With our new task we grab some travel food to eat as we make our way to the orphanage. Set in a stone arch are the words. Cozy Hollow Orphanage. We walk in the large doorway to a middling sized room with a desk and human woman. Brown hair, skin in the brown to tan range with one eye hazel and her right eye green like a gem.

“that’s, I haven’t seen eyes like that”

[morgan] “please excuse him, he grew up more sheltered than I did. Anyways do you run this orphanage?”

[Caela] “yep, names caela. Though I’m not the only one keeping this place going of course, plenty of kids to care for. So what brings two hands of the hidden one?”

“uh, well we had heard that things were going a bit unusual around here.”

[morgan] “again, he’s…”

[caela] “blunt, that’s fine. Had a boy like that when I was growing up at my orphanage. As for odd you’ll have to be a bit more specific cause with an orphanage the regular day is dealing with oddity. You’d be surprised how much the rascals can get themselves in trouble” grinning as she replies.

“just that there’s, unusual changes in how many children you have under your care.”

[caela] “yeah I’ve been noticing that too. We send our paperwork up to officials so if you want to figure out which other orphanage they go too then by all means tell me.”

[morgan] “you know they're going to a different orphanage?"

[caela] “well it only figures, those that are old enough are allowed to go out on the town as long as their in groups of three to five, or with a supervisor if needed.”

[child] “cae, cae, cae I’m feeling hungry.”

[caela] “you get your lunch?”

[child] “no, was late coming back.”

[caela] “well then talk with Amila about it.”

[child] “I couldn’t find her.”

[caela] “well I have to talk with the hidden monarchs people.”

[child] “REALLY? CAN I SEE!? CAN I SEE!?”

[caela] “volume”

[child] “sorry”

[caela] “and yes, so long as you behave… good.”

she bends down and puts the child on the desk next to her.

[caela] “rarely a dull moment. So what we’re… right I assume the ones that are gone went to the other five orphanages. We don’t control them after they’re old enough, kids gotta learn responsibility cause it’s just them after all. Anyways that’s what I’d guess.”

[morgan] “really? That’s what’s done around here?”

“we are from, fairly far away.”

[caela] “oh I got that with miss pale here. Still a nice look but sticks out like a poison frog”

[morgan] “uh… did you, do you give notices to each other of children that come from another orphanage?”

[caela] “in smaller places sure, things are a bit more written down, as odd as that is. We often have kids from other orphanages stay here a night or two if they are in the area and don’t want to walk back to their home orphanage. So sometimes they decide they want to stay longer than that.”

“seems troublesome for keeping track of the kids.”

[caela] “yeah well we went through the alternative about sixty years ago, from what I know it wasn’t good as criminal types would draw the kids in to use for thieving and the like, others they’d capture and sell off.”

[morgan] “wait so you guys had a major crimewave?”

[caela] “oh yeah it got bad about fifty years ago and the scions were sent in to clean things out. Giving amnesty to the young so long as they ratted out the leaders… only problem was one of the biggest groups being run by barely adult thieves that were the first ones taken in that way. Real tragedy to many, can’t say it’s what I want any of them doing.”

[morgan] “bad way to live, the fear of being caught.”

“so you know of all the other orphanages?”

[morgan] “and we would like your info on the kids not part of this orphanage.”

[caela] “yeah of course. Here give me a little and I’ll be right back with you guys.”

She walks off and we’re left with the child looking at us, brown features making him less distinguishable from most of the humans in this city.

[Al] “beware that woman. Different eyes, missing children. This is all a little more coincidental than I would like for your health my friend, I do want you to be able to help me come over to your world.”

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I really hated that I had to hold my response to him, he’d been absent for this time and suddenly shows up like that. What was with him?

[morgan] “what was that mo- Mian?”

“what do you mean?”

[morgan] “I’ve seen that look before. What’s occupying your attention?”

“just, lets be skeptical and cautious about things.”

[morgan] “o-kay, you’re really not adjusting to being ok to wander around are you?”

“later.”

She merely nods and a few minutes later caela comes back giving us some papers for where the other orphanages are.

[caela] “unfortunately we don’t have any copies of child tenet list so you’ll-”

[morgan] “that’s fine I’ll copy the info onto paper of mine.”

for a moment I notice caela’s face go blank, neutral then a slight look of surprise.

[caela] “well of course, why wouldn’t the monarchs agents carry papers and ink to write with.”

It takes a while and morgan copies the info, writing kids' names onto her paper as the kid finds the woman he was originally working for. Once done we head off to the nearest orphanage.

The first was quick as the man confirmed what we first heard about how things are run and we checked the names against each other, finding one child that had moved into this orphanage. The next two had none matching and with the sun setting we called it for our efforts that day and got some dinner.

“so unless the other two orphanages have taken in something like thirty children each they’re disappearing somewhere”

[morgan] “looks like. While I was focused on our list, I noticed in the other orphanages that they had lost a notable amount of kids as well, maybe not quite enough to be a concern on each orphanage but three out of five bleeding kids is odd.”

“wh- oh, metaphorically. Ok so what are you thinking?”

[morgan] “I’m thinking that YES, of course metaphorically… anyways from what I gathered with our trips is that each place has only so much to go around most of the time.”

“ok, how does that matter?”

[morgan] “… each kid that doesn’t move to an orphanage with plenty is chosing to go hungry and malnourished, so since the kids can move around the ammount of kids will be roughly equal in the orphanages.”

“and the hollow has been losing them.”

[morgan] “yeah, let’s finish up with the last two orphanages tomorrow then check in on the criminal elements and see if they’re up to something in the area. This is getting weird, I mean I’m not sure why a criminal group would almost exclusively grab boys. I mean favoring is one thing, but this has only two girl's names… well I think only two since it’s not my home culture.”

[al] “ohhh that I do not like, get to the bottom of this.”

[morgan] “again? What keeps on popping into your head m-mian?”

“well… nobodies going to hear us in here?”

[morgan] “everythings closed up… well I mean we don’t know everything on the medallions right?”

“I looked at their magic, they seem to be only what he told us… so when I was a penitent, when- before I became an assistant I nearly died, infection. While out of it I saw… he’s odd, purple skinned with weird orange tendrils for hair, anyways he introduced himself as Al. Said he could ensure I would survive if I just promised to be his friend and help him get to our world.”

[morgan] “oh is that all? Just rescued you from death, gave you magic powers and contacted you from BEYOND OUR WORLD?! Do you have any idea of what he is?”

“uh, I… I kinda had little choice.”

She puts up her hands and takes a deep breath.

[morgan] “ok, ok… did you pay attention to the whole divine barrier deal?”

“yeah it seals us off from the greater cosmos and planes.”

[morgan] “from the interference of other planes, other realities… ones where creatures can gain power through your suffering… literally, like stab you to cast a fireball! And you made a deal to bring something completely unknown into the world. With no idea of what it’s going to do here?”

“uh, I was afraid of dying.”

[morgan] “you live more than once you… alright you know what you had a crap spot so we’ll figure this out in time but for now let’s get some sleep and focus on our mission instead.”