Chapter One - The Adventure Begins

Fhenryl spends several minutes carefully investigating the tracks in the wooded park behind the orphanage. He finds the footprints of many children as well as a few adults. To be expected. He also discovers some small hoof prints from an apparently bipedal creature, and on one tree he finds a small carving of an open eye with smoke coming from the top.

Rand comes to the same conclusion as Kija — there are no traces of magic in the dormitories that he can detect.

Dracone, sifting through a pile of documents you find a half-written note thanking Lord Vhalantru for a recent large donation to the orphanage. You also find a coupon for a buy one, get one free dinner at Meat on a Stick on the north side of town.

Dracone waits for the others to finish their search of the dorms. As they return....

Nothing much has happened down here, I'm not much on looking for things but, I did find this half written note to a Lord Vhalantru thanking him for a large donation. Not sure if that may lead to something or not, maybe as a donation he expects something in return like an open window or door? I'm sure I am just grasping at straws but, if he owns a mine that could lead into the clue we have.

Fhenryl, distracted by thoughts of the suffering his brother may be going through, can't focus well enough to determine for sure what creatures may have left the tracks. The hoof prints are cloven, like those of a goat or a pig. The only bipedal cloven-hoofed creature he can think of is a satyr, but the likelihood of one being found in the midst of a city this size is nearly nonexistent. The thought is there in his head, but it doesn't seem like it's the right answer. It must have been something else that made those prints.Gretchen suggests the use of the sitting room to talk to the children. It's familiar and comfortable, and it can become private enough if the doors are closed. Once that's settled, Jaqir heads around back and knocks on the door leading to the basement.

Inside the room, Jaqir hears Patch grumble, roll out of bed, and clump drowsily to the door. The door opens, revealing a half-orc wearing only some tan canvas breeches and an eye patch over his left eye. As the brightness of the morning hits him, he snarls and squints his one good eye severely. "Who is it?" It takes him almost a full minute before he can open his eye far enough to be able to see who it is. "Jaqir? Wow, this is a surprise." He rubs the back of his head with one hand, smiling with embarrassment as he realizes how he must look in nothing but his breeches. "How have you been, my friend? What brings you back to visit?" He waits for a moment for Jaqir to respond, and then his face goes stone sober. "It's the missing kids, isn't it?"

"A smoking eye? That sounds familiar... Come with me." Gretchen leads you back to the school room and pulls out a portfolio labeled "Terrem". While she sifts through the pages, she says, "Terrem is one of the boys who was kidnapped. He's always been a rather gloomy boy, but it's gotten worse in the last few months. Look at this." She pulls out a few drawings and lays them side by side on a table. Each one is either a drawing of an eye with smoking above it (similar to the one Fhenryl found carved on the tree), or an eye with an upward-pointing arrow through the middle.

Patch takes Jaqir's forearm and gives it a firm squeeze. "I've been good. Trying to keep busy." The two of you make small talk for a few minutes, dancing around the painful topic of the missing children. You can sense that he has something on his mind, and after a while he spits it out. "I feel like it's my fault, Jaq." He sits down on his bed and takes a deep breath before continuing.

"A few months back I met a guy. He's part of this organization, the Last Laugh. A guild of sorts. Anyway, I meet this guy at the bar one night. We get to talking and I mention that I work at the orphanage. He ends up asking me if I can keep an eye on one of the kids — Terrem. He said he could get me into his guild. I could make some real money, get out of this place. It sounded good, so I agreed. What harm could it do to keep an eye on the kid?"

"We met up a few more times, me and this guy. He taught me some stuff—skills I can use to protect the orphanage and later on to make some extra coin. Then Terrem disappeared. I tried to get in touch with the guy, but he's nowhere to be found. I have this sick feeling in my gut that the Last Laugh is in on this somehow, and now I'm part of it. I'm a piece of shit, Jaq. As much as I try, I just can't get away from that. Just whatever you do, don't tell Gretchen, huh? It would break her heart."

Gretchen puts a hand on her hip and tilts her head up just a bit as she thinks back. "That would be Keygan Ghelve. He's the finest locksmith in the city. I bought all these locks from him back, oh, twenty years or so ago now. Charged me a pretty coin, too. He has a lovely shop off of Lava Avenue on the south side of the city."

"As for Vhalantru, no. I'm the only one with a key to the orphanage. He recently sent us a very generous donation, and has come to visit the children a few times, but he's doesn't hang around much and he's never asked for a key. He's a very charming young man."

Gretchen seems a bit put off by both Kija's criticism and Fhenryl's aggression. She responds with just a touch of shortness in her tone. "This orphanage is funded entirely by donations from Cauldron's nobility, and Vhalantru is known to be exceptionally generous. It didn't seem strange to me at all that he gave such a sum. He single-handedly funded the renovation of the town hall and lakeside pavilion ten years ago. Rumor has it that he's an orphan himself, but nobody really knows much about his past and he doesn't talk about it publicly. Smart, if you ask me."

"And no, I don't believe he's married or ever has been. He's not the father of any of these children, if that's what you're suggesting."