"Not your worst boy. But logical arguments don't justify implausible conclusions.

Do you really think that you, you of all people, are subject to our Lord's special attention? Really?"

He turned in his pacing to yell at Sergei gesture at the wall as he muttered to himself 

Counter-Interrogative: 

Do you really think you are that special? Really? 

Yes.

Yes.

He was special. The bare facts bore it out. Consider: 

1. Almost no orphans became clerics. Most were sold off for indentures too early, or were too weak to make the cut. Like a soldier who became a Count was far scarier than a mere Count’s son. That alone implied he was unusually talented. 
   
   
2. He hadn’t just been Chosen, he’d been Chosen near instantly on their first night. None of the long fast and prayer that some had needed. The others hadn’t seen it, but what clearer evidence of Asmodeus’s favor could there be?
   
   
3. He’d been picked out by Sergei for private lessons, for special treatment. His cunning attack on the noble children had demonstrated his talents, (if not judgement). After proper correction he’d been assigned to a far away city where the Seminary rarely sent people, where he’d had the opportunity to excel.
   (Had Sergei known something? Had he been nudged to put Orgull here and now where he could make a difference?) 
   
   
4. He’d defeated a higher circle cleric in single combat. That was supposed to be near impossible.
   He’d stabbed the Senior Presbyter from behind, the knife sliding into his neck with seemingly no resistance, the man had barely fought back, his dead face looked more surprised than anything, he hadn’t considered Orgull a threat, he’d trusted him.
    
5. He’d survived the siege and then escaped overwhelming odds after being treacherously ambushed. The Galtans had tried to chase and harry him, he’d tricked them, they’d thrown spells at him, he’d avoided them. He’d been alone in a crowd of traitors ready to turn him over to their new masters and he’d survived. The crowd had turned on him, but he’d survived. 

Conclusions:

He was either exceptionally talented, and therefore valuable, or Asmodeus had been intervening to help him, meaning he was unusually valuable.

Either way, he should act on the assumption that Asmodeus had put him in this specific place and time for a reason, and look for what that might be. Even if there was no specific plan for him, acting like there was would guide him to where he could serve best. 

It was long past dawn now. He needed to get going.

His mission would be here in Ostenso, wasn't like he could get a Galtan travel pass anyway. Needed to lay low until the Galtans stopped paying so much attention. Stay hidden. Stay safe. Then he'd resume gathering information and preparing to strike. 

Best to move. He'd been lucky (or blessed) to find this house burned out and abandoned, but land side property was valuable and wouldn’t be left forever. Even if the Galtans didn’t do a proper house to house sweep, which he couldn’t assume, someone still owned it. If the original owners were dead the Galtans would be dividing it up with the other spoils of war, and whoever won that patronage game would turn up eventually. 

Back to the Custodisce Break. The invaders wouldn’t know the mess of streets and centuries of accumulated shacks and warehouses that clung to the rock pillars. Even the Dockwatchers hadn’t bothered to patrol most of it. It was embarrassing to lose as many men to falling through rotten wood as to combat. As long as they’d controlled the way in and out, and kept the areas that mattered to trade or navy clear, the dregs who washed up there could take care of themselves. He wouldn't be comfortable, but that didn't matter.

Out through the city.

With his face and clothes covered in dirt, and his already scrawny frame, he could pass for a beggar. He'd given his hair a crude cut (not the standard use of an enchanted dagger, but it did keep a sharp blade, and had probably seen worse on campaign) and rubbed ash in to obscure the color a bit. 

It wouldn't stand up to close inspection, but the point was that nobody would be doing that. 

The Galtans had rebuilt the boardwalk connecting the Custodisce Break to shore. A block of jarringly clean and regular wood that stood out from the crumbling edifice of the rest of it. They must have used a lot of spells to get that done so quick.

There were proper guardhouses now, splitting the crowd into lines to be checked. Nothing for it, he’d need to burn his invisibility and sneak through. They’d be looking out for him, and knew he had disguise self, so doubtless had some clever trick to catch him.

He’d only get a few minutes of invisibility but they’d have to be looking the right way at the right time to catch him. It was a calculated risk.

“Of course l’Citizen’s not gonna call himself King of Cheliax….”

“Next!”

“…Paladins would have a shit fit if nothing else.”

“Next!”

“Is a reg-eye-nal union not a personal one you see...”

“Next!”

“Some kind of sorcerer I reckon, all the Chelish nobles are…”

"No you don't need those papers, nor the gold, we're not the Asmodeans,

Well I'll take some of that bread if you insist...." 

“Thank you kindly.... Next!”

 “First Infantry fuckers think they’re so…..”

“Next!”

It had taken some careful timing, darting invisibly between the groups of workmen, nearly trapped at one point, but he made it past the watching eyes of the Galtans. Whatever they had set up to catch him hadn't been enough. 

Now to hide again. He was tempted to go back to the warehouse attic he'd used before, the one with the little Norgorberite shrine, but best not to form a pattern. He'd be cautious this time. Find another out of the way hole and wait until the next day at least. He hadn't eaten for a day now, but he could deal with a little hunger. 

Purify Food and Drink didn't make what could be retrieved from middens appetizing exactly, but it was edible. 

Among the buffet he found a surprising amount of scrivened paper. The old Mayor had run a propaganda rag, and Orgull had always enjoyed the puzzle of working out what direction they were trying to push the common people in that week. Perhaps the Galtans would provide similar entertainment. A man in hiding had other uses for paper in any case. 

The Galtan propaganda was disappointingly amateurish. They were making absurd claims, like one of the Archmages could heal thousands of times a day? And resurrect without a diamond? Even Orgull knew that wasn't how anything worked. Why would you bother making your propaganda so obvious? 

There were uses for deliberately absurd claims, it tested how finely calibrated people's loyalty and dignity were. But everyone knew you needed to establish a baseline first.

Maybe they really thought people would believe it? Possibly they were used to a more gullible population.

Orgull had never quite believed all the stuff about other countries having far fewer wizards than Cheliax, same as them only educating the noble kids. Always felt like a bit of a heavy handed reminder for them to be grateful for getting to go to school, the generosity of the church in letting even the most pathetic of them rise high blah blah praise Asmodeus...

Galt must at least have enough to staff their army. But maybe they just conscripted all of them? Like the worldwound but for life. So the common people never met a wizard and never knew any better. 

"High Priest of Abadar leads service of remembrance"

Well. It wasn't surprising that they were trying to spin his escape to their ends. Obviously they were padding out the numbers of dead for effect. 

However many were dead it mattered little, Pharasma would sort them out and Asmodeus would know his own.

Hell would accept them a bit early for the sake of advancing their more important goals in creation. As his escape obviously did. Like how they'd been taught to sacrifice soldiers if it meant saving a Chosen or a high circle wizard.

He had the Lawful aurhority as the ranking cleric in Ostenso to make that decision, twice over as it was battlefield conditions. So there was nothing wrong with it. 

They were really laying it on thick, claiming the “Mad Asmodean Revenge Attack” had killed some children, sorry, “Young Innocents Martyred in the Cause of Freeing Their Fellows from Hell’s Dominion.”

Which was stupid. There wouldn’t have been any children in a crowd of dockworkers.

Well, he’d passed one at a stall hadn’t he? But surely he was far enough to be out of Channeling range. Surely.

Perhaps they’d been killed in the stampede,

if there were any dead children at all, of course the Galtans could be making it up whole cloth.

Or, if they were smart, they might be blaming him for their own messes. A city full of soldiers left you with a lot of inconvenient bodies and supposedly the Paladins were sniffy about that kind of thing. That made sense.

Besides, it would be a silly thing to get upset about. Children died all the time, at the orphanage they'd joked it was the one thing they were good at.

Every year they'd lost a few, the ones too weak to keep themselves fed, or stave off the winter fevers. If you got all sentimental about it you’d never get anything done, and get a beating besides. 

Maybe the Senior Presbyter was right and the Galtans really had gone soft without the firm hand of the Church. 

Still… it always felt a bit of a waste when the very young kids died, the ones too young for Pharsma to bother with, who had to take their chances in the boneyard and would get eaten by demons or something.

One of the matrons had taught them a prayer beseeching the Devils who guarded the children in the boneyard to pay them special attention. (This was, strictly, heretical, but the kind of common petty heresy you didn’t get any credit for reporting.) 

It couldn’t hurt to mention those children who had been killed by the Galtans in his own prayers next time.

He didn’t know them enough to list their virtues that might make them useful, but kids that age barely had them anyway. They’d always just said everyone was diligent, well behaved and obedient. 

Perhaps his word as a Chosen would carry some weight, he could at least convey that their early deaths had been in the service of their Lord, even if unknowingly, and not a result of their incompetence or weakness. 

He woke up the next day with an aching stomach and uncomfortably loose guts. He gritted his teeth and made it through his prayers (if there was one thing you learned in seminary...). He stuck to the standard template, wasn’t like he had much to report anyway, then found a gap in the planks to do the other necessary rituals of supplication. 

Seems Purifying food doesn’t actually cleanse all the associated miasma of the middens. Seminary had never really discussed it. The cantrip had been mentioned as a cost saving measure, for slaves or prisoners, fort logistics, but obviously you would be eating actual food. 

He should have realized living out of middens was a stupid plan. It was disgusting, and made him feel like a beggar.

On the Custodisce Break and the other shore-side districts they just dumped everything into the sea, so he’d need to keep going onto the mainland, and the busier central districts, where all the people were.

He couldn’t make the same mistakes as last time. He knew himself well enough to know if he kept running errands into the city he’d find an excuse to talk to people, then they’d get him again.

Or even if he stayed strong, he’d eventually be spotted. The Galtans would have patrols looking for him and they’d start shaking down the beggars when they exhausted other options. 

He took some supplies from the Naval stores.

(It wasn’t stealing, obviously. The food had been requisitioned for the purpose of feeding the Chelish navy, he was a Chosen who in normal circumstances would have every right to access the stores. (Well technically the navy had a different chain of command, but the Church was the Church, and if he’d gotten it into his head to demand some sailors rations, they’d have handed them over). The Galtans had changed the signs on the doors and had their own patrols guarding it, but that didn’t mean it belonged to them.)

A few hours careful watching of patrols.
Taking an off-duty guard’s face as Disguise.
A bit of banter with the sergeant on duty. 
A moment of tension, a well-timed distraction and Invisibility to escape.

It should all have set his heart racing.

He remembered from his old job that sailors had a pound of hardtack a day, with what he'd been able to carry he'd be fed for weeks. He also acquired a proper travelling pack, a bed roll, a heavy winter jacket that would double as a blanket, clothes of the mass produced unfitted type they gave sailors, a mess bowl, a canteen so he didn't have to keep creating water at a stupid angle in the air so it fell in his fucking mouth so he could splutter and gulp it down like a fish…

He wouldn't have any need to leave his hiding place for a long time

The days blurred together, long stretches of staring at the walls broken only by daily prayers, wide awake for hours at night, or losing chunks of the day. 

Occasionally the wood would shift oddly in the wind, he’d hear a voice in the distance, or the scent of smoke on the wind, and he’d jump up suddenly alert with dagger in hand. But nothing ever happened. 

He felt like he should be bored or restless, but he mostly didn’t think or feel very much at all.

For the first time in his life he had nothing to do. He’d chafed at the structure of the Church and the orders of his superiors at times, but it had been like a structure under everything you didn’t notice until it was gone. Now he was floating.

At some point in that fog he admitted to himself he didn’t really believe that the Queen’s army was going to come marching in tomorrow, and he hadn’t really from the beginning.

In retrospect it was obvious what happened:

He had always known the church was filled with corruption and weakness. The Vicars in seminary indulging the noble brats, the Senior Presbyter incompetent and barely literate but taking all the credit, the petty status games he’d been forced to play with the priests in Ostenso. And from what he’d seen the nobility and the crown bureaucracy was even worse, lacking even the redeeming features that the Chosen of Asmodeus shared.

But he'd always held to the naïve belief that this was an aberration. That if only he could get to Egorian, or one of the other real centers of power. There he’d find true Asmodians like himself, people who were actually fucking competent and knew what they were doing. Who had a plan and a purpose.  

He'd had these childish fantasies where some day the Queen would see what foolishness was being done in her name and come in with righteous fury. Or he’d somehow come to the attention of the Most High, she’d notice the way his talents were being wasted and put them to better use.

But none of that had ever happened, and it never would.