It was surprisingly simple and un-horrible bringing the paladin along. It was also quite nice to discover that nobody had tried to murder him yet, and though Arne had looked directly at several red-collared priests in the dining hall, he had spotted no recognition in their smiling faces.

Arne had expected a lot of annoying, loud judgements and warnings from the paladin, but Sir Garrett was calm and quiet and played along with all the crazies in white. He’d let the paladin go in and through the giggle-grope fountain first and as Arne stood there looking at the man, he realised forcefully that he had to hide the paladin away at the back of the orgy hall or risk him being hauled up on the dais immediately. Maybe he should even declare them both watchers and stay in the background for as long as possible.

That was a bit sad. He had looked forward to knowing the paladin would be fucked by every single person in the orgy hall, even better now that his partners would be any who could fight their way over to him. Garrett's face might be temporarily blacker and bluer than normal, but his physique was absolutely unreasonably perfect, and that fact did not escape a single person watching the paladin go through the fountain.

Arne rolled his eyes when several of the Family cultists hurried after Garrett to ‘help him’ find a temple buddy. It was highly worrisome, since Arne had no doubt Commander Renn would make good on his promise if any harm came to Garrett. Probably regardless of how much of that harm was the paladin’s own godsdamned fault.

So, unless he could get the paladin under control, there was a chance The Vampire would have to beg his mutilated corpse from the Order of Justice when they were done murdering him.

Forcing himself to be calm and appear disinterested, he smilingly made his way through the giggle-grope and walked around among the other white clad people, smiling and small talking exactly like back in Arabesk, while he kept an eye on Garrett.

The paladin had been cornered by a small army of Family, mostly women but not exclusively. Garrett wasn’t yet getting flustered and to his annoyance, Arne had to admit the man kept his calm well. He slowly went over to join the admiring crowd and found Garrett to be gallingly good at both small talk and not committing to anything or anyone without ever being anything but courteous.

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Arne gave himself a moment to think about his life. The orgy gong would sound soon and here he was, keeping an eye on a paladin to make sure he wasn’t too hot to survive a tentacle orgy which would certainly end up with Arne being blamed for his demise and all the paladins of Justice would queue up to murder him.

“There you are, my fellow watcher temple buddy!” he said loudly and pushed through the crowd, grabbing Garrett by the elbow and dragging him gently off, smiling at disappointed crowd members. “It’s almost time.”

“What are you doing?” Garrett asked, voice soft.

“Clearly, I'm being a jealous temple buddy, because I very much want to live through this and you turned out to be such a hot crumpet that you are seriously endangering me,” Arne whispered, smiling a little too broadly to be believable.

“I don’t follow,” Garrett said.

“If you get pushed to the front, you run the risk of being picked. If that happens, you die, and your friends will deal with their sadness by murdering me. So, you see, we are now watchers at the back, and you will have to live with that, so that I can live.” For show, Arne gently ran a hand through Garrett's golden curls and smiled at a woman nearby who was giving him the stink-eye.

“You changed the plan you made within twenty minutes of the mission. That was not what was agreed upon,” Garrett said, smiling back as far as his wounded lip would allow.

The gong sounded from the other room and the Family began making their way towards the doors. “No, but then you dropped your trousers,” Arne just explained and shrugged as he pulled the paladin with him towards a wall, so they could wait until the crowd had passed and enter last. “It really is your own damned fault.”

o-0-o

He was used to it by now. Coming back to the thick smell of many kinds of bodily fluids freely shared between a large number of people. He was also pleasantly surprised nobody had taken him away to murder or torture him while he was knocked out with the rest of the orgy participants. Maybe they had exaggerated the threat from both Chuckles and the death crab they spoke to through the priestess they tortured… Either that, Arne thought as he got to his feet quickly enough to get queasy from it when he noticed the hand resting possessively on his hip, or they knew the paladins were getting involved and kept their tentacles down?

At least he had the chance to snoop around a bit before the paladin came to. He had to find the antechamber where the priests would be hiding during the night to …commune with the tentacle monster? Oversee the growth of the death crab twin if someone had been stolen?

He looked down on the still sleeping Garrett and hurried off towards the helpers with washcloths and fresh robes wheeling into the orgy hall.

Toog was right; smart enemies were the worst.