As this argument leads me to believe...no one is getting anywhere, nor
will they get anywhere, and there is nothing like pie involved. Thus all
I have read makes me come to a conclusion.


Ashtan's side:

The Loving Hearts Orphanage is obviously a bastion of good in the
Bastion of the North, keeping poor children off the street and fed, a
noble cause to dedicate oneself to. The children are loved, cared for,
and they certainly aren't slaughtered for their glands. That thud you
hear whenever one is enrolled? Think nothing of it! It's naught but the
rats being killed!

The Basillica on the other hand, doesn't care a whit for these children.
It's just a way to get a quickie. Hendel? No, he doesn't instruct the
choir. He makes the children raise their voices in another way, with his
hendelling ways (OH MAN THAT'S A FUNNY PUN!), they care not for the
children. So bring them to Ashtan, where good food, good times, and good
child-raising prevails.


Shallam's side:

The Loving Hearts Orphanage is a slaughterhouse. They lure children to
their doors with candy, whereby they're sent into the back room, and
cruelly and summarily slaughters, whereby their pineal glands are
removed for arcane experiments. Studies of the Occult come at a
sacrifice of young Achaeans!

The Basillica is here to help the children, feed them, and lead them on
to happy, productive lifestyles. We teach them to sing, we clothe them
whereby they are most happy in their new duds. We love the little
children, whereas Ashtan would have you believe we're a bunch of
boy-hungry moral-mincing priests. It's a lie.


Enter Apathy and Imagination:

The Loving Hearts Orphanage is a hideout for aliens. The thud you hear
after the children are enrolled, it's the sound of one of the beasts
falling over dead. This frightens the children, thus screams are
sometimes heard. But the aliens will die at the mere sight of one of
these children, so pure and bedraggled they look. Pineal glands? We
ain't seen no pineal glands. Studies show a positive correlation between
Ashtani orphan enrollment and odd, misshapen bodies being thrown over
the walls of Ashtan and into ditches at odd hours of the night that I
may or may not have been stalking various bugs on. It's a conspiracy!

The Basillica takes a more back-burner role. In the enrollment of the
children and teaching them to sing, it is but another weapon to combat
the alien hordes.
The clean clothes the children get? Try a full suit of armour and combat
boots. Hours and hours of strenuous voice training every day go to the
hope of someday crushing the aliens. Whereas Ashtan takes the initiative
in crushing the aliens, beating them with the mere sight of children,
Shallam secretely trains an army of orphans to sing at the top of their
voices, making the heads of the aliens utterly kasplode. Reports of
molestation are all false, as we enforce strict rules of celibacy. What
of Hendel, you ask? The kindly man is merely a charade, he is the
strictest of our disciplinarians. Should you hear of any molestation,
rest assured that Hendel will not go gently on them.




Two of these statements are crackpotted in nature, and completely false.
The other was probably inspired by heavy weed and tequila consumption,
though probably true in some fashion.

Penned by my hand on the 2nd of Valnuary, in the year 396 AF.