Alas, Kalo brought his past crashing down upon himself and the rest of the party. Upon returning to Seagate, Kalo sent a taunting letter to the nobleman whom he had pickpocketed. Unfortunately for Kalo, the nobleman had no sense of humor, and hired a bounty hunter to track Kalo down. The bounty hunter did, and delivered Kalo to the local dungeon and an eagerly awaiting torturer.

Under torture, Kalo incriminated the party in his earlier escape from Seagate, and the party was arrested by order of Amur Gibbetsmaster. The party was forced to watch Kalo's beheading, a singularly botched exhibition, since the executioner was blind drunk. It took him six blows to kill Kalo, and even then Kalo's head was not completely severed from his body. The surviving party members were themselves offered a choice: death, or a geas to scout out a caravan trail across the southern desert to the semi-mythical kingdoms of the Five Sisters.^[15] They choose the geas, of course.

Two other prisoners, Jamie Molson and Tekhadun, were also sent south with them. Jamie was betrayed to the Seagate city guards by a rival thief, and Tekhadun had killed a nobleman's son in a tavern brawl. (Incidentally, the ruler of Carzala was out of the country during this whole affair, and the punishment was the idea of Amur Gibbetsmaster, the hanging judge of Seagate.)