"Sergeant? I'm Ser Goés with the Reclamation."

He was not expecting them to have a paladin ready right now, what with them being busy patrolling the city and the countryside and fighting several wars.

"Sergeant Gonzalo, Heaven's Army of Westcrown Volunteers. Good to meet you, Ser."

The other six men are silent but visibly excited. They're listening to the conversation, and it sounds like they're finally getting a real paladin!

"Might I ask you gentlemen to bring me to meet your lieutenant? The Reclamation's been doing peacekeeping in this very city as of recently and I should be able to put you in touch with the command once I know more about what to tell them."

Gonzalo nods. "Our orders are to meet with the Select and join his guards. But we can spare two to take you to our headquarters; doubt anything will happen that needs all six of us, right here and in daylight."

"I have a bodyguard assigned by the President of the Convention for the time being and would like to be thoroughly clear on how your outfit relates to the Church's official arms before accepting your services."

"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."