After awakening in the morning, Captain Harten arrived at the Velvet Hat with word that according to a guard of the Mercenaries Guild, there had been another mugging the night previous, and the witness was still around to be questioned. Venturing out to a hidden camp deep in the woods north of Vardev, you met with a giant of a man clad is full plate armor, who you immediately suspected wasn't actually mugged. Sure enough, the large man then attacked you as you were flanked by 2 small gnome clerics. While the gnomes were easy enough to bruise, the big man was almost impossible to injure. Suddenly, a flaming wagon flew over the edge of a nearby cliff, crashing into the man, tearing through part of his armor. As the wagon crashed and burned, Seamus jumped out with Goldtack, a dog, and Krill, who smacked his head on the top of the wagon and was knocked unconcious. You slowly tore into the big man, and the rest were somehow incapable of killing the gnome clerics for the longest time, but eventually the threat went down. They slowly regained conciousness after being tied up, but were unwilling to talk.
Choosing to take the road up to the Bandry Keep rather than deal with Bauldren, you took the day to travel north. In Captain Harten's office, she gave you free reign of the area in Vardev in your search for Mardyth and Balnar. Wander was finally able to summon his familiar, an owl. You went to the keep's holding cells to pry some information out of Arghun the goliath. Despite being very dense, Arghun did state that he was hired by someone wearing a Mercenaries Guild set of armor under a cloak, who was with another "small man" in a cloak.
Tired from your fight and journey, you took up Captain Harten's offer to stay at the watchtower by the river bridge. You met Weirson Kolf, the watchmaster of the tower, who afforded you endless hospitality and warm soup. When the morning came, you began to set off for the keep, But upon exiting the tower, you saw the keep being swallowed up by a giant, growing tree, as the words "ABRAX LIVES" bellowed through your minds in a familiar fashion.