse with a baby trying to wake up her mother before he is pulled out of the dream by the sounds of the morning chatter in the Inn. As they go down the stairs, Kilijan notices Kalena sitting with a man at the table in the Inn. She notices Kilijan as she puts her head back, laughing at something the man just said to her. Kilijan approaches her, telling her that he thought she was dead. She seemed utterly confused and just answered that she thought she would not see him again. Their conversation is interrupted by Mirabel's voice calling through the Inn: "I need to speak to the Uninvited." The room falls silent and the party looks towards Mirabel, carrying John's musket on her back and making her way towards them through the crowd. "Relax", she tells them raising her hands jokingly, "I am here on official business. The skeleton guy from the Penthouse told me that you were uninvited guests when I asked for you. You have been summoned to the court of lady Endolynn. She has something to discuss with you."