In the days before the ball, Memory of a Dreamt Revelation visited the homeless shelters in Veronis, asking the staff about anyone who might be preying on the local homeless community, offering work that's too good to be true. Those Harvestmen were poor and desperate, willing to say yes to anything that promised a bit of cash. Memory of a Dreamt Revelation got a list of about a dozen possible suspect descriptions, and gave the list to the Brass Hand before the ball.
The Brass Hand didn't fit in at all among high society. Memory of a Dreamt Revelation had the social graces to avoid attracting attention, and absolutely no interest in using them among this crowd. They showed up in a 100-year-old dress, once the height of fashion, now covered in holes and muck from being worn through all manner of hard labour and not taken care of. Most of their clothes are decades old and have been lovingly repaired, accented with revolutionary style. Not this one.
The rest of the party began attempting to make discrete enquiries, and although the list of suspects was narrowed down, every move drew looks and whispered comments. As the elf, polder, dwarf, dryad, chronodrone, and half-dragon drew more attention, their efforts to conduct their mission without causing more problems became more difficult. At last, they found their quarry: A wode elf named Opal Viridian, leaving the party early. But just as Nickel spotted her through the crowd, the guards began to approach, doubtless to question the troublemakers and waste precious hours, perhaps even arrest them.
Zala, the dwarf tactician, acted first. She shoved the guards and ran past them, distracting them so the rest of the party could make an expeditious retreat. Memory of a Dreamt Revelation decided to distract and disorganise the guards by jumping up on a table and reciting their antirealist manifesto at the top of their lungs, preventing anyone in the ballroom from coordinating. When the rest of the Brass hand were safely out of the building, Zala and Memory of a Dreamt Revelation made a run for the window, guards occasionally popping out of reality near them and reapparearing confused in the adjoining rooms. Zala jumped through the window, landed six stories below covered in lacerations and broken glass, and caught Memory of a Dreamt revelation safely in her arms.
The party tracked down Opal Viridian having dinner at a restaurant and negotiated with her for information on the plot to attack the Squirrel Lord. She revealed that she had been contacted by a man who wished only to be known as "Visor". Visor had asked for money, and promised a tenfold return on her investment. To her surprise, he delivered. And said that if she invested again, he could increase the money by another order of magnitude. Visor's next target? The Serpent Lord, near the desert city of Cragalin.
Reply if you want to know what happened in Cragalin.