Petty Squabble [ROUND 3] [Goldhenge]

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

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Parsley silently cursed himself as he jumped back to avoid Six's blade. He'd known the demon was twisting the words he heard - obviously, the knight was having the same experience. Parsley had probably come across as some sort of impudent prankster. Most likely the knight had gone through what he perceived as a particularly harrowing experience, and wasn't in the mood to humor troublemakers.

Even so, the level of violence this knight was showing was excessive. Most of the knights Parsley had met were able to restrain themselves somewhat even under heavy stress.

Most of them. There was one notable exception...

"This is a job for the knights, old man. Not for you and your apprentice." Sir Archibald sneered. "I recommend you leave now before you get in our way."

"Funny," said the old hunter. "I was about to give ye the same advice."

"Now listen here," Archibald growled. "I will not take this disrespect. Are you suggesting that my men cannot capture a small band of highwaymen?"

"They're not highwayman, Captain. They're demons. They want to lure yer men here. Damned if I know why, though most likely it's to grind up yer bones and bathe in yer blood."

"Demons! You and your fairy tales. Do you know what I think, old man? I think the bandits offered you a bribe to scare us off. Just tell the authorities that they're demons and you'll handle it, and they'll back off out of superstitious fear. That was your plan. Well, it might work with a more dim-witted captain, but it won't work with me."

"Yer a daft fool if ye think I can be swayed by mere coin, Archibald." The old man produced a pouch from his belt. "In fact, ye've just reminded me why I bothered comin' to meet ye in the first place. Here."

Sir Archibald took the pouch of coins and flung it to the ground in disgust.

"Are you bribing me to stand down? I should have you arrested on the spot!"

"No, sir!" Parsley chimed in. "This isn't a bribe, sir. This is compensation."

"Compensation?"

"Aye, sir," the apprentice hunter said with a smile. "It's to cover the costs of shoein' yer men's horses."

Sir Archibald blinked.

"Why are you giving me enough money to shoe all our horses if it's not a bribe?"

"Well, sir, we thought ye'd be wantin' it. After all, the horses won't be gettin' very far walkin' on bread."

It had been Parsley's first experience with the bearded knight's infamous temper. The strange machine's wild attacks were more than a little reminiscent of the encounter.

"Calm down, Sir Archibald!" Parsley screamed at his pursuer. "It's not me ye want, it's the demon!"

"Archibald? Demon?" The spinning of Six's blade slowed a bit as he tried to take this new data in. This response was completely outside of the host's programming.

Unless the contestant was crazy? That was a possibility. Six pondered this for a moment, until he heard a voice coming in a nearby room.

***

Private Archibald Bartleby couldn't understand why the hell his communicator wasn't working. Had the command center been shut down? Was the battery dead? He didn't know a damn thing about how these stupid gizmos work.

After a while, he decided to just try shouting into it. Maybe he'd turned the volume down or something.

"HELLO! THIS IS ARCHIBALD! DO YOU READ ME?"

Unfortunately, due to an accident of timing, he had happened to shout it when Six was pondering Archibald's identity, and also still in kill-mode.

The Gamehost entered the door to investigate, and then his programming handled the rest.

***

"What's that imbecile gone and done now?" Parsley muttered, running towards the door he'd noticed the 'knight' enter moments before. "The demon must be delighted to have him around, he's bloody easy to manipulate."