Soft

It was almost time for the celebration of Interval Days and the Council of Mir had gathered to plan for the festival. Bethy, a teacher, suggested they do something that would involve adults and children together to strengthen community bonds. Everyone was shocked to hear Wellie declare angrily that he didn’t see why he should have to share his time with those brats. When asked what he’d prefer doing and what should be done with the children meanwhile he made a snide answer, grabbed his drink bottle and ran out. Early that day Bethy’s son, Lisor, had seen a schoolmate carrying something too heavy for his scooter – something that looked grey and soft in bottles. He was worried by what he saw and told his friend Jan, the Blacksmith, about it. Jan reassured him but was enough concerned himself by something so unusual that when meeting his friend Valeron as they were going to the Council meeting he suggested that Valeron keep an eye open for anything unusual. The incident with Wellie, a mild farmer who loved children, certainly qualified. Next day, Flora (a nurse and a Watcher) was shocked to receive her battered friend Elaida with her son Jorge – also battered and with a broken arm, at the hospital. Elaida’s cheekbone was broken as was a rib and both she and her son were covered with multiple bruises. After the immediate necessities were taken care of and Jorge sent to a bed, Flora asked Elaida what happened to them and to her unbelieving shock was told that Sam, Elaida’s sweet, peaceful husband had done the damage to his family. After making sure her charges were safely in bed Flora called for the other Watchers as this was something that had never before happened in peaceful, Essence loving Mir. Before they arrived Sam came rushing in asking for his family saying that he had just arrived home from delivering cloth in Balroth and had been told his family had been hurt and were here. Bethy had just arrived and after a private conference with Flora suggested that a calming tea might be good for Sam. Flora put a sleeping drug in Sam’s tea and before the other Watchers arrived he was asleep and tucked up on a comfortable padded bench till the others could figure out what was happening and what to do about it. When Jan and Valeron heard about this latest incident they decided that whatever was going on reeked of the Time of Darkness and they decided that they needed to know more about that time to have some idea of what to do. Bethy, as a council member and teacher, was be sent to the great Research Library in the Capital, supposedly to find out what things children and adults together had done during past Interval days but really to get any information she could about the dark past. At a planning meeting at Bethy’s house that night the Watchers played cards till Lisor went to sleep. In the night Lisor got up for a drink of water and heard them saying something about ‘bottles’. When he looked out the kitchen window he saw a small, pale man watching the house from the woods and he remembered that Jorge had seen a little man was laughing in the woods when his father dashed out the door after hurting his family. Lisor and his friend Ranni had both won prizes at the science fair and were enjoying the ice cream sundaes that the winners were treated to. Lisor told Ranni about the little man and as they looked at the woods they saw a pale little man run into the woods and disappear. Following carefully they tripped over a lever that opened a hole that became steps into the earth. They returned in the morning with torches and entered the hole. After the steps down they found a long hallway with doors on either side. Suddenly they were grabbed and taken a great distance and locked up by the pale man. Thirsty after their long trek they found two bottles of smoky liquid in their cell. Ranni wanted to drink but Lisor, remembering the box he’d seen poured the liquid out into a crack in the floor to Ranni’s distress Above ground Jan, Valeron, Val’s father Mattos, Sam, and Milas from the Research Center decided to search the woods too. They found the hole and Ranni’s glove near it so they too got torches and took packets of dried food not knowing how long they would be looking. As they walked quietly down the hallway they were summoned by a little old man from a doorway who said “Friend, come quickly”. Trusting, they went into his room and found that he knew where the children were and would help get them out. He explained he’s pretended to be crazy to avoid being sacrificed with the rest of his family and that the children were to be sacrificed at the beginning of the move to take over the planet. Loon (his assumed name) took them down the hall to a place where they were able to slip into a crack in the wall through which they could reach the children. Loon told the children to act crazy and angry when the guard came as that is how the drink would have made them behave. They did as he asked and after the guard left on a false errand that Loon had created for him he let the children out and took them to their friends in the crack in the wall. As the empty cell was discovered a massive search was set up but o one thought about the possibility of ‘top-siders’ having gotten them out so the guards were chased as replacements for the sacrifice.