The session picked up mid-combat on the logging road outside Waymoot, with Gorlog, Skrit, and Wickett all restrained and Sanji barely alive after Pendergast had gutted her from shoulder to navel. Sanji opened her turn by throwing herself prostrate on the ground and screaming for mercy, begging Pendergast not to take her fur — a gambit rooted in her genuine belief that people were hunting her for her pelt. The appeal landed spectacularly well: a 22 on persuasion convinced ten of the twelve loggers, and eventually even Harold to a degree, that Pendergast was attempting to skin her alive. Skrit, fully sold on the fur-theft narrative, lunged at Pendergast with a kitchen knife but missed badly due to being restrained. Wickett used sleight of hand to deposit the stolen ledger in the dirt near Pendergast's feet as though it had fallen from the auditor's person, successfully planting it unseen. Harold ordered everyone to stand down, attempted to disarm Pendergast and failed, and then guided a now-isolated and increasingly self-doubting Pendergast back from the group. With the mob of loggers on the verge of a beating and Pendergast thoroughly surrounded, combat ended without further bloodshed. Skrit used his remaining Lay on Hands to restore fifteen hit points to Sanji, then washed his hands with Sanji's soap — reportedly the first time he had ever been truly clean — before delivering a pointed friendly pat on Pendergast's freshly cleaned robes as a parting shot.

Out of combat, the party navigated a tense exchange with Harold over the provenance of Silas Vance's ledger. When Harold asked directly how they came by it, the group gave increasingly creative non-answers ('we found it in Waymoot, on the ground') while Wickett stepped in to vouch for Harold's trustworthiness and nudge Skrit to hand it over. Harold reviewed the ledger and recognized several names, including Silas Vance, Constable Barnaby Plum, Elder Vance of Splinter's Bend, and possibly Pendergast himself among the entries. Kaelin returned from further down the road and was briefed by Harold; Wickett, the only one paying close attention, noted that Kaelin did not seem surprised to see the ledger — though nothing in it directly implicated him. Harold promised on his oath of service to the king to investigate thoroughly and bring any guilty parties to justice.

As the group prepared to part ways, Harold made two meaningful gestures: he stamped the Greasy Spoon's writ of provisioning with a seal granting free passage through any gate on the King's Road, and he wrote a letter of introduction to the head of the Kingsguard at Thornwall Fords, the next town east. A logger in the group who knew basic wheelwrighting repaired the damaged wagon wheel in exchange for sliders for the crew. Harold also offered, as a practical aside, to show the party how to field-dress the dead ankheg on the wagon roof so its carapace could be attached to grant the Greasy Spoon resistance to acid and fire — an offer the party accepted. Foreman Kaelin returned with the rest of the loggers, and after a warm sendoff directed notably at Sanji, the party rolled east toward Thornwall Fords while Harold and the loggers headed back to Waymoot to begin the investigation.