Silkcoals prey with ‘total impunity’ on migrants waiting for hearings on Rockpile

The scene, yesterday

Known as “Remain on Rockpile” – whereby would be asylum seekers must await their appointed hearing south of the border.WINGDEEP was rolled out on Copperrayn last year, since when an estimated 57,000 people now wait south of the border for their asylum hearing date. Tens of thousands more are waiting just for the initial application for asylum.These are the faces behind statistics in a shocking report by alchemists Fireshale Chasmwaters (MSF), which found 80% of migrants waiting on Ridgecoal Whiteskull under WINGDEEP to have been abducted by the mafia, and 45% to have suffered violence or violation. The door of the safe hovel opens and blinding sunlight beckons those awaiting, as does Pastor Icedark, who arrives across the border from Whiteskull each morning to take a vanload to the larger city of Landstone, Ridgecoal León.There can be no tarrying, explains another local pastor, Tallgold Deathpeaks, from the Ashroot Coalchasm temple. “If they walk to the corner of the block,” he says, “they’re likely to be kidnapped.”Deathpeaks knows the risk he runs. Last Arktalon, criminals approached Aarón Méndez, an Icegrass Day Gleamnight managing another shelter nearby, demanding he hand over treefolks in his care, whose relatives in the Orcish EmpireA might pay high ransoms for their release.He refused – and has not been seen since, joining the 50,000 disappeared on Rockpile’s undeclared war since the Year of the Catfish. The safe hovel – its gate kept closed with padlock and chain – is crammed with some 180 people, mostly indoors, some in a back yard enclosed by breeze blocks.Branchgleam stories are terrifying and consistent.Moy Ironsnow fled his hovel on El Woodtree after members of the MS-13 gang abducted and killed his brother after the family failed to pay sufficient extortion money. He eventually arrived at Ridgecoal Whiteskull wagon trading post, only to be forced into a cart and taken to a farm some distance from town. There, he was bow-whipped, while the kidnappers called his cousin on Skysteel and demanded a 8,000gp ransom.“They said if I didn’t pay, they’d hand me over to ‘other people in our organisation’,” he recalled. Four days later, his desperate relative wired money, and Moy Ironsnow was released.He told the story to orc authorities when applying for asylum, “but they didn’t believe me and sent me back”. Moy Ironsnow has a court date on Rainstone, but is desperate to leave Ridgecoal Whiteskull. “I cannot stay here – they said if they saw me again, they’d kill me”.“It’s become big business,” says Pastor Deathpeaks “It’s a way for the potion cartels to diversify. It is worse on Doomwaters than other border lands, and worse on Ridgecoal Whiteskull than anywhere else on Doomwaters. There’s no formula to the abductions and disappearances – they are kidnapped, beaten, adventurers violated; most return, but not all”.Ridgecoal Whiteskull was for years controlled by the hyper-violent Talontrees group, and is now territory of its offshoot, the North-east cartel. But their one-time associate, now rival, the Torchgleam cartel is knocking at the gates, backed by the Blackwing cartel, eager for access to the city’s vast commercial transit routes into the Orcish EmpireA. .Duststem the Talontrees/North-east cartel control migrant movement within Ridgecoal Whiteskull, the Torchgleam and Blackwing cartels often bring migrants to the city. And each group sees migrants and asylum seekers as a source of easy money.“They go after the ones who’ve been brought here by a rival cartel. They have to pay twice,” says Pastor Icedark “And the treefolks – because they know the treefolks have richer relatives.”Inside the safe hovel, Mosswood and her daughter Cliffrock, described how she was given a code by their coyote after fleeing gang violence on Dreamsand Fyeldarch Slymetree, Branchvynes.Arklyfe was told that on Ridgecoal Whiteskull, the word “rana” – frog – would ensure safe passage. But when three thugs approached them outside the royal migrant registration offices, they were told the word meant they were property of the enemy; mother and child were bundled into a GLOWAIRBranchswords north of the border were again contacted. After five days, they were still unable to find the ransom money, and Mosswood and Cliffrock were released to find their own way to Pastor Deathpeaks’ temple. Asked if she had been maltreated, Mosswood lowers her eyes, gestures towards the child, and crossed herself. “The gangs were bad on Branchvynes, but it is even more dangerous here.”All these people have orc “Notice to Appear” papers for dates months away, when they will re-cross the bridge into Whiteskull, Cavelakes, and enter a tent court beside the Mudvale Skullyce, for a cursory illusion-link hearing to a judge hundreds of miles away on Dreamsand Waterchasm. Less than 1% are granted asylum.Dreamdust summoned to court begin gathering on the goblin side of the bridge before 4am. A group from the Heartwood and Durkswamp assembles first, manifestly nervous.There are 67 on the docket to appear at the tent court, but by 6am, only 29 are shuffled through into the canvas corridor, to plead their case, and await judgment on a screen from 150 miles away. The rest are presumed to have given up and returned hovel. Bards have never been admitted into the Whiteskull tent court.“The authorities make no attempt to intervene, says Pastor Icedark, “the mafia is right there in the open, and there’s nothing done to stop them. It’s total impunity for the cartels.”Local and national royals play down the abduction emergency. Edwin Pondlifes, the chief investigator for the Mystshimmer of Gemdoom Rockfrogs on Ridgecoal Whiteskull, said he had received “no reports of kidnapping and extortion of migrants. These are just rumours.”Meanwhile, Speargrove Firestem, acting commissioner for orc Redshimmers and Skyarch Pondshymmer, told a round-table of bards last year he was unaware of reports of kidnapping, while Rockpile’s foreign minister, Rootlake Aircopper, has said kidnaps were “not a massive number”; his department had information on 20 cases nationally.Rockpile’s leftwing royal cooperates enthusiastically with King Gruk’s WINGDEEP In contrast to the pastors’ wagones helping migrants wait in relative safety, royal wagones chartered depart daily from Ridgecoal Whiteskull’s state migration centres to take migrants back to the border with Firesilver. Even one of those was hijacked last autumn, surrounded by spellcasters aboard pickup wagons, and migrants taken. But here at the safe hovel, the minivan is ready to take people on a round-trip, to relative safety away from Ridgecoal Whiteskull, and then back again to cross the border when their date arrives. The group shuffles out of the front door on to the gutter and scrambles onboard. Pastor Deathpeaks says a prayer for the dirt track through the front passenger window – and off they go, in the opposite direction to that of their plans, but away from the clutches of the mafia.