You could tell the Priest was special the moment you saw him. The adults were scared of him, you could tell, and not the way they were with the Director, where she was yelling, mocking and cursing trying to make them scared and they stopped being scared the moment she left.

The Chosen didn't even care. He didn't have to say anything, and they were terrified the moment he walked in. He never yelled to make them be quiet and listen to him, the whole room, even all the scary adults who weren’t from the orphanage, just went quiet.  

The Priest was just like Asmodeus. He did exactly what he wanted, whenever he wanted, he wasn't scared of anyone. He wore clothes with darker blacks and brighter reds than the boy had ever seen. He was big and strong like a mountain, like he ate meat three times a day.

For the next few years whenever the boy said his nightly prayers, in his mind the image of Asmodeus was that priest.

In his memory looking back at it he understood everything in that moment, but really, he must have been too stupid to understand it all at first. But he learned over the coming weeks and months who Asmodeus was.

He'd said his prayers before of course, thanking Asmodeus for their food, their clothes, for making Cheliax his, for making the world, for taking them in when they were so worthless even their parents had abandoned them, but it wasn't the same. He never understood why Asmodeus wanted to feed useless orphans like them. If he ever thought about it at all he thought that was just Asmodeus's job, same as the orphanage workers job was to keep them quiet, and the Director's job was to make the orphanage staff do their jobs.

But the priest explained it all. Asmodeus didn't do those things because He had to, He didn't have to do anything. He was the strongest most powerful most clever god in the whole world. Nobody could tell him what to do. He did it because he wanted to.

Asmodeus wanted to own them and their country, the same way he wanted the best food before the other kids could get it. Or the warmest blankets. But Asmodeus was strong, He wasn't afraid of anyone. When He wanted something He took it, and made it His.

Asmodeus didn't want everyone though. Babies were too worthless and couldn't do anything fun. It wasn't even funny to poke them after a while. Even most adults were too weak and silly for Asmodeus to want them, they prayed to stupid weak gods, followed stupid weak kings, spent their lives on silly things not proving how valuable they were to Asmodeus.

You had to show Him you were worth having, you could be strong and be a soldier, be smart with your letters and figures and be a wizard, or best of all, if you were really really special you could be a cleric. One of the people Asmodeus Chose even before they died. Because they knew how to be like Him, and do the things He told them better than anyone else.

After the sermon they got to see the Chosen punish a heretic, though it was just an old lady that time. He didn't even have to take out a whip and beat her like the teachers did. He just looked at her, and said "See what happens when you displease Asmodeus and his Chosen" and the woman began to scream and bleed.

(Later, with the benefit of adult hindsight, he'd realize the priest did it too quick to really get into the artistry of it, but the boy didn't know better yet.) 

Regardless, the point was made. That was power, that was what the priest had, and they didn’t. And what Asmodeus had more than anyone else.

As they walked back through the snowy city streets he sidled up to the orphanage worker who was herding them back. And asked her, guilelessly, what he needed to do to be a priest of Asmodeus, like the Chosen. "Asmodeus likes little boys who do what they're told and aren't a nuisance. So you can start now by shutting up".

He understood perfectly.

As he got older and started going to real school he learned better what "doing what you were told" meant. It meant doing what the teacher said in the classroom, and not bothering them the rest of the time. As long as you didn't take all the meals from one kid, so he'd be too weak to do chores, or he'd fall over in class. Then you got beaten for annoying the teachers. 

The smart thing to do was not just take from one kid, if you took just somebody's meat every Oathday, or someone else's porridge every Toilday, they wouldn't make a fuss and complain or fight you. As long as you kept it consistent.

People liked the rules, it made them feel like they knew what was going on, like they’d had a choice about it. He made a lot of friends that way. Friends gave you their food, or did some of your chores, or did other things you told them. So he got lots of friends.

Sometimes the bigger kids, especially the ones with real parents at home so got more food and got bigger, tried to fight him.

Because by then he was the leader of the orphan boys and they wanted to remind them they were worthless, or because they wanted his stuff, or just because it was funny.

But most of them didn't really know the difference between playing and fighting. A fight wasn't about showing off how strong you were or acting like a Hellknight or Adventurer from the stories.

It was about making people hurt.

Even if you got hurt even more, you kept it all inside, you didn’t act weak and pathetic. And you made the big kids hurt enough, they knew it wasn't worth bothering you, even if they won.

A bigger kid cried one time, out of the eye that wasn't bleeding, said it was unfair, that he was cheating. He just laughed and laughed. Asmodeus wouldn't say something was unfair. Asmodeus didn't have to obey any rules, Asmodeus took what he wanted, and nobody could stop him.

It wasn’t enough for the other kids to do what you told them. You had to impress the adults, just like with Asmodeus, let them know you’re not totally worthless. 

He took charge of the other kids at the orphanage, making them do their chores, looking after the babies, putting up with their smells and their tantrums. Reporting their progress to the orphanage staff efficiently and precisely. Letting them learn to rely on him. So when it came time to sell off the kids for indentures, they wanted to keep him around.

The same skills that worked on the kids also worked with orphanage staff and the teachers at the school. You had to be careful. You couldn’t fight an adult, not directly. But knowing who’s list had a few too many kids' names on it, who were still getting money for food despite having not been around since last winter, that helped a lot. 

You didn’t make threats to people who were stronger than you, you made yourself useful, like a friend, but one they didn’t have to worry about hurting them because you were so much weaker. Even if it meant listening to a teacher whine about his wife, or cover for him when he’d drunk a bit too much at lunch.

Then you remembered. You could get some favors, and a little money on the side, if you were careful. 

He started memorizing what the priest said in the sermons and quoting it at every opportunity. Having a reputation for piety never hurt, and it made disciplining the other kids more effective when you could tell them it was correct what you were doing, and why they were weak. 

Then he got one of the teachers who owed him a favor to assign him to helping out at the temple. It was mostly just scrubbing the floors same way as the orphanage, but you got to listen to all the different sermons, if you stayed silent and hidden at the back, and cleaned up afterwards. 

Even the really interesting sermons he gave to small groups of minor nobles, wizards and merchants. Or they’d come to him individually and he’d talk to them, not as equals, but like people who mattered more to Asmodeus than the worthless peasants. 

They couldn’t be very important, or they wouldn’t be going to a small church in the arse end of Belde. But still, it was like hearing the teachers talking in the staff room when they thought you couldn’t hear, when they said which kids were stupid, which they had to be nice to because of who their parents were, who was sleeping with the headmaster this week. You started to see the hidden patterns underneath everything. 

But most of all you got to be around the Chosen and try to impress him and show him you could be useful.  

He did well in school (it was easy when you could get other people to do the work for you). 

High enough to give the whippings and not take them, and at no risk of being kicked out.

But not so high that it would look odd that when the wizard came by to read their thoughts, and point at the ones who'd be taken, he barely glanced at Orgull. 

Orphan boys rarely got chosen for the seminary, however pious they were. But he was different.

At the end of his final year of school the teachers told the priests who came to choose that he was their most diligent and obedient pupil, who kept his peers in line and knew all his scripture.

He even had a letter of recommendation from his local priest, the same chosen he'd seen all those years ago, and served diligently and obediently. 

There was no question at all.

At the seminary he felt like dealing with the kids at the orphanage again. But instead of playacting fighting they were playacting at being Evil. They did the sort of things they thought they were supposed to do to be evil. Made scary faces at each other, did petty cruelties in a forced and unimaginative way, tortured people when they were told to, it all seemed very silly to him.

Evil isn’t complicated. You take what you want, do what you want, just like Asmodeus does. Except he’s in charge. He can make you do things, so you do what he wants you to do, and it helps you get what you want.

You hurt someone because it gets you what you want, or because it's fun, or you’re bored. Or you are nice to them because that’s an easier way to get what you want. You do what you are told because even if it’s annoying right now it gets you what you want.

Eventually, they got to the important part.

They'd be locked in their dorms without water, until the best of them could make their own. The Instructor Priests put on their very serious faces and said that sometimes it took weeks.

(Seemed a bit silly to him, if you weren't good enough for Asmodeus now, that was your own problem. But if the already Chosen wanted to have some fun at their expense who was he to complain.)

Then they'd establish the real hierarchy, with the first Chosen giving water to those they thought would be useful to them, and waiting for the rest to die off. 

That night Orgull sat on the bed in the bare cell they'd given him. Still wondering at the luxury of having a room of his own. And he prayed. 

It was like that first moment in the church again.

He saw Asmodeus in his mind. 
He saw what it was to be like Him.
He wanted that. 
He wanted to belong to Asmodeus.
He wanted to obey Him.
He wanted to be Chosen.

And so he was.

He emerged from the basement filled with the comforting certainty that being one of the first Chosen would lead to everyone naturally recognizing his favor from Asmodeus and putting him on top of the student hierarchy. Because Asmodeus recognized his value. Asmodeus cared about him.

But apparently everyone was more impressed by being the eighth child of some noble who might conceivably be able to do them favors some day. Or knowing some fancy words and a big city accent. It was unfair. 

Expressing the opinion that relying on someone else’s strength made you weak and pathetic did not in fact win him many friends. He was right though.

He had the unpleasant experience of being at the receiving end of things for the first time since he was a very young boy. He could put his head down and study, fade into the background, but that wasn't enough. He was special. Asmodeus knew that. Why couldn't everyone else see it. 

The Reverends didn't interfere in competition among students, mostly, but if you proved your value to them they sometimes gave you advice. He found one of the more junior priests who could be particularly persuaded by young men who wanted to learn more about their Lord's domain's of submission and tyranny. He didn't enjoy it, but that wasn't the point.

After one tutoring session he asked Reverend Sergi why the Church allowed noble's children to get ahead, surely it didn't serve Asmodeus to have worse servants?

"You're cute kid, but you still don't really get it. It doesn't matter how you get power, what matters is that you have power. Some shithead bastard son of a Duke manages to leverage that into power? That pleases Asmodeus. You push people around because you're big and strong? That pleases Asmodeus. You beat both those guys because you're smarter? That pleases Asmodeus. 

Our Lord isn't Abadar or Gorum, Trickery is as much His domain as Tyranny. What matters is that you have power not how you get it."