The party, without Christopher who stayed behind at the temple, head back to Tilley. In the morning, Oris finds Gina and Ms Toolie with a very strong fever: they've been poisoned! Cue the gang investigating who would commit such a vile crime. They confront Margaret Cotton, who provided cookies the previous night. Aggma and Mrs Cotton have a falling out, with Cotton requiring a sorry from Aggma, turning slightly racist "That devilish woman and her ways!" when she doesn't get it.

They continue gathering hints, with it leading them to the Hunting Lodge, where Karlan is cleaning up the kitchen. Ratyn puts him to sleep with the sleep spell, breaks in, and finds a bottle of poison, along with a cookie recipe and a letter tasking Karlan with bringing the cookies to Mrs Toolie.

Eventually, Oris confronts Karlan privately. After a back and forth, Karlan admits that he did it, but it was meant to give Oris and Gina the shits for the day, to knock them out of the race and jury duty. Oris casts charm person on Karlan, after which he breaks down. Harris tasked him with this, and he followed the instructions. While his instructions should have only knocked them out, the actual poison dosage is clearly meant to kill.

The group heads over the Lestran Hapler to provide their evidence, and Lestran agrees for an arrest warrant against Harris and Karlan.

With just a few minutes left to the hunt's start, the group have one last snack before the real adventure starts.