After nearly hours of relentless investigation and cunning interrogation, the HILT had resolved to bring Archibald to justice for what were probably heinous crimes.

This was done by chucking him out of the back of the Helpful Bus in to the waiting mouths of a pack of death dogs. It was not a sacrifice, though, as the merciful and/or cowardly and/or self-interested band lent him a sword and fought alongside the aged (probable) murderer.

The fight was all but lost when the tide was turned by a hail of arrows.

To the great joy of the Hilt, an old friend, Olive, had chanced upon them and defended them from afar with deadly accuracy.

The final blow was struck by the intolerably arrogant and surly Archibald. With the dogs dead and Archibald gloating and chiding unendingly, the team left to drink their wounds away and celebrate their reunion with Olive.

Olive, it turned out, had a history with most of the group. She had once battled alongside Tyrteus against his former grad student Marcus. Marcus, it seemed had been not only an apprentice wizard, but a monk of the posmoderno school, a rival to the Lanfrancian philosophies of Balinuz. Marcus did not survive the encounter, and the formerly enchanted mortar and pestle that had been taken was returned to Tyrteus.

She had also been joined by Gene in some hijinks involving an oversized trenchcoat, some exciting narcotics, and an inattentive and easily stoned group of city guards in Malcara.

There was a small diversion from the reunion, though, as the bodies were properly buried and given rights, and the Knight of Anvil payed Gene for the completion of the bounty that the HILT was unaware they were fulfilling.