Why had he even gone to the inn? He'd been safe in hiding before.

In the cold light of day, spelless and broke, he realized his rationalizations about pursuing some grand plan to take back the city had been just that. He had been bored and lonely hiding out in the Custodices Break. He hadn’t left out of Hellish Pride or Ambition but his weak mortal desire for companionship. He had betrayed his Lord and his Choosing for the company of friendly drunks and warm food.

He’d trusted a man who would inevitably betray him because he told bad jokes and had a stupid snorting laugh, so couldn’t be a threat. Bernat gave him a shitty room and some worthless beer and he'd felt he owed him something in return. 

You knew the healing was an unnecessary risk, even if Bernat wasn't a traitor, but you wanted Bernat to like you, wanted to do him a favor, wanted to be his friend. 

Pathetic. Pathetic. Pathetic.

45th Bulletin

General Staff, First Army Command, frmr. Ironquay War Academy, Liberated Ostenso, Cheliax

24 Pharast 4713 AR, 8pm

Marshal, Following my initial verbal report delivered 11am, 24 Pharast I have interviewed the participants as instructed and am able to offer recommendations attached.
Casualties: Soldiers Fatalities: 2 Injuries: 5 Civilians Fatalities: 25 (17M, 5F, 3C) Injuries: Unknown. Est. 120+ All soldier deaths and one injury occurred during target’s initial escape from the Inn.	NB: Awd. Posthum. Hons. – M
Fortunately no soldiers were in range of his second channel in the dock market crowd, though 4 suffered minor injuries during crowd control. Almost all civilian casualties were from incident 2, and many of these due to crowd panic not the attack itself. The crowd, likely encouraged by the priest or other enemy elements, assumed aggression had been initiated by our soldiers against civilians and attempted to flee, causing additional injuries to the already wounded, wounding others, and hampering attempts to provide first aid or continue pursuit.
Response to mass casualty incident:
The officer on scene (Lt. Tessier, 1st Batt, 3rd Inf, 1st Coy) chose to prioritize contacting assistance and crowd control over continuing pursuit. This was the correct decision in line with the strategic goals set out in occupation briefing.	Agreed. But shouldn't have got to that point – M
Select Marius (attached to the 2nd cavalry) was nearby and had channels remaining from previous day. His prompt arrival and demonstration of freely given healing likely reduced fatalities significantly and assisted in establishing order. Though disruption to the wider docks area took longer to subside.	Damned lucky. – M NB: Send thanks. Review cleric deployment. – M
This panic would not have occurred if we had greater support from the general population, if this happened in Galt or the longer incorporated provinces the crowd would have assisted with capture, and not caused additional casualties. We need to convey to the civilian population we, and the new regime, are meaningfully different from the Asmodeans.	Just keep peace, avoid major fuck ups. Then it’s Litran and new Archduke’s problem. – M
I recommend we have criers, broadsheets, etc. spread the correct narrative of events, “Brave Young Soldier Dies protecting INNOCENT CHILDREN from Mad Asmodean Revenge Attack” etc. We can offer to pay Abadarians to provide funerals for dead civilians and refer to them as “Martyrs in the Liberation of Cheliax from Infernal Rule”.	Consult Chelish auxiliaries. Could read as bribe to families? Martyrs = sacrificial magic? Other bloody nonsense. – M
Threat posed by single second circle cleric is low and does not justify allocating specific resources to capture. Description to be circulated and standard bounty offered. Existing checks at strategic locations are sufficient to prevent infiltration using known capabilities. Expanding checks to city checkpoints would excessively disrupt trade for minimal benefit.	Agreed. Let's not waste any more time on this. – M

Doctrine:
As outlined in bulletins 7, 14, 16-19, 33, existing doctrine and training is proving inadequate for operating in an urban environment with uncooperative local population and remnant hostiles. Issues are likely to be more severe in any future engagement in locations with higher social cohesion and more unified popular resistance.	You've made your point. – M
Lt. Tessier showed initiative in adapting to the cleric’s unanticipated use of invisibility (see intelligence failures below) however did not anticipate the use of other cleric spells for misdirection, and his judgement about likely method of escape was based on battlefield experience. Related failures include the inconsistent adherence to passphrase protocol, failure to anticipate the variety of possible escape routes and the continuation of pursuit into a busy market area.
While this operation was a failure all officers involved behaved professionally and in accordance with doctrine. As such no formal punishments or demerits are recommended.	Agree. But for appearance assign desk duties. – M
Wider revision of doctrine with respect to operation in urban areas is ongoing. For present, recommend requirement for clerical support in any similar operations, and greater use of Chelish auxiliaries at the planning stage. Future attempts to confront Asmodean Clerics or other suspected negative channel capable combatants should avoid pursuit into densely packed areas where possible. First Arcane Marchand suggests commissioning and issuing scrolls of Glitterdust for all to combat wizards with relevant training. Alternatively, troops on urban patrols to be equipped with bags of flour.	If it's his budget. – M Better. Tho pos bad look wasting food. Ash? Arrange testing. – M

Intelligence:
Informants were aware of the cleric’s frequent use of Disguise Self, and his access to second circle spells such as the Lesser Restorations. Taken together, these would have allowed the Invisibility to be anticipated, and proper counters prepared. While the necessary knowledge is somewhat obscure, it is not unheard of. Indeed Sub-Lt. Arcane Valadon made the connection during the incident.  However, intelligence team who identified target did not take part in planning for capture. Officers planning operation assumed any spells remaining would be combat standard and planned accordingly.
This was chiefly an intelligence failure. And an avoidable one.	Agreed. Its on their heads not  ours. – M
Respectfully Capt. Cazenave, Adjutant-Major, Commandant de place Ostenso

He woke curled up on the floor of the ruined building, the certain knowledge of dawn bringing relief.

Sit up. Kneel respectfully.

…

Fuck.

He fell back onto his side awkwardly.

Fuck. Fuck.

That was a bad idea.

When he’d shifted his weight onto his legs the gash where the arrow had sliced him made itself known.

He couldn’t see it, after he’d finished having his pathetic little moment the night before he’d bandaged it, tearing strips from his now ruined fancy trousers. It wasn’t the cleanest wound dressing, even using created water, but it just needed to last overnight. The skin across the calf was an increasingly unpleasant shade, and it felt like it was oozing underneath.

He’d not even bothered with the mess of blood and dirt that was his feet.

He’d have to pray like this, on his side in the dirt.

Which was fine.

The posture was just a bit of ritual anyway.

Praying as a cleric wasn’t like it was for others, who had to move in a certain way and speak the right words memorized correctly or be beaten. None of that mattered, just the specific mental motion.

Sergei had always described it as putting oneself in the correct position of submission to the divine. But Orgull had never liked that metaphor. He preferred to think of it like a key smoothly turning in a lock.

But today it was like turning a key with cold numb hands in thick mittens. Much as he scrambled to grip it, it just kept slipping away. 

He couldn’t quite line himself up right to fit into the shape his God needed him to be.

His chest tightened with panic for a moment, his mind began to spin out irrational fears, before he pushed them away. 

All humans were pathetic and contemptible compared to the purity of even the least of devils. But what it meant to be Chosen was having the strength to be able to look inside yourself, dispassionately, see your flaws and crush them without mercy. 

In an odd way he was fortunate for his low birth. Pride was an Asmodean virtue, when properly placed, but many of the nobility were too used to flattery to see themselves clearly. As if the Lord of the Nine Hells, slayer of Aroden, conqueror of creation, would be impressed by who their father was. They let that power become a weakness which rotted them from the inside. That was part of what made him a better Asmodean and a more valuable servant than them.

He calmed his breathing as he had been taught, in and out.

He took a moment to notice the pains in his body, they were there, they were unpleasant, but not important. They would be gone soon.  

He let his mind wander, inventorying how he was feeling. The lingering tension in the back of his mind, still expecting Galtans to knock down the door again, all his other fears. Noticed, acknowledged, discarded.

Once the debris was clear, he let his awareness drift to that place in his mind which wasn’t quite his own.

He observed dispassionately as he tried and failed to make the connection, and saw that he was flinching away from it, as if he’d touched his wounds.

It wasn’t exactly prayer itself he was flinching from, but a broader feeling?

Praying felt similar to channeling. Though also fundamentally different.

Taldane lacked good words for it, and he’d never managed a satisfactory discussion with any of the other Chosen, it was like how blue was nothing like red, but also they were obviously the same thing.

You connected to something greater. In one the power flowed through you. In the other it was more complicated, nuanced, a connection both ways, exchanging information and power.

Channeling yesterday had been… surprising. He’d not used it on anything bigger than rats and lice since the seminary. There he’d been much weaker. The effect it had on the soldiers, the crowd, had surprised him. All those bodies falling in a wave. He hadn’t known his own strength. He had not truly appreciated the power that Asmodeus granted him.

It was said that even Chosen were sometimes struck dumb by the glory of their Lord in action. Those assigned to the army were known to drink or be maudlin, having been the messenger for the wrath of their God against fools and heretics made normal mortal life seem, hollow, futile, cold.

His hesitation was only natural. His mind showing proper respect and deference, though, being pathetic and human, in an unproductive way.

He took a moment to sit with the feeling, remembering how it had felt to channel, his body shaking.

When that was done he reached out in his mind and it was as effortless as ever. He began to pray. 

He had half wondered if he’d get extra spells today, like the day after the invasion, maybe in escaping the Galtan attack and striking a blow against them he might have done enough to reach third circle? But no, not yet, he could feel the same slots as before. His God was possibly unimpressed by him letting himself be tricked in the first place.

He gave his report of the previous day’s events, enumerating his mistakes (trusting that bastard Bernat, using all his spells, revealing himself in the first place…) and how he planned to be less pathetic in the future. He humbly begged that despite his failures he be granted his requested spells (2 Cure Light Wounds, the rest Disguise Self, and Invisibility) so that he might continue to advance Asmodeus’s cause on Golarion, and help in the liberation of His country from the blasphemous invaders.

Orgull was still a bit faint from before, and shook a bit as he made his apologies.

The moment he’d finished praying he healed himself.

It was like someone had been annoyingly screaming in the next room over then gone blessedly silent. The pain went away, his leg healing around the gash, and the color returning to normal. He flexed his hands experimentally, they’d been cut and scratched in his climbing and crawling but were whole now.

Praise be to Asmodeus.   

He stood to walk, but stumbled.

His leg held his weight but still it felt… off.  Wrong.

He prodded at where the gash had been. Was that calf now a little smaller than the other one? Or maybe he was imagining it.

When a wound was infected and began to rot, did healing it leave the muscle smaller? He might have been taught something about that but he couldn’t remember it now. Stupid.

No sense in wasting a heal now, that might not even work, and he might need later. He could try a Lesser Restoration sometime if it didn’t go away. But he’d need all those second circle slots for other spells to keep him alive. 

He moved his foot experimentally, he could move the toes, but they were still covered in the mass of dirt and blood-caked rags he’d not dared deal with overnight.

He kept wanting to flinch as he unwrapped it, but it was, of course, painless.

He cleaned it off with water, tossing away the bloody rags, what looked like a nail torn off, and, fuck. He’d lost most of his smallest toe.

Did that happen? Maybe the web, or he'd run over something and not noticed in the chase. 

It’s fine. Flesh is disposable. I can walk and I need to move on. He’d get a new better body as a devil anyway.

Enough. Time to move. 

He’d been panicking and reacting, but he needed to think, to plan.

What were his objectives? What did Asmodeus want of him now?

First priority: Survive.

You can’t serve Asmodeus on Golarion if you are already in Hell, and He has enough servants there already, you’re worthless there.

Your value to him must be from things that are unique to you. There used to be hundreds of second circle priests in Ostenso, but they are mostly dead or fled. Out of all of them He saved you for a reason.

Asmodeus must have a plan for you.  

Actually... challenge that assumption.

In seminary they said that the God’s intervened rarely, and we shouldn’t assume that every little thing is a hidden message. That way led to stupid peasant superstitions. All a fallen entrail means is that the executioner was sloppy.

Asmodeus had granted him power same as every other cleric of his circle, but that didn’t mean everything else was some grand plan. Maybe Orgull had just gotten lucky and been clever, Asmodeus might never have given him a glance.

Maybe He doesn’t care about me.

That hurt to think about. He didn't want to believe that. He was wise enough to realize that. 

He suspected that his younger self had suffered from the same pathetic desire for approval other children had, but had channelled it in a more useful direction. The childish belief that Asmodeus was paying attention to him personally had kept him strong, kept him focused through adversity. 

That didn’t mean it was true. 

But that doesn't make it false either. 

He got up, suddenly restless, and paced the room.

Maybe if he stretched his leg, moved it back and forth a bit. It would stop. feeling. so. weird.

He focused on his breathing as he paced.

It’s just like a theology class. You've been presented with a claim about doctrine, you need to assess it. Enumerate your questions and counterpoints. Assess the issue rationally. Without emotion. Give the best argument for your position. All while avoiding Heresy, easy. 

(Orgull had a pretty good memory, so got high grades in Theology at school, and most of the seminary.

But this was like one of Reverend Sergei's terrible assignments where you had to guess the right answer. And the bastard would punish you anyway if you got the right answer for the wrong reasons.) 

Does Asmodeus care about me personally?

Should a cleric operating in occupied territory infer the will of Asmodeus from circumstantial evidence? And implications for operational decision making. 

An essay by Orgull, Rebutjat de Belde, Orphan under the care of Chosen of Asmodeus, elevated to the Second Circle in the glory of His service.
Age: Assistant to the Senior Presbyter, Ports Division, Ostenso Urban Diocese 

Some time in Pharast? 4713 

Assessing the claim made by sundry Vicars of the Seminary of the Western Heartlands that a Chosen should not under normal circumstances assume they are the subject of special attention of Asmodeus, or make inferences as to His will from events. And the relevance to current circumstances. 

Interrogative:  

1. From what authority do you derive this doctrine?
   The Vicars told them not to assume Asmodeus was sending them messages. But they would say that wouldn’t they. You didn’t want young clerics thinking they knew His will better than their superiors. They weren’t a reliable source. They might have been technically telling the truth, I can’t remember the exact words, but there was always trickery to be done with “rarely” and “normally”.
   
   
2. Are you applying Doctrine to appropriate circumstances?
   The Gods rarely intervened in the normal course of affairs, but this was far from normal. Asmodeus had intervened to bring order to Cheliax after the Civil War, he would obviously do so again to defend it. Especially if other Gods were throwing around miracles like teleporting the Galtan army here. Asmodeus didn’t throw around miracles profligately like some Gods, he didn’t need to, he had actual competent servants on the material. But he did, with great skill and subtlety, nudge events in a certain direction.
   
   
3. What context was the original statement made in and how might that inform interpretation?
   The Seminary near Belde mostly prepared its charges for long careers of monotony supervising peasant villages, or short careers of excitement at the Worldwound. Of course people like that wouldn’t come to the attention of the Gods. I know The author is reliably informed that seminaries vary hugely in what they teach and how. Perhaps if I if the author had been at one of the actually prestigious ones like Egorian he’d have been told different. Explanations may be tailored for the needs of the audience.