Master's Peril Project

Story to be continued

A Report on the Connexions Between Stories and Facts

Written by the fifth Investigative Priest of the Cantolean Ministry, Sandar-Benett Greswalt
Published on the 89th of the 1,607th year of the Cantolean Calendar

One particular city in The Hills would be struck by a series of kidnappings - all of these children would have a long list of other siblings, and their absence would fail to be immediately noted by the parents and the family in general.

Due to how uncommon it was for the children to vanish in the city combined with the high rate of disappearances of adults, the legal system would be very slow to react.

One of the mothers of the stolen children would experience an even more tragic loss of one of her children alongside the described kidnappings, and would vanish several weeks later, only for her body to later be found in a sewer, just a seven minute walk away from where she once lived.

Due to a lack of interest by the nobility, there were no official investigations done by the state or government in any capacity - even when her body was brought to the front doorstep of the head officer of the police by the grieving widower, the only response given by the officer was for the husband to "report her death to the mortician and to bring her there."

After weeks of tension between the lower-class and policemen in the surrounding district, it was announced that her death was to be ruled as "an unfortunate accident" and deemed to be not worthy of investigation.

Friends of the grieving husband attempted to discover how she could die within walking distance of where she lived, but couldn't find any witnesses who recalled seeing her, letalone potential suspects. On top of this, doctors and morticians failed to find any solid explanations for what led to her death, as after-death, her body was so severely damaged by wildlife and rot that little more than her bones and few pieces of clothing could be used to find her cause of death.

In the months following, it would be repeatedly reported that a woman with a ghostly visage was wandering the surrounding streets in the dark of night, crying out for her children. 

And while stories of mothers looking for their lost children are not uncommon in folklore of The Hills, the most notable aspect of this particular tale is how it seems to fit perfectly alongside other stories relating to children coming to unfortunate ends - especially relating to various disappearances of children.

In the nation of The Hills, there are over two thousand unique folk-tales relating to the deaths and/or disappearances of the youth originating between the years of 1300 and 1500.

In surrounding nations, one can typically find somewhere between one hundred and five hundred stories in a similar fashion and time-period.

This significant discrepancy seems to suggest that there is a significantly higher concern for children in The Hills, though the considerably higher reports of disappearances of the young in the nation tells us that the concern is not unwarranted.