Elsewhere in the world, a group of four beleaguered, battle-hardened pilgrims braved the perils and traps of the Battletower. Their Paladin blocked a swinging buzzsaw trap with his tower shield, saving the party’s crestfallen, checked-out Cleric from a mortal blow. She acknowledged it with a faint, dull-eyed nod, to a vicious and snarling reprimand from the Paladin.

  A Squire, flush from victory at Fort Duran, knelt before the statue of the Paladin at a waystation in the Fellmarshes.

  A forsaken heir ducked into the ancient catacombs beneath the Olde Capital, keeping several steps ahead of church inquisitors. A fortnight ago, he’d received word that his mother had been slain, excommunicated, and placed upon a stake on a road. All holdings were forfeit for every generation henceforth. The heir was out the door, zweihander strapped to his back, long before the first inquisitors arrived at the family keep.

  A pair of beleaguered arbiters continued to slash, burn, and disintegrate incoming rot-infected corpses. Though it had been weeks of near-constant fighting, neither appeared tired in the slightest.

  A group of monks in Deepwood swiftly and accurately transcribed a list of books damaged in a freak table-collapsing incident. Oddly, it appeared that one of the books had been run through with a dagger.

  A junior scribe of the restricted archives happened upon the true purpose of the southern monastical spire and was quickly enveloped in deadly shadows.

  A Riverglen deaconess wondered whether her charm effect had worn off yet.

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  A broken cocoon-like an eggshell stuck out, furtively, from the Firefield dunes. Pandemonium wisps surrounded it, so thick a Branded could never approach.

  Far to the west, an unbranded dire-rabbit, having been slain by a hawk three hours prior, hopped down into a narrow fissure. It emerged into a world unseen and unknowable to those on the surface. Though its eyes were plucked out it saw all the same. It joined a cacophony of other repurposed corpses, all opened and blooming into great fungal plumes. Its spine opened at the midsection, and it erupted, setting loose a cloud of spores on an outgoing breeze.

  On the plains, twin dire-worms burst from the dried soil, ready to terrorize the dried-up lake.

  In the cold, far north, in lands unchurched by the Menu, a nomadic settlement wondered where their clan chief’s daughter’s travels had taken her.

  Far to the east, a man with half a face traded a ragged and bloody jacket for half a mask.

  Meanwhile, amid the alpine hot springs of Twelfthnight, a Squire and a brand-scoured former Cleric rushed into their reserved room at an inn, hoping to get one last round in before it was time to check out and hit the road.

  All was right with the world.

  High atop a long-dead demon corpse, a bard relayed the latest progress reports to the archpope.

  “… By next pilgrimage season, verily, the dream of your forefathers shall be realized,” said Klavier, ruan in hand. “Effort to rebuild the southern spire continues apace. Of course, it would move faster if the prodigal heir from the wildlands were secured…”

  The elderly old archpope gazed at the bard with his twinbrand eyes. His thin, withered lips were always angled into a slight frown.

  Klavier went on to describe how the church’s arbitral inquisitor auxiliaries were in the process of being recruited and integrated into the church militant’s command structure. The better to enforce order and keep the peace before the glorious awakening takes root.

  “Three divisions should be ready at the north end of the route by winter, with another four by the pilgrimage eve.”

  Yes, these brave Arbitral advisors had counseled him well, and his predecessors before him. Only a year remained. One more pilgrimage and the work of generations would be complete. A world cleansed of sin was nigh.

  Hallowed be.