"Well, I'm glad Meridia didn't decide she wanted anything else from you, at least."

"I actually offered to help her with gathering people to get the temple cleaned up and guarded - so this doesn't happen again - and properly aimed at undead. The closest thing to an anti-undead force we've got is the Vigil of Stendarr, and they're not much help when small villages are dealing with necromancers in their back yard."

"So you started off doing one favor for her and now you're - recruiting?"

"Pretty much. We ended up working well together."

"Is that... not... more or less what you said you were pretty sure wouldn't happen."

"I surprise myself sometimes."

"I'm just still not really sure that turning out to work well with a Daedric prince is the good kind of surprise.  Is, you know, is the thing."

"I do get your concerns. But - I think this is a positive change for me, overall."

"I think the point of a cult is that they're very good at faking that impression.  - I don't know.  I know I can't stop you.  I just - I'm very scared of demons!  I was raised to believe it's the categorically most reasonable fear."

"It is a pretty reasonable one. And I'm not going to be hard selling this - I was mostly hoping to find people with an existing draw, or who wanted a job and didn't particularly care whose halls they're cleaning."

He nods.  "Maybe I'll just stick to the periphery of all this, and let you know if you start..."

He searches for words, briefly.  "You know, looking sketchy from the outside."

"Thanks. A sanity check is the type of thing that seems like it'd help."

"Happy to help.  From, you know, way off in the distance."

She snickers. "I'll keep the demons away from you, then."

"We got any other business?" he says.  "Mal, I'm assuming you're not up for this either..."

"I can let you access the library whenever, but, yeah, don't want to be directly a part of it."

"Reasonable, yeah. And I don't think there's anything else on my end."

"See you around, then.  Good luck in your search."

"Thanks. See you around."

And she's off, to do some subtle canvasing. Anyone extremely dissatisfied with undead or necromancers is a good start...

"Zafira was my mother's name," says Tabar.  Lianda found him clad in leather armor with a pair of swords on his hips, leaning against a wall of a hole-in-the-wall pub and sipping his drink.  "Which isn't really what you're supposed to do with your last name, but I liked her better than anyone else in my family."

"Well, that sounds reasonable enough to me." Lianda, conspicuously perhaps, never gives a surname.

He snickers.  “She was the one who taught me to survive on the road,” he goes on.  “To hunt, to forage, to live off bounties on bandits, everything.”

"Important skills. You ever dungeon delved?"

"A lot, lately," he says.  "Been making a project of rooting out necromancers in Haafingar."

"That's good work. Requires no small amount of skill, too."