The battle went... unexpectedly: we killed a couple of hired thugs, and then right as we were prepared to face the boss, one of our party asked what it'd take for him to let the slaves = hostages go, and he said we'd have to pay for them, so we just bought the slaves to free them... and then, mostly joking, we asked him to accompany us to the city guard so we could collect his bounty, and he agreed in exchange for a 10% cut of his own bounty, because he's undead so he expects to "survive" his prison sentence. Wtf. (And the wizard escaped -.- ) Resource-wise, almost certainly the smart solution, but both player-me and my character are kinda disappointed to miss out on the boss fight and getting to destroy him ;)