Leaving the garage sale, the Stranger, as it was called, glanced once more back over its shoulder, making sure that Nick wasn't watching it. It had done its job for the order. But the one thing it could not shake was that a person, a person destined to receive the Amulet of Zulo, had seen it. That had never happened. Not to the Stranger or any of the others that placed the thirteen amulets in the path of those destined to come into contact with them.
Unsure about this, the Stranger turned down a street, going in the opposite direction of Heather and Nick, and then employed a bit of magick and stepped to a new location, appearing near a playground. Looking in the direction of the various children shouting with joy as they cavorted about, the Stranger did a double take when he realised that his side-step had taken him into close proximity with Abey and her cousin, Arnold; two who had been transformed by the Amulet of Zulo after they had found it in the gutter. A pair that the Stranger had practically delivered the medallion to.
"Is it perhaps something I am doing," the Stranger thought as it contemplated that maybe it made the mistake and that was why Nick had been able to see it.
"Why I side-stepped here, of all places," the Stranger thought as it looked at the playground, immediately spotting first Abey and her best friend, as they would be for the rest of their lives, then Arnold and his steady girlfriend, Jody, whom the Stranger knew would remain together as well.
It turned away from the playground and side-stepped, this time finding itself inside a field, several cities away from both Nick and even further from Abey. Across the way, the Stranger could see a faint shimmer that marked the shrinking portal that separated this world from another. Through it, the Stranger knew that the one called Marcus was sleeping in a tree, finishing the transformation into the Fairy Dragon Synda. A thought about its choices crossed the Stranger's mind and how he might be setting itself up for some sort of failure or discovery.
But it right away discarded such a notion as cockamamie. Across from it, the portal continued to shrink and once it was closed, the Stranger knew that it would be closed for good, keeping the two worlds separated until the time rare time it needed to open again.
Prepared to side-step to a new location, the Stranger paused as a child approached the area, walking along the tree-line, picking up a stick every once and a bit, not really paying attention where he was going. Feeling that maybe it should warn the child, the Stranger hesitated instead and watched as the youngling approached the shrinking portal, unaware of what he was drawing closer and closer to. Taking a step forward, raising a hand and opening his mouth to call out a warning, the Stranger once again found itself hesitating as it thought of the rules of non-intervention.
And then the child simply vanished, leaving the Stranger looking at a tree line, a shrinking portal and a feeling of guilt that it should have at least done something.
Sidestepping, the Stranger told itself, "Hundreds of these creatures go missing. Especially the youth a those engaging in battle with each other," trying to rationalise what it had done, or more specifically, what it had failed to do.
As the Stranger appeared in a new location, it looked about and immediately saw that it for some reason had sidestepped near another user of the Amulet of Zulo.
As it watched the one called Daniel frolic and bark with joy, unaware that at one time she had been a human male named Roger who had stolen and ruined two people's lives. Still watching, listening to the dog, the Stranger found its thoughts drifting back to what it had witnessed when the child vanish and for once, the Stranger felt that maybe it had done the wrong thing by following the code of non-intervention.
Sidestepping again, the Stranger found itself back at the order and breathing a sigh of relief, it decided that maybe it should meditate on its choices and perhaps why it was that it kept sidestepping back to those the Amulet of Zulo had transformed. The very ones the Stranger itself had delivered the medallion to in various methods, sometimes under the instructions of Elder Man. Approaching its private chamber, the Stranger entered, glad that it had encountered nobody and sitting down on the floor, facing the farthest corner away from the door, it closed its eyes and began to run through the mantras that would take it into the deep trance.
But meditation eluded the Stranger and after about ten minutes of just sitting there, the Stranger stood and began to pace, thoughts about non-intervention and Nick seeing it troubling the Strangers thoughts.
"Wouldn't be considered intervention by the fact that we deliver the Amulets of Zulo to those that are destined to receive them," the Stranger rationalised as it continued to pace, thinking that it must all be some form of intervention and that the code of non-intervention was flawed.
Confused, the Stranger left its chambers and began to wander the halls of the order, lost in thought, not really paying attention where it was going. Presently, the stranger found itself in the Hall of Holding, the room the Amulets of Zulo sometimes return to after their use before being distributed back out into the world by the Lower Order of the Androgynous, which was what the Stranger belonged to. Spying that it was empty, the Stranger entered and moved over to one of the open windows, but stopped when it spotted one of the medallions resting on one of the thirteen plinths was one of Amulets of Zulo.
Thinking, still troubled by the fact that it hesitated when it could have stopped the child, the Stranger headed for the plinth and picking up the medallion, it reasoned, "I could give the child the amulet and simply tell the Higher Order that the child was destined," but knew immediately that this was foolish as the Higher Order knew who and who wasn't destined to receive the amulet.
Almost putting it back down, the Stranger instead slipped the Amulet of Zulo into its robes and taking one final look about, deciding that it would deal with the consequences when they presented themselves as it took one final look about the chamber and then side-stepped.
As the Stranger vanished, the man that had visited Justin, and had offered a way out to the transforming fox-girl who hadn't been destined for that transformation, stepped back into the room from the balcony he had been standing on, watching all that had transpired. Knowing that accidents sometimes occurred and that the order wasn't omnipotent, the man, sometimes called the Dapper Man, thought about what he should do when it came to what the Stranger had just done. After a moment, the Dapper Man decided to wait and see where the cards would land and turning away, he headed back out onto the balcony.