In the aftermath of their successful heist from the Bleak Tower, the party fenced some goods and went on a bender. Culwich the Black approached the party about returning to him his equipment that was taken from him when the Margrave made him prisoner, and they agreed to give him the chest and the money, but were cagey about the magic spear. Eventually they decided they didn’t want to be on the bad side of the senior thief in the area, and gave it to him.

They went back to the Bleak Tower to see if they could sneak in again and look for the treasure that Culwich the Black told them about on the top floor and maybe surprise the Margrave in his coffin (now that they found out from Culwich that the Margrave was a vampire), and found that it had fallen to the orcs. Oops. It turns out that without the payroll or any funds to resupply the tower, a lot of the soldiers took off; the remaining loyal soldiers weren’t enough when the orcs came in force, having been left alone long enough to build up their forces.

Abernathy went in to scout invisibly, but bumped into some of the 150 orcs and was captured.