"It started a week ago, on the eve of the harvest festival - now there's a cruel joke. A strange blight came across the crops. The plants, they were corrupted, wilting and rotting before our very eyes. By the morning, our entire harvest was nothing but filth."
"It affected everything?"
"Aye! Turnips, 'taters, corn... It's not unknown for one crop to suffer, maybe two, but not all of them and never so fast."
"Were they duped?" you ask. It was common for con men to target these outlying settlements. They would use a rudimentary spell to duplicate a wagon of seed, then sell it cheap to unsuspecting farmers. The seed would grow just fine for a while, until the life-sustaining magic that had created them faded. The crop would swiftly die, often leaving the farmer in dire straights.
Joshua's bushy white eyebrows twitch at your half-accusation. He avoids your gaze. "N-no. No no. They were good crop seed from last year!"
You give a slight sigh, like a disappointed parent. The elder is many times your age, but you could be four hundred years old for all he knows, an impression you like to reinforce. "Joshua, need I remind you it is a criminal offense to lie to a wizard going about his duties. Were the seeds you used to grow these crops legitimate?"
"We... were assured by the Goblin-" he mutters quietly, defeated.
"A Goblin's word is worth even less than their wares; you must know that." Another sigh and a stern glare. "I should hope you haven't brought me all this way on a mere matter of faulty grain, Joshua. Do you have samples of the blight?"
"My granddaughter does- Ilia!"
A young woman steps forward. Like all the people of this village, she has a plain face, with dull brown hair cropped short and a thin, wiry body, though she looks better fed than the others. A piece of silver glitters around her neck. It is the symbol of the Goddess; the same symbol, you notice, that adorns the surface of a clay pot that she pushes into your hands.
She sits back and watches you closely with an expression of open distaste, her eyes flitting occasionally to the bowl in your hands. With a smile, you realise she is expecting your unholy body to burst into flames at the merest touch of her holy symbol. These religious types always do.
Twisting the bowl in your hands to shift around the blighted ears of corn that sit in it, you can see nothing out of the ordinary. They are shriveled, with brown-black kernels like rotten teeth and leaves that are dry and yellow as old parchment. "This appears to be regular blight."
"Bu-but it didn't spread like it!" Joshua exclaims, growing agitated. He can see he is losing you. "It was fast... faster than anything I've ever seen before. Faster than we could tear it out. Faster than we could burn it. It was unnatural! You have to believe me!"
"I believe you," you assure him. But you don't. He has a desperate look to him. This is a remote village, a reclamation project settled less than forty years ago when the then-King decreed an program of rebuilding the lands lost to the creeping wild. It has no wealth and few neighbors to trade with if it had. They are relying on you to report back to your superiors with a conclusion of occult interference, which would necessitate that their liege lord deliver aid to see them through the winter months. If not, the blame will fall squarely on their shoulders and they will be left to fend for themselves.
But backwaters like this are always losing their harvests and involving the church or the study with false claims, tying up much needed manpower. Normally a wizard wouldn't have been sent this far out on so trivial a matter, but since this is your first case they're starting you off small. Besides, there's a nuance to their claim, an additional fact that is worth a cursory investigation.
"There was something else to your story. Tell me about these shadow creatures," you request.
"They've been seen around the village for months now,", Ilia interjects before Joshua can speak. "They were in the fields the night before the crops died, dozens of them. Nobody dared go out there, except me. They're like smoke. You can only see them when they move, and only out the corner of your eye; they disappear when you look at them straight."
"Did they appear to be doing anything in the fields? Were they interfering with the crops?"
"They were doing the work of demons," she says bluntly. "Drawing hellrunes in the soil. Polluting our land with magic. And I fail to see what a wizard can do to help. This isn't a job for a wizard. They should have sent a priestess."
"Ilia..." the elder tries to quiet her.
"But they should! A priestess could consecrate the ground in a day. Magic isn't any use against magic. It only makes things worse."
"Ilia, stop!" Joshua gasps. "Aye, a holy woman could clear the blight, but what good is that to us with winter at our doorsteps and our stores empty? With magic we can replace what we've lost."
"I'm afraid conjuring food is not the reason I'm here," you interject, keeping your voice level, even while smarting from the suggestion that your powers, years of training and finite toll be spent on such menial work. "These shadows, however, are."
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