"The constraints of the terrain make this valley a likely bottleneck for a force of our size. How many people were aware of your expedition?"

"It would not have been hard for anyone present on site when we departed to notice, though our exact destination wasn't widely announced."

"Maybe you should try another one of those big truth spells."

Tail-twitch.

"Maybe." Is there anywhere they can walk where he'll only be visible from a handful of checkable places?

Not really. They're not that far into the Abyssal side of the barrier, but the terrain is still fairly warped, full of crags and ravines and caves and horribly twisted vegetation. (On the bright side, there's not a lot of normal vegetation to hide behind?)

They may already be gone. They can pull together some more defensive buffs and otherwise - go on, with him not successfully assassinated.

He remains un-assassinated on the long march back to camp. The camp's night watch diligently checks them over for being demons, enchanted, et cetera, then lets them in.

It is very good of them to perform this check properly and he appreciates it! Verbally, even!

Oh, that's so much better than the kind of officer who gets annoyed about how long they're spending on it! 

His staff report to him that no unexpected disasters happened while he was away. They did have a couple scouts go missing (here's the list, in case he wants to make staffing changes or try to Sending them in, presumably, the River of Souls), but that's not outside the range of what's expected. On a more positive note, they have a new cleric (this one's a Calistrian who really hates demons) and a new... something like a cleric except without channels... of Kurgess, the weird Taldan sport god.

........hey Nenio the walking encyclopedia what is like a cleric but without channels?

"The simplest explanation is that he is extraordinarily un-splendid. However, it is not unheard of for someone to be divinely empowered with the ability to cast cleric spells while otherwise having powers that slightly diverge from the ordinary variety. For example, Ragnith of Gardadth, a great hero of the Five Kings War and possible cleric of Torag, is said to have been able to draw healing power from the earth instead of healing with channels, but otherwise is attested as having been a fairly ordinary cleric. On the other hand, the Susuman possible-cleric Yarita Masaki, well-known for his role in the Third Battle of Enganoka, is said to have been able to quicken spells despite being only first circle, even though that is normally one of the most difficult forms of metamagic to master. There are also occasional instances of people who are not empowered by a god at all being mistaken for clerics; however, if you are confident he was empowered by Kurgess, those possibilities are comparably unlikely. It has been hypothesized that some of these variations enable the gods to reduce the amount of divine intervention required to empower a follower, but as yet there is no clear evidence either way."

"He pings Good and he casts from Kurgess's holy symbol, is that good enough?"

"Presuming you have inspected the holy symbol to ascertain that he is not concealing a holy symbol of another deity, I do not believe the lack of channels to be cause for concern, although I would appreciate the opportunity to interview him about his powers nonetheless. Attempts to conceal an Evil alignment by claiming the inability to channel are typically associated with empowered followers of Neutral or Evil deities, and Kurgess is Neutral Good."

Okay then. He is some sort of Weird Variant but he detects Good and Kurgess is legit, they should let him figure out whatever stuff he can do and put him somewhere useful and... let him organize pickup sports maybe?? If anyone has the energy for that after marching.

Kurgess guy thinks he might want to try running some archery contests, like his grandparents say used to happen every year.

Apart from that, the evening's remaining urgent tasks are more regular; he'll need to do some reshuffling in light of the units whose clerics were killed or captured, and find a physical location to put the Hellknight-and-Shining-Sword detachment, and after that there are an unending quantity of miscellaneous logistical tasks, and at some point if he's not too awake from sleeping during the day he'll need his two hours of rest.

He's pretty awake from sleeping during the day but he will take his rest toward the very end of the night so as to not be too off-schedule from everyone else.

In the morning his staff report to him that a person, presumably a cultist since he doesn't look like anyone in the army and was carrying a poisoned weapon, was found shortly after dawn, lying near one of the nicer tents, with his head cut off??

Fuck.

Okay, what are some obvious things to do here - he wants to see the place, and then he will announce that he's going to see if the Hellknights know anything because they did a couple of beheadings the other day, and he'd like any other evidence they have on him being a cultist, and it's hard to look busy while planning to find nothing on purpose and also not lying but he'll try.

Here is the place (it's not far from Count Arendae's tent). Here's the corpse, with its head severed perfectly cleanly from its body, just like the head Woljif found. In addition to his face and his poisoned weapon, he also wasn't wearing a Mendevian uniform, or the uniform of any of the other forces, and to get so far into the camp without anyone spotting him he must have snuck in with magical assistance.

Regill informs him, deadpan, that he doesn't understand the Treaty to permit his forces to wantonly behead the Crusade's forces without appropriate cause, and would expect his men to act with caution around individuals that might be un-uniformed adventurers. 

"Maybe it was a miracle."

 "Kind of a weird miracle."

"Do you have a better idea?"

 "Well, no."

Blai has a better idea but must pretend not to. He apologizes for mentioning it to Derenge, it's only that was the most recent prior beheading incident he's encountered. They should bury the headless corpse appropriately so they don't get some kind of headless ghost that is three times as deadly specifically due to not having a head or something.