The night after defeating the gall, Gatonio received a gift from the Margreve like the other party members had. The owl that delivered it told him, "To save the child, you must save the Margreve."
In the morning he was reunited with his old friend, Gina. Georgina, to be precise. Clearly, the George that Mateo had spoken about. Gina introduced Gatonio to her son, Gatonio Jr. There was no doubt this was the son of Gatonio, they looked so similar. Junior was sick and Hazel and Stevnar examined him. It was similar to the sickness Hazel had seen in the forest and they didn't have an idea for a cure. Gatonio promised to return to Gina once he'd finished his work in the Margreve.
At a celebration that night for the Heroes of Whistlehollow, the ogre from The Still Tower crashed the party. Zyzhashcha had four vine creatures with her animating elk skeletons. When they first met her she'd been covered in horns and eyes, a mutation that sometimes happens to ogres. Now though, she was covered in plant like growth, as if she was changing into something else.
Zyzhashcha shouted, "The King of Thorns promises that we shall rule this forest. Dryad, nymph, and vila will serve us; man and alseid, wolf and hag, will bow to us. The Kingdom of the Briar is coming," and attacked the party.
It was another quick defeat for her, this time ending in her death. Consulting with Hazel, she tried to scry on the King of Thorns and only got back this message:
Thorn King nestles in a green enclasp,
Seekers find nothing but a thorny rasp.
His lair cannot be known or shown,
Thanks to the wisdom of a Spider Crone.
In the morning the party set out to find Baba Mavra, the Spider Crone. Her house wasn't at river they found it last time so they continued on using Dodgy's Nail of Pointing.
That night Lavael heard nocking coming from Dodgy's backpack. It got louder and Dodgy woke up, assuring Lavael that it wasn't anything at all. Dodgy cast silence and took the box he'd been unable to open out of his backpack. Now there was a seam on it. He took the lid off and two hands reached up and pushed the sides of box apart to widen it. A dwarf climbed out, followed by a human. They were clearly panicked and screaming as they pulled an unconscious human out of the box and a large bag. At that moment, six tentacles erupted out of the box and began attacking anything they could reach, which included some sleeping party members.
It was a quick combat, once everyone woke up. What followed was a bit of confusion as the dwarf and his comrades figured out they weren't where they expected to be, and the party wasn't who they expected to be with.
Evidently the box was some kind of escape route for a heist that had gone almost well. The dwarf and humans conferred and agreed, even though the party weren't Khazzak bandits, and they weren't in Zobek, some amount of gratitude should be shown for saving their lives. They gave the party a Saddle of Wings and Gatonio, at Dodgy's suggestion (who was invisible for the whole conversation), helped himself to a pair of gloves.
The Khazzaks took the box they'd climbed out of, the rest of their treasure, and headed to Zobek.
The next day the party found the Mavra's house, in a cave of spiders. After a small tussle with the doorman, they climbed up and spoke with Mavra. She told them the King of Thorns used to be a piney who was after the Great Hunt, but he'd changed and was something else now. More plant than piney. Originally she'd shown him how to hide his Palace Briar, but now was willing to aid the party, giving them a spider that allowed them to follow a Ghost Thread to the King of Thorns.
While following the magical silk string, the party ran into that thing (pictured on the right), which proved to be rather unfriendly. Swarms of crows fought with it and cawed about the King of Thorns. The Palace of Briars was in the middle of a series of barrows. Surrounding it were a group of plant type creatures and undead looking plant type creatures. Stevnar volunteered to draw all their attention off which almost worked without a hitch. The rest of the party snuck inside and began searching the palace.
The party found Briar Men and a swarming Briar Army (a bunch of tiny briar creatrures) collecting blood from vampire spawn stuck to the ceiling. Moving on, Stevnar caught up with everyone after ridding himself from a point Briar Man. Finally, they came to a throne room where the King of Thorns had a vampire captured in a chair (Dame Valanora).
A vicious battle began and the King turned Stevnar against the group briefly, almost escaping as Stevnar carried him off. At last, even though Gatonio was nocked unconscious, the part prevailed.
After catching their breath the party began negotiating with the vampire who was willing to trade information for her freedom. She told them that the Briar King was giving much of the vampire blood to someone named Kerok. Her impression was that Kerok was simply using the Briar King, and was never going to let the Briar King become a power in the Margreve. She didn't know where Kerok was, other than in the Eastern Margreve. Her suggestion was to seek out Baba Yaga and make a bargain. If anyone could find a power such as Kerok, it would be her.