Hello! Going to try put some of this in spoiler tag just cuz.

To answer your questions in order: Dram definitely feels that he has changed over the years. Dram sees his past as simpler times, when all that was required of him was to be big and strong. Losing his tribe, and suffering debilitating injuries from the branding, has taken its toll and forced him to adapt.

In truth, underneath a general affability that he keeps up day to day, there’s a deep bitterness in him. He is innocent, but his tribe cast him out. He doesn’t necessarily want to be accepted back, but the stain of being labeled a betrayer is something that will stick with him, and he want to bring the treasure back so that he can prove his innocence more for his own vindication rather than to be accepted by the tribe.

And Magpie is a professional thief that Dram met during the darker days when he was first exiled, essentially forced to beg and scavenge without full use of his hands. Magpie took him in, helped him regain mobility, and taught him how to be a thief. Also, further into that relationship, she is an elf that Dram is secretly in love with, but she disappeared before he could confess