"The guild sent me over as a candidate to assist you with some smithing work. I must admit that I have never done smithing, but I am skilled working with other materials and generally good with my hands." Considering my complete lack of smithing skill I am expecting some resistance, but he just nodes his head. "Let's see how you do then."

"Rade, come over her." One of the two apprentices come over at the command. "Rade here will show you how we do the shaping work for the weapons we are making. If you can master the shaping work, you have earned your wage." Rade takes me further to the back of the workshop. Several bars of steel are laid out a sample sword is on display. I assume that this is what we are making. "First we heat up one of the bars, then we hammer it out into the shape needed. Make sure to heat it regularly. When you are done Master will check the overall shape before you start making the blood grooves. Master will inspect again before taking over for the heat treatment."

Makes sense that the blacksmith will do the heat treatment and check the work of the apprentices throughout. Still most of the smithing process is seemingly within my remit. As soon as Rade shows me the first one, I start hammering away. I get the notification that I got the smithing skill quite quickly. Still, nothing replaces experience. With the strength and stamina acquired in the wilderness I keep going far beyond the intensity that Rade can manage. I seem to be passing the quality checks.

I keep going until the blacksmith comes and tells me to stop. Looking around, I realize it is already evening. "I greatly appreciate your efforts, but smithing work is banned from this points onwards to give the gentile town folk a good night sleep." The apprentices disappear home shortly after. I am left with the smith and joined by his wife who offers us some food. "Please have some, after all you worked all day without a break. Not seen many do that." Looks like my hard work has impressed the boss.

"Now that Rade is gone, I guess I can tell you that you overtook his level of quality late in the afternoon. Tomorrow I would like you to work the same job on your own. I will set Rade to assist myself, as I am struggling to keep up with the work you two were doing today." Looks like I got an ongoing job here. I get back to the farmhouse late in the evening. Though the girls are keen to know how it went today, I am ready for bed after a quick meal.

The following morning as I am leaving the house I notice a tilled field outside the house, looks like the girls have started a project on their own. Though it is early the workshop is preparing to start production. I take my post as if I am an old cog in the machine. By the time the blacksmith is up and running with his tempering I have a small stack of work for him.

It is still morning when my alert goes off. Looking at the map for my alert marker I can see that the girl I placed the marker on is outside the town walls and currently in close proximity to one individual and moving quickly towards the north side of the town walls. I need to get out there quickly. Turning to the blacksmith I dread to ask my boss for some time off this early in our work relationship. I explain that I have to deal with an emergency and I will be back as soon as possible. The blacksmith grumpily accepts telling me to be back before he clears my stack. That should give me an hour at most.

I head off at a sprint towards the eastern exit of the town. As I head out the gates I turn north. There seems to be no exit from the town on the north side. Because of this, there are hardly any people in this area. As I approach the marker I notice a big man carrying a sack on his shoulder. The marker indicate the girl is inside. As an experienced hunter, I stalk my prey. As I follow the man into a small forest, a small camp comes into sight. There is a horse and a wooden carriage. Not a fancy carriage, it looks like a shack on wheels, just more sturdy. The door is bolted. The kidnapper is met by a couple of other guys. One of them looks like the boss.

After inspecting the unconscious girl, the rogue slave trader has her locked in the wagon shack. I can see a number of girls on the inside. They are suspiciously quiet. Confident that I have found the culprits, I confront them. As they see me approaching, the two big assistants head towards me, looking intimidating. I summon my bow and pin their feet to the ground with an arrow per foot. The previously confident slave trader pales and turns to run. I consider putting an arrow up his behind, but pierces his leg instead. With all culprits crippled I open the wagon and see seven young girls. Six of them stare at me in silence. The seventh is still unconscious. I ask them to leave the wagon, assuring them that I will be taking them home. None respond. Must be the slave seal. Not sure what to do, I tie the injured men to the side and the roof of the wagon and roll back to the east entrance.

At the east entrance I confirm my identity as a hunter with the guild and explain that these are the kidnappers the lord is looking for. The guards let me through and instruct me to head to the guild. I stop outside the guild and go straight to the reception. The receptionist wonders why I seem to be in such a hurry. I explain that I need to get back to my day job. She understands, but asks me to be back around noon. "I will try."

Back at the workshop the blacksmith approaches me, as he is now out of swords to temper. "So what was this emergency." He does not look pleased. I explain the situation with the kidnapped girls, and that I set a trap for the kidnappers the previous day and had them tailed to their hideout. I am mostly concerned about how to explain away my alert skill. The blacksmith seems less interested in the latter part of the explanation. "You should have told me. One of my friends is missing a daughter." The blacksmith is actually smiling. "So you managed to do all that in the short time you were away?" "Yes, I rushed it all so I could get back though the guild would like for me to come back at noon. "No problem, I am coming with you."

I am well pleased with the reaction, and get working with renewed vigor. So far my impression of people is that they look out for themselves and no one else, but there looks to be exceptions. Around noon, the blacksmith and I head to the guild. Outside a number a parents are reunited with their daughters. The blacksmith go and speak to his friend, while I head to the reception.

The receptionist debriefs me fully and explain the things I did not understand. The six girls that did not speak or move had all been given the slave mark, and told to sit still in the wagon. The mark forced them to obey. The slave trader had the ownership, and though ownership can be changed, he had been summarily executed at the first opportunity, removing the restrictions put on the girls. "Can the slave mark be removed?" "Unfortunately not. A slave mark lasts until the death of the slave. I take it you have never been exposed to slavery since you grew up in the wilderness." The wilderness story saves me again. "I met no people until recently so slavery is an unknown to me."

The receptionist seems more than willing to explain. "Only women are enslaved." She hesitates, as if debating with herself whether or not to voice her personal view on this point, then continues. "Slaves form three categories, criminals made into slaves, slaves born into slavery and women sold into slavery by their guardians for monetary reasons. A father own his daughter for as long as they live. The marriage oath breaks this and makes her the property of the husband. The oath guards her from slavery, as the oath and the slave contract can not co-exist." The last bit is a confirmation of what Lawra told me.

The receptionist continues, "Good parents will never wish to sell their daughters into slavery." She nods her head towards the girl I watched getting kidnapped. The cute girl is clearly adored by her parents, who can't stop hugging her. "However, in desperate times the daughter might actually offer to sell herself to save the family. The more common story is that of the bad fathers who sees their daughters as their emergency savings. If a man wish to marry them, he might still demand a dowry equal to the cost of a slave."

Looking at the parents, one man and his daughter sticks out. He does not look relieved to have his daughter back, just annoyed that she got taken in the first place. He catches my stare and approaches me. "Would you like to buy my little girl, she already has the slave mark, she is a bit skinny, but I am sure she will grow into the curvy woman that her mom is." His misunderstanding of my stare and sales pitch takes my by surprise. This is the sad future for some of the girls that I just saved. Maybe I just saved their parents their life savings. A depressing thought.