"Has anyone seen Malia?"
The paladin looks up from a heap of theological texts — an assortment of books, scrolls, and pamphlets of varying language and antiquity. He was frowning already, but his mouth tips unhappily. "About the time she's fond of an afternoon nap," he says. "Thought she and thee would be abed, Steady."
The archer stretches and yawns. "I thought likewise," she allows — "which is why I ask, since I've not seen her."
The paladin hastily closes the book in front of him.
Their steps take them to the dwarven waypost's hearthroom, where a huddle of scarred anvilthanes are teaching the berserker some manner of complicated dice game.
"Ulfrun! When did you see the wizard last, big man?"
"She stepped out," he says, rolling precision-cut polished stones between his palms, eyes on the other players' held and ventured dice, their rolled and scored combinations, the game's fluctuations. "Wanted more of the the bird-shaped pastries with the wine-stewed fruit inside, from the street stall, aye?"
"Long ago, was it?" the paladin says casually.
The berserker lifts his eyes from the game. "Ah, horsepiss," he says, heavy with resignation.
The town is a mix of old dwarven fortification and more recent trade-town, an opportunistic crossroad of surface routes with the waypost's access to the dwarven Unterbahn. They saunter the streets making casual enquiries.
The pastry vendor is packing up, day's stock sold, when they find him; remembers seeing the wizard some time earlier from their description, and her delight in his wares. On the subject of her subsequent destination, he can only shrug.
"Our thanks," the archer says, nodding, and then quietly to her companions, "well, she can't have discovered too much trouble, aye? Town's still standing—"
Her mouth twists in counterpoint to the words, and the paladin nods and pats her arm. "She's fine," he says, with the steadiness of a man who's said it on battlefields, to settle the terror of green recruits, and the archer's mouth twists further in recognition of the trick, but she takes a breath and nods back.
Scant minutes later, they round a corner and find a little tented stall, a small crowd of children in front, with traditional hand puppets bobbing in a window in the front of it: Joan and Punchinello, the Baby, the Cleric of St. Custard, the Dragon, the Hangman, Toby Dog, a string of sausages, swazzled yelling and rowdy beatings with a stick all around.
Right in the middle of it all, Malia is seated on the ground, half-eaten pastry in one hand, yelling along with the children: Behind you! as up pops the Wizard, right behind Punchinello, and yells: "No gods! No masters!—"
"ONLY ME!" the crowd yells along with the puppet, and Malia lets out a long, delighted, cackling laugh, continuing right through the Paladin whacking the Wizard with his holy glowing stick.
