Oakroot showed them the place where he came from. A place where kids were all but farmed out, or tossed out of thought of as worthless. The ones who owned that place... disappeared. The adventurers had their base of operations now, and lots of new sons and daughters to help. The first time the sound of honest laughter from a child was heard, some in the party wept, for they were healing.
@internutter/challenge-04643-l259-found-family-free-fuddlement -- Anon Guest
Oakroot had revealed a lot with his "nobody eats for free" statement. Regardless of whether he wanted them to do it, the Adventurers who adopted him really wanted to take care of the people who made him think that. And they weren't talking about tucking them into bed or feeding them chicken soup.
So they dressed it up as wanting to meet Oakroot's siblings in the "old place". And of course to invite some along to the new place. When they got it.
It was an orphanage, at least according to its name. And it butted walls with a truly sleazy establishment of negotiable companionship. Kind of like a rat/cat farm[1], but far, far slimier. The fact that both buildings shared a nursing home for unwed mothers just tripled the nausea. So did the fighting pit across the road.
"Oh yeah," whispered Darme. "Something bad is happening to this place."
"These places," corrected Whatli. "But also yes. Something very bad is going to happen here."
Gisse was the spy, offering entertainment to each of the three places and covertly scouting out the connections between the establishments. Which were allegedly run by a quartet of siblings. They took in, or created, the unwanted, and turned them into a business venture. Including the business of supplying for unappealing demand.
Something very bad happened to those four.
The madam who ran the sleazy brothel was found tied up in her own intestines. The matron who ran the home was found hanging upside-down and blindfolded by her own lungs. The fellow who ran the fighting pit was eventually found in the cistern where he bred the rats for his matches. Well. His bones were found there. On top of the bones of children who had lost their matches.
As for the man who ran the orphanage... he was later found in a cell in his cellar. Forensic investigation would reveal that he had been fed his own testicles after someone -or multiple someones- had whipped him to within an inch of his life.
And once the connections and the conditions got out to the townsfolk... well. Every child and young individual had a new home before the entire complex was razed to the ground.
They would be doing better than that in the future. Far, far better.
[1] An old wire fraud scam. Buy into the fur farm where the rats eat the cats and the cats eat the rats. All fur comes out to tanners with no extra cost to the owners, so there's only profit! Huzzah!
[Photo by Zoshua Colah on Unsplash]
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