Returning to KB&S in a wet blaze of glory on the 5th of Suntide, the party decided on some downtime. Arkorow did some alchemy, and Mordus went on a bender with Betharix Morshar. They became quite good friends, and he learned that she had a traumatic childhood where her massive family died in a fire.
During the night, Arkorow was awoken by Alyk terrorizing him at Devinn's command. Alyk stole one of Arkorow's volumes of the Gentleman Forager's Guide to Havilon, which included his personal notes. Alyk ate the notes and they were unsalvageable. Devinn felt quite bad about that.
Devinn had a conversation with the somnian, a "tool" of Murk, using the tongues spell, and time was otherwise spent training, foraging, and brewing; while foraging near the Cherry Blossom Glade, it occurred to Mordus that the inscription read, "To Arepo, son of Draconiz and consort." Devinn also finally had a chat with his half-brother, Pan Dustkeep. Other than learning that Yennef Dustkeep, has been sick all his life and that he does not know their shared father either (and that clearly Pan is not that bright), not much came of it.
However, feeling quite bad about having hurt Arkorow, Devinn went on a big bender on his own. He ended up so drunk he crashed a private party at the Birdspire Prime where he got in a fight and woke up bruised and with a black eye in a bear den. Mordus also went on a bender, but he woke up in his room with two sets of armor identical to his own, but one was in bright pink and one was in deep green, and he has no money left. He let Arkorow have the green set.
Performing divination the next day, to learn if the letters stolen from Arkorow were still in Capital, the somnian spoke these words through Devinn :
So casually you seek me for answers, as if you had not earned my ire,
freeing my prisoner, just to take what you desire,
see rather that you right what is your greatest wrong,
lest I burn all letters in Adenastin with fury most strong.
essentially revealing that Murk owes them no favors after Arkorow released Morgan, a prisoner of the dark deities.
During the night's rest on the 7th of Suntide, the party 'woke up' in a dream conjured by Arepo. It was nice, colorful, and pleasant. Here they met "Buddy," the Hound of Arepo, and Arepo himself, and caught the tail-end of a conversation between Arepo and a disembodied female voice that spoke in Infernal. It included an apology for something, but did not make much sense. After introducing himself as the "friend" that Morbor told the party days before would seek them out on a divine matter, Arepo gave them a quest; a test for them to perform before an even bigger matter could be resolved. In the Hunting Grounds is a friend of Arepo, known just as the Beast of the Hunting Grounds, who is dying. The task is to give the beast its final rites; it needs sunlight to move on. Arepo also gave them Arkizer's Easy-Travel Tent, telling Arkorow that it belongs to him.
After some talking, Arkorow pulled out the cursed tophat of Morgan. Very suddenly, things got dark. The sky turned inky black, and Arepo fell to the ground as if being choked by some unseen force. Then, Morgan, in a rotting avian body with skeletal wings and exposed ribcage, emerged along with several owl aarakocra, each with inky black eyes. He made his grinning introductions before snatching his tophat back, and with a final, "Mind if I take this?", he and the other aarakocra disappeared, with Arepo as their prisoner.
Panicked, and ready to murder some birds, the party awoke on the 8th of Suntide.