(It suddenly occurred to me that Camus might not need to dig up a grave or, by extension, spend a spell slot on Disguise Self to buy a shovel at all since Animate Dead actually doesn't have a line of sight requirement... if I just went to the cemetery and cast Animate Dead onto a grave, could the resulting undead dig its own way out to meet me on the surface?)

(Can't know til you try. I'll try and update soon, but I recently caught covid and I'm feeling very out of it, so sorry if I don't update too often)

(Good enough for me. And don't worry, I've been on the ropes with Covid before, I understand how much it takes the life out of you.)

As I sit there waiting for the morning shops to open, it occurs to me that I'm probably wasting time... a zombie, or even a skeleton, could probably dig its own way out of the ground, especially from one of the shallow pauper's graves. I hang out for a few more minutes, then decide to change my approach and just go to the local cemetery to make some new 'friends.' A mysterious masked man in black probably won't be all that out-of-place at the cemetery anyway. If the gravedigger sees me (I doubt that there will be any actual funerals this early), I'll offer him a gold coin in bribe; it's not like he's paid enough to care.

"I'm sorry to disturb your sleep," I say as I approach a grave. "But I need your aid; I have friends who are in trouble and a debt to collect. Join me, friend."

(how many corpses are you reviving?)

(Two; I'm going to target a pair of graves that look old enoigh that their inhabitants have most likely been reduced to skeletons in order to minimize the chance of being given away while setting amhush or sneaking into the prison by corpse odor [and to reduce the chance of Chlorys being pissed when I get her bag back to her])

(Hi all! I've recently recovered from Covid, and I'm feeling ready to continue this game!)

The graveyard is located a ways outside of the city, but it is not an extremely far trek. The city gates are closed during the night, but as the sun begins to peek over the horizon, they are unlocked and travelers are allowed through. Camus is able to locate a couple of old graves, their wooden headstones long since eroded, and recites a dreadful invocation over them. After a few seconds, the ground shifts, and over the course of a minute or two, two skeletal corpses claw their way out of the ground. A few scraps of flesh still cling to them, but they are largely all rotted away. They trail grave dirt as they clamber into Camus' bag of holding, their old bones easily able to squeeze through the opening, since they aren't limited by the typical constraints of living flesh. 

(What's the plan for Camus from here?)

(Welcome back! We were getting a little worried about you! Glad to hear you're doing better!)

"Alright," Camus says as he packs up the skeletons, taking a couple moments to brush a bit of dirt around on the graves to make the disturbance look a bit less obvious and taking note of the names on the headstones (if readable) to put the skeletons back to rest later. "I think it's time to pay that sonofa***** Amadeus a little visit. He hired three strangers to torment his rival, now he needs to pay the piper."

I'm going to go head back to the Breakwater Inn to have a little chat with our friend Amadeus. If it looks like there's anyone I would rather not encounter when I get there (such as an unusual number of the city guards), I'll try enter through a back door, using my free casting of Invisibility from the Shadow Touched feat if necessary.

(Sorry, Covid may have freed me from its clutches, but the rest of real life hasn't quite done the same.)

As Camus approaches, Amadeus does indeed seem to be busy with a pair of city guards, as the three are having a rather heated discussion. Distracted as Amadeus is, Camus has no problem invisibly slinking past him into the Breakwater. There, he lies in wait for Amadeus...

Meanwhile, Chlorys and Von are finally stirred from their rest by a loud clanging at the cell door. Once again, they see the now familiar face of the leader of the guards who arrested them. His sheathed sword is out, and presumably was the source of the clanging noise, as he once again smacks its sheathe against the bars. Behind the guard there stands an ornately dressed figure. He is wreathed in shadow, but your darkvision picks out a short black beard and hair, harsh features, and a baleful expression of barely-concealed contempt. He wears a noble crest across his breast, as well as a version of the sword-and-anchor badge of the city guard, though his is far more ornate and features a ring of keys as its centerpiece.

"Get up, you lot. You've been granted an audience with Halmuth Bruil, Lord of the Keys. I'm not sure why he's chosen to honor you all with his presence, but you ought to listen up, you hear? Am I understood?"

The guard smacks the bars once more for emphasis, then stands back, crossing his arms either expectantly or out of general crossness. 

Is there a chance I could listen in on whatever Amadeus and the guards are talking about once I've found a place to wait for him, or is the office somewhere in the back that would make it impossible to hear what they're saying?

I'll go ahead and roll a Perception check here so I don't need to make a separate post if it turns out that doing eavesdropping is a possibility.

Perception: 19

I salute and do my best to clean myself up. While on the way. 

"-and another thing, you question my relationship with dear, sweet Pard? Why, he's practically like a son to me! How dare you even-"

"Now, Mr. Lorfin, I'm just-"

"No! I won't have it! You're a disgrace to the profession, and a disgrace to the city!"

"I'm just following orders, we have to question everyone who could be involve-"

"Enough! I'm sick of you. If you want to continue with your pointless blathering, you can do it from the other side of the door!"

There is a loud slam, a yelp, and some nasal, muffled shouting from the other side of the door, which goes something along the lines of "Ee brog my gnose!"

At last, the loud sound of Amadeus' boots clomping on the old wooden floors grows louder and louder, as Mr. Lorfin approaches the office in which Camus lounges. Feel free to describe what happens next.

"That will be enough, Deral. Go make yourself useful somewhere else." The uniformed noble waves the guard off, and he swiftly departs. Then, he approaches the bars, allowing his face to fall into the light. While hard to make out in your dim, black and white vision, his face is now clear now, and you can see every wrinkle and sag of a face aged far beyond its owner's years. This man has evidently been through a lot to trigger such premature aging, for while he can't be more than thirty or forty, his face is that of a man a decade his senior. A wicked scar works its way from his jaw up to his ear, which is missing a sizeable piece.

"As Deral said, I am Halmuth Bruil, the Master of Keys of this city. I control the guard. Now, you two have certainly caused a commotion down at the Floating Fighter. An elf, an orc, and a... skeleton all walk into a bar. Sounds like the beginning of some churlish joke. Care to explain yourselves?"

I carefully position myself and the two skeletons for maximal impact when Amadeus arrives. I have each of the skeletons stand in shadowy corners of the office and stay still, ready to come to my aid if Amadeus needs some 'convincing' to uphold his end of the bargain. Then, I place my mask and leather gloves in the middle of the desk and stand next to the door. That should get his attention.

The bartender walks in a few moments later. I wait until he picks up the mask before revealing myself.

"Hello, Amadeus," I say, shutting the door. "I hope that you are satisfied with the job that my companions and I performed for you... because I promise, what happened at the Floating Fighter last night will go down in legend. Trust me when I say that Mr. Braxton got your message loud and clear."

I hesitate for a moment before adding the next bit, but I decide to go for maximal impact even if I have no idea whether it's true or not.

"After all, it's not often that one hires a lich to deal with their business disagreements. But now it's time to discuss payment. After all, we didn't do your dirty work as an act of charity. It's a shame that the ladies can't join us, but you did hire all three of us and I intend to receive payment in full for our services. Don't worry, I'll make sure the ladies get their cut; I doubt they'll be tied up too much longer, and if worse comes to worse I'll make the necessary arrangements to free them."

My spell of invisibility falls away as I shut the door behind me. My bare skull and skeletal hands are on full display, hood pulled back to make sure that he gets a good look. If he attempts to scream, I will cast Hold Person on him (only if he attempts to scream... I'm really not in the mood to burn another spell slot if I don't have to). I approach and pull up a chair, as the two skeletons step out of their corners of the room into plain view.

"So please, sit down. Let's talk like civilized people."

18 - Persuasion (5, if aplicable)

“Thank you for hearing us, Master Buril,” I say with appropriate deference. “You can be assured that the commotion was unintentional. Though I can remember drinking at The Fighter with my companion here, the next thing I knew we were on our backs at guarded spear-point! The only time we saw the skeleton - if that’s really just what it was - was it disappearing out a window with the elf’s bag in tow, my own powers being siphoned to aid in its escape!”

“If there is anything we can do to aid in it’s recapture I’m sure we would both be eager to assist, both as repayment  and vengeance of our own violation.”

(Glad to hear you survived Covid because it sucks so much... I've had it twice!)

After a brief period of meditation Chlorys awakens to the sound of a new voice echoing around the cells. A man's face comes into view, a hardened weary face who introduces himself "Halmuth Bruil, Master of Keys...." Chlorys sighs, then puts a sad expression on her own; pinching the soft flesh of her forearm, intending to cause tears to form in her eyes. She pouts, lower lip trembling slightly, hoping to add to the effect that she was weak and that she needed to be pitied and that she, Chlorys was just a poor little elf in the big, bad city far away from home who had unfortunately been taken advantage of. 

"Th-thank you, Master Bruil," she bows her head in a respectful way before meeting his eyes. "I... we... Are so, so grateful to have been released from whatever spell that strange man had us under" Chlorys shakes her head, "I remember asking for work, you see I play music and that's what I was hoping to do, the bartender agreed to give me work I played and made my gold.... then the...bartender... Ama... Amadeus offered me and my new friend a drink and then... I can remember bits and pieces but... things are vague...I remember another bar, I remember hearing the loud sound of wood cracking, and a cloaked figure, but if it was beyond human, I could not say." Chlorys states, which is the truth, Camus must have been human, at one point. " The next thing I remember is coming to with all your guards surrounding us and my bag gone." Chlorys slumps her shoulders in defeat and sighs a long forlorn sigh, hoping her story is believed.

Persuasion20

(The roll would be deception, not persuasion, since what you're saying is, while not entirely a blatant lie, a mistruth at best. Either way, the relative bonuses wouldn't affect the rolls too much.)

Bruil snorts. "An elf and an orc, drinking buddies. I'll believe it when I see it." He moves away for a brief moment, drags over a stool, and sits in front of the bars with a sigh as he relaxes. "Here's the way I see things. An orc, dressed like that, and with that... disgusting trinket... you're clearly Tharish. The elf, on the other hand... that's a little more tricky. My first instinct is to say Elventree, or somewhere in Cormanthyr. But. You're no forest elf, I can tell just by looking at you. You're too tanned for that. Still pale, but more than you'd be if you lived under shadowtop trees all your life. Young, too, for an elf. They're all practically born two hundred years old down there. Your clothes are certainly in Moonsea style, though they're far lighter than I'd imagine, and I can tell by the wear that you've owned those clothes for a while. Certainly a native resident."

Bruil leans back, looks Chlorys up and down. "But from where? You're high-born, that's clear enough. Your hands are hardly calloused, and the amount they are can probably be attributed to the music. You carry yourself like a noble, too. And you cry like one. And now, that brings me back to the clothes. They're nicely made, they're thick, but they're far lighter than they ought to be. Where on the Moonsea has pleasant weather? It seems like a contradiction. But there's one place with such weather: Thentia. Very interesting that Thentia happens to be one of the only towns on the Moonsea that is both not primarily elvish, and has elvish nobility. Even more interesting that my spies have heard rumors that Lord Blythe is looking for a missing daughter. Now, you wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you, Miss Blythe?"

Bruil begins again, without even giving Chlorys a chance to respond. "Now, I have a question. In what world do a Tharish orc and a elvish Thentian noble become friends, go out drinking together, and just so happen to end up trashing a bar while under the thrall of a dark magic-wielding skeleton monster? Pardon me, but it just seems a little unlikely, is all. Care to illuminate? If not... well, Loviatar is a rather big name in this city. And her priests are very skilled at extracting information."

Amadeus looks around as Camus' voice echoes through the office, looking more pissed off than frightened. "I told you to go and rough the man up a little, not terrorize the staff and customers and get a massive company of guards called on you! Do you understand what I have to deal with now? They're suspecting that I'm somehow behind this! Granted that's entirely true, but I'm not having it! And now there are rumors going around that I hired a HOLY ******* SHIT SKELETON" 

Amadeus fully trips over as Camus reveals himself, landing hard on his ass. He turns around to the door, only to see "HOLY ******* SHIT SKELETONS. PLURAL. MULTIPLE SKELETONS." He scrambles to his feet, begins running toward the door, opens his mouth to scream, and... falls onto his face, stiff as a board. Some muffled croaking gasps can be heard as Amadeus attempts to speak through his magically frozen vocal cords. Until he is freed from the spell he remains there, completely frozen in a running position, face mushed into the ground.

"Can't have the man laying on the floor," I say to the skeletons. "Sit him down so that we can have a little talk."

After the skeletons roughly plop Amadeus into the chair, I lean in close to him.

"Let me run down exactly what you told us to do," I hiss, the voice echoing menacingly from numerous cracks in my ancient skull. "You said to, and I quote: 'rough him up, break some bottles, and maybe trash the place.' And then you told us to do it as soon as possible, and that you wouldn't pay if the deed wasn't done by the end of the night. We did exactly what you hired us to do. It's not our fault that your plan didn't account for the fact that the bar happened to be open at the time and you explicitly told us not to take a day to scout the place out. Frankly, Amadeus, I don't think it would be wise for you to make me any angrier than I already am by trying to weasel your way out of your end of the deal... do I make myself clear? Blink twice to tell me that you understand me."

(If I need to make an Intimidate check, I'll have the skeletons take the Help action to get advantage on the roll.)

(Honey this man is face to face with shadowy eldritch forces beyond his ken, we're way past intimidation)

Blink. Blink.

Chlorys rolls her eyes, "I play music and nothing more, and that is my truth. I know I had gold in my possession before this fiasco that I earned fair for my skills." She tries not to sound harsh but is annoyed upon hearing unwanted news that her father was looking for her. 

"Very good," Camus whispers, brushing a skeletal finger on Amadeus' neck lightly, letting the chilling touch linger for a moment. "Now, if you scream when I release you, then I promise that the next thing that happens will make an eternity in the Nine Hells feel like paradise."

I let the spell evaporate and wait a few moments to make sure that Amadeus isn't foolish enough to cry for help. Then I speak again.

"Now, you promised to pay handsomely to put fear into Braxton, and that's what we did... for the job that you gave us, I think 50 gold pieces each would have been fair... but with the added consideration that your less-than-flawless plan resulted in the ladies being arrested because we followed it to the letter, I think it would be more than fair to double their pay due to hazards of the job. And since it now falls to me to clean up this mess, I think double pay for my services also seems quite reasonable. So make that 100 gold each... or a total of 300 gold. And as you yourself were saying, now there are rumors that you managed to obtain the services of a lich. I doubt anyone will ever dare to cross a man as formidable as yourself again if they believe you have such powerful allies. So maybe you should consider adding a generous tip for that extra service I and the ladies did for you. Does all this sound fair to you, or would you like to negotiate further?"

Venom drips from my words, along with a healthy dose of sarcasm, especially when saying that few would dare to oppose someone as 'formidable' as the trembling bar owner. It should be obvious to Amadeus that the nightmarish undead apparition before him really isn't in the mood for haggling... the offer of further negotiations is little more than a barely-disguised way of saying 'I dare you to say something that pisses me off.'