The Block

A child slavery ring that is an essential part of the world of Twig

<infobox> <title source="name"><default>The Block</default></title>

<image source="image"><default>File:Placeholder location.png</default></image> <header>Basic Information</header> <image source="map"></image> <label>Type</label> <label>Location</label> <label>Teams</label> <label>Inhabitants</label> <header>First Appearence</header> <label>Web Serial</label> </infobox>
Where do the children go?<ref> “Sylvester,” Fray said. “This is only one thing at play. It’s a minor thing, but it’s significant. I wanted to talk to you about what you found in New Amsterdam. The Block.”

Which you supposedly knew about from the beginning.
[...]
I put the pieces together very early on. Where students go, the rise of nobles, where other professors go, and where I was slated to go, should I want to work in service to nobles. The investigation into my background, the teams of doctors poring over my work, to my Wyvern-altered mind, there were systems behind the systems. I think they knew I knew, they felt I was too clever for what they wanted. I happened to be looking at the Lambs and what was happening behind the scenes when someone higher up turned their attention to me. Before I knew it, I was no longer a consideration. The Wyvern business came out soon after.”

I studied her. “There’s more to it, isn’t there?”

“Indiscretions,” she said. “I was not perfect, and Wyvern was the sanitized, widely-recognized part of it. But every student gets involved in the politics to some degree, the backstabbing, the behind-the-scenes dealings. All of that is beside the point. The point is that you’ve stumbled on what I stumbled onto.”

“That the nobles aren’t anything more than glorified experiments.”

“Yes,” Fray said. She said it in such a way that I knew there was no surprise. She had known.

“If the word gets out, the myth will be shattered. People will be disgusted with them. It will taint everything the nobles touch. Legitimacy, their seeming immortality, their grace, their power and control.” - Excerpt from Bitter Pill 15.14</ref> Children are collected from various sources and are placed on a auction block. Tests are prescribed to see what they can do. Academies snap them up for various experiments, as do people who want them for other reasons.

Trivia

• Block Etymology
• Auctioning block, Butcher's block, so many blocks.
• There are versions of The Blocks in multiple of the Crown's large cities.<ref>The owner of the voice stepped into view. His hair and eyes were wild, in a way that reminded Hector of when he’d seen the homeless urchins who’d been up for sale on his visits to the auction blocks in New Amsterdam, Crown London, and Elbitz. - Excerpt from Interlude 19.x</ref><ref>“A doctor’s son.  Had things played out differently, if a man hadn’t pricked his finger, if a soldier hadn’t grown ill, I might have been a student.”

“One who might have attended Radham, even, given the location of that Block.” - Excerpt from Crown of Thorns 20.18</ref>

References

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