Paired with their new companions, the Divorcés and The Serpentous Six, as well as Sol’ath and his husband Prael, Midnight Brunch was teleported to an undisclosed location in Costyria. Once there, they boarded a mysterious coach and were swiftly carried to a city on the coast, called Halscomb, where they would stay for an overnight.

Once in the small city, Nines set about fulfilling his promise to Samyrn and focused on his performance and music. He used his powers to create an illusory band to play with him and named it, The Brass and Steel Experience featuring Nines, who also appointed Hlwynn as his manager. The ensuing performance was a triumph, and Nines began to see why Samyrn was on about.

The traveling group gathered after an overnight and once again was carried toward Allyradyl at incredible speed, the capital of Costyria. Before entering the capital, Sol’ath wanted to surveil potential Tashir’anun agents in the city. He had their names and typical locations and would take the Divorcés with him. This way, he hoped, they would get the drop on some of their activities and learn more about them before the party’s presence in the city was public. While Sol’ath engaged in that mission, the others were to wait outside the city in a secluded campsite, away from prying eyes. Unfortunately, the party quickly learned that they were expected.

That night, both groups were ambushed by would be assassins and Sol’ath’s group was additionally framed for arson, and they are now wanted for crimes. As the two halves of the party regrouped at the camp, another assassination attempt quickly followed, although Midnight Brunch emerged victorious.

They soon realized they would have to sneak into the city, as some of their party was now wanted, and take shelter in a place where they could be truly secret. That place turned out to be Hlwynn’s parent’s home.

In an uncharacteristic turn, Midnight Brunch got drunk as skunks and turned themselves into criminals as well, complete with wanted posters. They were unable to recall their drunken revelry and tried to retrace their steps to piece the previous evening together. They managed to do so successfully, right up until the were captured by Tashir’anun guards outside a secret safehouse they decided to investigate further.

The guards put them in a cell in the basement of the building, but this feeble measure was unable to hold a true adventuring party like Midnight Brunch. They quickly escaped, stole an entire Fruven crystal (a massive one), and then discovered an unexpected secret.

For a long time, ulseth-ralph had been trying to find the meaning of the phrase, Graz Dun Balim. He said it to anyone he could, hoping for a translation or, at least, a reaction of some kind. Upon muttering the phrase in front of a magically sealed door in the upper floors of the safehouse, it opened.

Ulseth was given that phrase as the dying words of his teacher, an elf named Lan Firan, who appeared one day in ulseth’s words and befriended him. Having spent most of his life alone, ulseth found he was glad for the company and soaked up everything Lan Firan could teach him. For many years the two of them were like father and son, alone in the depths of the Furven Wilds. When a mighty beast ambushed them while hunting one day, it mortally wounded Lan Firan and it was then he said those words to ulseth for the first and only time.

Finding their power in apparently opening a seemingly random door in Allyradyll was shocking to ulseth, especially because it was a door inside a building controlled by the Tashir’anun, a radical and violent group in Costyria. Behind it, though, lay valuable pieces of treasure, weapons, and a full suit of mithril armor. Their intrusion was unwelcome by the owner of the building, who appeared as the group was starting to loot the property. The owner was none other than The Forge, a powerful and high up member in the Tashir’annun.

A brief fight ensued and Midnight Brunch escaped by exploding the entire floor of the building behind them and jumping out the window. No doubt wanted by more than the law now, they too retreated back into Hlwynn’s family home.

Their plans scattered, Midnight Brunch and the others needed a new way to escape the city but had no idea how. They used their limited knowledge of criminal dealings to make contact with the Thieves Guild in the city, where an old acquaintance from the Kormer Republic, Charna, offered to help them escape, if they did a job for her. She wanted them to steal and give to her evidence that she had cheated on her husband, which would give him grounds for divorce and allow his family to take much of her family’s wealth – a sentence near to death in a country like the Kormer Republic.

Midnight Brunch agreed and planned a heist. The evidence was locked in a huge mansion that, coincidentally, was hosting a large party. They arranged for Nines to perform at the property, as a distraction from the theft, and billed it as an outlaw performance. Hlwynn arranged for advertising and word of mouth to gather a large crowd. Ulseth purchased a large number of discount fireworks to cover their tracks as they escaped, and xoria would be making the grab.

Once everything was ready, they set the plan in motion, only it didn’t go quite as planned. Xoria was almost caught in her theft, ulseth’s fireworks burned the mansion to the ground, and Hlwynn revealed that to get that many people there on short notice, they needed a professional group to help. This meant they signed a distribution deal with The Voice’s label for Nines’ music.

The plan did succeed in creating a rising profile for Nines and in obtaining the evidence. Once returned to Charna, she did as promised and swore she would assist them in undermining the Grotfel schemes, including helping them escape the city. She arranged for a meeting place and a time to depart and gave them the information.

The party gathered together to make their way to the docks but, as they arrived, they were found by Grotfel forces. A battle ensued and Midnight Brunch was forced to dispatch the soldiers as they escaped the city and began sailing toward Tabaxavoy on their way to their destination of Tzizitztan.