"Understood. He looks the other bodyguard over. "I expect Ser Goés visiting will clear things up, but to make sure I don't make a mistake reporting it."

"You have a bodyguard assigned by the president of the convention, and need to be clear on how our organization relates to the church before accepting us as guards. That sound right?"

"Yes. Relating to the church at all is not a prerequisite but relating to it in some unclear way I'd prefer to avoid."

Somewhat embarrassed. "Apologies, we should try to make things clear. We are not part of the church of Iomedae, or any good church. In no way do we speak for or represent them or the goddess Iomedae, our understanding of her will is based only on listening to sermons and reading the Acts. None of our members are empowered, and we would prefer people stop referring to us as the discount paladins. While we would like to be put in the chain of command of the church, currently we are an independent holy order fighting in the name of heaven and the city of Westcrown. In that order."

"That is the current state of our relation to the church, or lack thereof. Though it will probably change, if Ser Goés can put the lieutenant in touch with the Reclamation."

"Right, so, I think you should do that first and revisit the possibility of being assigned to me personally later, particularly as I do have a convention-issued bodyguard."

"Understood. We expected you'd more than one, to take shifts sleeping, and enough to keep a mob at bay so you can get to safety. But if the church has a more urgent use of men in Westcrown that we haven't seen, I'm sure we'll be assigned to that instead."

"Exactly. Thank you very much for stopping by."

“Goddess be with you.”

"And with you as well."

Away they go, with a real paladin in tow.

It's a new and exciting way for Chelish people to be and hasn't turned out to be awful yet!

The wise course of action, of course, when one is the recently-ex-high-priest of a hellgod and is surrounded by paladins, is absolutely nothing whatsoever. Yeah, sure, "blanket amnesty", he's sure the Queen meant it very sincerely and yet would immediately make an exception. Apparently very few things are currently technically crimes (hilarious) but he's also pretty sure that as far as the paladins are concerned he has probably done, like, every crime. 

There's three reasons that Lleó the unremarkable dockworker is walking to the temple of Iomedae today anyway, though.

The first is that he is really bored. 

The second is that Select Artigas's interview pamphlet has caused him to experience the novelty of feelings that are neither boredom nor any of the dozen flavors of bloodthirst (each distinct and wonderful in their own way, of course, but on reflection probably not actually that large a fraction of the range of humanoid emotions).  

The third, and perhaps most decisive, is that the way you end up the high priest of a hellgod who hardly ever picks clerics is not only by having a suitable personality. You also have to manage not to get tapped for Asmodean seminary first, and he couldn't cast fourth circle spells without his headband on until he was forty-five. 

Thus: unWise decisions it is. 

He steps into an alleyway, and -- 

- stops being a color that occurs in humans. 

This might cause people who served at the Worldwound to recognize his face; the half-orc general Rakek, once called Iron Hand of Moloch, was generally in the business of attempting to violently conquer things and suppress rebellions and so forth, and did not often go to the Worldwound, but if Aspexia Rugatonn orders you to take that teleport leaving in two moments and go rescue a fortress, obviously you hop to. It might not, though. He also used to usually wear a helmet. 

Here's hoping they do not literally immediately stab him. He's a lot less resilient against that than he was a year ago. 

Nobody immediately stabs him, though being alone in an alley might be helping, there.

Right. Well. Let's see about the church, then. 

He's not armed or armored or anything. Just a guy! Who is green. 

It is normal for guys to sometimes be green. He gets second looks but no stabby advances.

aww, if they'd stabbed him it would probably have been legal to do murder no. bad orc brain, no cookie. 

"'Scuse me," he says to the nearest guy who seems like they probably work here and isn't already doing six things, "how do I make an appointment to talk to Select Artigas for... uh ... pamphlet-induced spiritual counseling?" 

The harried deacon, who is only doing four things, points in Blai's direction.

He could... help these people. By doing tasks. And then their lives would be improved. Even without any murder particularly. 

... 

He has never contemplated this concept in his life. He suddenly very badly wants it. 

He will go over there! "Hi. Uh. I promise I am not here to try kill you. ... Is the first thing I wanted to say in case you do recognize me, but if you don't I will introduce myself unless you think I really shouldn't." 

"I'm afraid thousands of men passed through my fort and I would not recognize most of them. I'm... not aware of a reason you shouldn't introduce yourself."

"Well, it might induce you or your bodyguard to think I'm here to murder you even though I just said I'm not, you see. Because of. Historical reasons." 

...

"Well, will it also cause me to think that you are probably Lawful and can be relied on not to make false promises of nonmurder?"

Oh. Guy who was qualified to be the cleric of two entirely different gods is very wise. On reflection this makes perfect sense.

"I don't actually know if I'm Lawful, coulda been Neutral Evil all my life and never been able to tell the difference, but - probably? - right, so, Rakek. You'd've seen me in the, you know, massive black armor with the Iron Script all carved on it and the scorpion whip and all that." It made him look a lot bigger; he's actually slightly less tall than the average human. 

"I appreciate that you are not planning to murder me. Were you - also dropped?"

"Yeah. Changes some stuff about a man's worldview real fast, that." 

"It does that, yes. But differently for different people, among those I've encountered. I had a suicide, a deserter, some who integrated acceptably with martial units... and myself, of course."