Bernt went to find the Fergefield Mages’ Guild while the others went ahead to the bakery. The receptionist raised an eyebrow at Bernt’s scrawled note, but she agreed to submit it to the scryers when he pulled out Iriala’s token. Ideally, Bernt would have liked to spend the day here, looking through the library to see if they had any interesting texts about pyromancy, sorcery, or even elemental summoning. Unfortunately, that wasn’t going to work out today. He'd have to try to make time on his return trip.

Torvald, now an official representative of the Invigilation, was leaving the city on a mission from his goddess. Bernt, as his official legitimator, had no choice but to go with him. Not that he really minded. It might be interesting to see what a paladin of Ruzinia did on a regular day.

By the time Bernt found the west gate and the bakery where Elyn had taken the others, they were already coming back out. While the others carried one or two buns with a swirl of dark brown in the center, making appreciative noises as they sampled them, Nirlig stepped out the door with an entire armful. He looked around in panic as one near the top of the pile came loose, nearly tumbling to the floor. Torvald came to his rescue, pulling a large handkerchief out of his pocket. He wrapped as many as he could fit into it and presented the package to the goblin, who crammed what remained into his mouth.

“They’re even better than they smell,” he raved around a mouthful as Bernt approached. “If happiness had a flavor, then this would be it. Bernt, you have to try these, I got you a couple. You can thank me later.”

Suppressing a smile, Bernt accepted the proffered bun, nodding in thanks. It was different from the ones they had in Halfbridge – softer, for one, and with a nice caramelized glaze on the outside. The flavor was sweet and it was still warm. They practically melted in your mouth.

Nirlig watched him intently.

“Well?”

“They’re good.” Bernt said, taking another bite. “Do you think they have fresh bread?”

“Good?” Nirlig repeated, appalled. “Just good? What is wrong with you?”

Bernt shrugged. “I like them – they’re good. What’s the problem?”

Nirlig scoffed and turned away, shaking his head in disgust.

“Hey Torvald. What’s the mission, anyway? Do you know where we’re going?”

“Some kind of farm a few hours walk from here.” Torvald said, turning toward the gate and pointing. “We’re freeing someone from bondage.”

Elyn frowned at the paladin. “Wait, hold on. You mean a slave? I thought that wasn't a thing here anymore.”

Torvald shrugged. “There are indentureships, though I don't think that's what this is. It has to be pretty serious to get the Goddess involved.”

“You don't know?! How can you take on a quest without even knowing the objective?”

“I know that someone prayed for rescue, and that Ruzinia has called me to answer. What more do I need?"

Elyn threw up her hands.

***

It was past noon when they finally caught a glimpse of their destination, cresting a hill to reveal a narrow river valley below. Torvald stopped, peering down into it with interest. Nirlig, who’d been trying to work out how to make a sound come out of Elyn’s flute, nearly ran into him but was saved by the half-elf who hauled him back by his shoulder.

“That’s the one,” the paladin declared, pointing down toward a collection of sorry-looking buildings clustered around a large stream that ran the length of the valley. “Right down there.”

Uriah stared at the tiny settlement for a moment, his brow furrowed.

“How do you know? It looks like every other village we’ve seen so far. You really think they’re slavers?”

Torvald snorted and started down the winding road in front of them. “I’m guessing you guys can’t see the huge glyph spinning over the town, then? Ruzinia isn’t really known for subtlety.”

Bernt exchanged a glance with Uriah. Glyphs were generally only used in the direct practice of magic – so, by mages and enchanters. What was the point of showing one to a paladin?

“Hey, Torvald... what’s the glyph?”

Torvald shrugged without stopping. “I don’t know. Doesn’t matter. The goddess will speak to me if I really need to know.”

“It could be important,” Bernt insisted. “Even if it doesn’t mean anything to you. Maybe it’s a message for me or Uriah?”

The paladin looked back at them and raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you think she’d show it to you directly, then? It probably just means 'look here'.”

When nobody responded, he gave a small, resigned sigh and bent down, scratching something into the packed dirt. It was a circle with two small lines coming out of the top, next to an elongated arrow shape that pointed straight down. Bernt had never seen it before.

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It was a symbol of some kind, sure, but it lacked the smooth, flowing contours of a real glyph. What was it?

“That’s not a glyph,” Uriah said, confirming Bernt’s suspicions as he looked over the pyromancer’s shoulder. “Or, not a mage glyph, I should say. It’s a trade character, like people use out in the really rural villages where people don’t learn to read. You’d see them at the market sometimes, in my hometown. That’s the one for oxen. Could also be mules, donkeys, that kind of thing. Beasts of burden.”

Elyn gave the hydromancer a skeptical look before turning to Torvald, her hands on her hips.

“Torvald, we didn’t come all the way out here to free an animal from a farm, right? Please tell me that’s not what’s happening.”

In response, the paladin sighed and started walking down the road again. “Come on!”

It took another half-hour before they reached the first fields, and several minutes after that before they passed the first farmer, weeding his winter kale crops. He looked completely ordinary, certainly not like any kind of villain. The sight felt strange somehow. Ruzinia was the goddess of hopeless situations – one who people only called upon in desperate circumstances. So, what was she doing, calling Torvald to a sleepy farming village out in the middle of nowhere?

The houses grew a little more dense until, a minute later, they emerged into what passed for the village square here. It was a roughly circular open area ringed by what looked like a smithy, a bakery, a small temple to Eyeli and a handful of homes. Between those homes sat a few smaller shrines to whatever other gods the farmers here found cause to pray to. One of the larger ones had a crudely carved wooden statuette of a six-legged bear with insectile wings on it – a shrine to Garrus, the god of beekeeping and pollination.

The place wasn’t exactly a hive of activity, but it wasn’t deserted, either. There were a few people out, obviously working. The sound of laughter reached them from a few kids who chased each other down the unpaved streets on the other side of the square. When they came into view, most of them stopped what they were doing and watched them, clearly wary of strangers. No one immediately approached.

Torvald ignored them and led the group across the packed dirt toward the right, where a gnome was hanging laundry next to his house. A tiny gnome girl, probably his daughter, handed him clothes’ pins one after another as he worked. He nodded to himself and then waved to the gnome, who had stopped hanging laundry and was now looking at them as if trying to work out the quickest way to get rid of them.

“Hi, excuse me, I’ve been Sent here to speak to Linnie. Is she here?”

The gnome narrowed his eyes suspiciously before looking over the rest of the group. He spared an especially virulent glare for Nirlig.

“We don’t need any adventurer business here,” he said shortly, “and most certainly not with my Linnie.”

“Oh, sorry. I’m not an adventurer,” Torvald explained with an embarrassed smile. “I’m a paladin of Ruzinia. I have a task here.”

The tiny gnome girl jumped up and down in excitement. “I’m Linnie! You’re here for Runty, right? You gotta help him! They only feed him proper during plowing season, and he’s sick. It’s the middle of winter and he sleeps outside in the cold. They don’t even put him in the stable with the other animals. Everyone’s always so mean to him and he didn’t do anything. He’s gonna die – I can tell!”

The older gnome gave a long-suffering sigh and looked to the heavens.

“Linnie, what did you do?”

“You’re kidding.” Uriah chuckled, raising an eyebrow at Torvald. “You really did bring us out here to save an ox. I didn’t know Ruzinia even accepted prayers by proxy.”

“You told me that if Runty deserved help, then the gods would handle it.” Linnie told her father, wagging her finger at him in childish indignation. “So I told them, and they listened! One of them, anyway.”

The gnome groaned. “Oh no. We’re never going to hear the end of this.”

“Come on! I’ll show you where he is. You have to see for yourself, right? He’s staked out in a pen over there.”

“Wait a moment!” the older gnome said, rushing to stop her. “Don’t just go wandering off with strangers. Give me a minute and I’ll take them.”

They waited a moment as the gnome finished hanging a few bits of clothing on his line and put away his basket. Linnie, meanwhile, tapped her foot at him with a stormy expression. Finally, the gnome took his daughter by the hand and gestured for them to follow.

“We had a problem with raiders about ten years back,” he explained as they walked. “Goblins, at first, picking off the sheep and stripping the apple orchard at night. It stopped after a month or so, and we thought they’d moved on. But then, a few weeks later, a shepherd went missing. Big, tough fellow, too. Then the peddler didn’t show up. We went looking. Found the goblins’ camp first – what was left of it. A few broken bones, torn-up tents, and the smell. The peddler’s pack was there, too. We couldn’t really identify any of what was left of them. Cracked the bones to get at the marrow.”

“What was it?” Elyn asked when Torvald didn’t respond immediately. “Wyvern? Undead?”

The gnome shook his head. “We brought the whole town out with torches and pitchforks. Smoked them out into a clearing. Lost the baker’s son in the fight, but we brought them down. They’re tough, but stupid, too. And scared of fire. We were going to finish off the little one, too. Little monsters become big ones, you know? But old farmer Don figured we didn’t need to kill it. He’d lost a plow horse over the winter, see?”

“Yes, fine, I get it. But what is it?” Elyn insisted as they turned a corner. She stopped so abruptly that Bernt nearly bumped into her. “Oh.”

Suppressing his annoyance, Bernt stepped around the tall woman to see what all the fuss was about. Behind a low wall on what passed for the edge of the village a massive form sat huddled on the ground. It was huge, several times as big as an ox, naked and covered with pebbled gray skin. It was obviously malnourished, its skin cracked and hanging loosely from too-thin limbs and it had scars layered over each other on its flanks. Its tiny eyes were sunken, practically disappearing beneath its enormous brow.

Manacles and a heavy chain bound both its arms to a solid stone pillar at the center of the enclosure. It pressed itself into a corner and whimpered like a whipped dog.

“That’s…” Uriah trailed off and looked back at the others, as if to check that they were all seeing the same thing. “Are you using an ogre as a plowhorse?”

Nirlig let out a nervous giggle, eyes darting left and right as if looking for somewhere to run. Bernt could empathize. Even starved, bound and obviously beaten into submission, the creature was just so godsdamned big. Even sitting down and hunched over, it was still head and shoulders taller than him. At full strength, Bernt couldn’t imagine that something as small as that stone pillar would hold him.

“Runty didn’t do anything!” Linnie’s tiny voice piped up from behind the group. “You gotta help him!