A Ritual to Corrupt Purity

Approaching footsteps followed, in the tunnel that was no longer dark to either ex-paladin's eyes, accompanied by bellows of anger from the incoming beast-soldiers and the shrill screams of their pale women. Rela and Talana stood ready, in the close-combat stance they had drilled together a few days and a thousand seeming years ago, and waited with bared claws to meet the charge.

The official story, in the following days, stated that Rela the Saviour of Lerist and her journeyman trainee Talana had spent their lives to bring down a crushing threat to the town of Mehren from a First Disciple of the shadowed god, cleansing a growing insurgency of monsters at the cost of their own deaths.

Both were entered into the Rolls of those fallen in the line of duty, gold-inked to indicate a notably valiant and selfless sacrifice, and everyone mourned the loss of the Champion of Senheim and a promising young journeyman who had proved that felen could be true paladins.

Only a few eyes within the Order had been privy to the final report and letter stealthily delivered to the Mehren Chapterhouse, and none had seen the two long-cloaked and hooded figures who had delivered it before they slipped away into the countryside.

Innkeepers (and chandlers, and smiths) in the smaller towns and cities on the kingdom's periphery were pragmatic sorts. When people came by with good coin and well-appointed weaponry, concealing themselves from sight, they probably had a reason. Their money spent as well as any others, so no cause to go prying. And if they caused no trouble within the town, what did it hurt anyone that they didn't want to show themselves about?

And if the pair of well-bundled travellers who came by -- recognisable by the way they moved as if always aware of the other's presence, spoke sometimes to each other without needing to exchange a word -- were known to strike out on their own into the surrounding wilds and return with the head of a marsh-hunter or a ghast or akheil that had been taking townsfolk for its dark appetites... well, who'd want to lose a good thing by prying?

The innkeepers did their work, took their pay and wished their customers a pleasant night's stay. And if the thick walls and heavy doors of the private rooms upstairs were insufficient to muffle completely the sounds of two feminine voices raised in passionate lust throughout the long night -- well, that "wasn't their business, squire, now was it."