Petty Squabble [ROUND 3] [Goldhenge]

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

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Parsley picked up the device at his feet. He had little doubt that it was a weapon, and there were too many illusion-addled villagers roaming around to let it stay around where any of them could stumble onto it.

He held it in his palm, and concentrated on changing it into bread.

As the device transformed, Parsley was struck by how strange the composition of it was. What was it made of? Some kind of metal, of course, but what else? It was... unusual. And yet... Familiar. Had he encountered this somewhere before?

And then he remembered it.

"Baron Stein!"

The Baron looked up from his notes and turned to the old demon hunter.

"Ah, yes. I thought you'd show your face soon enough. After all, I already caught one rat sneaking around."

He turned his head towards the strange contraption of metal and glass to his left. Within, Parsley was restrained, his hands suspended in midair by streams of electricity.

"Don't worry. I have no intention of harming him. On the contrary, I intend to study him."

As he spoke, the Baron reached behind his back and retrieved a strange device from the table.

"On the other hand... I doubt that you have anything to offer my research."

He raised the device, and fired it at the old hunter. A blast of electricity shot out from the weapon's barrel.

Parsley's master was quick to react, however. He had readied himself to dodge the moment the Baron's hand had vanished, and the blast struck a large metal sphere behind him. The hunter swiftly fired a bolt from his crossbow back at the self-proclaimed scientist, striking him in the hand and causing him to drop his weapon.

Stein quickly dropped to the ground to retrieve it, but as he stood up, the old hunter knocked over one of the numerous device littering the lab.

"STOP!" the Baron screamed. "It took me months to perfect that!"

The old man grinned.

"Try and make me, ya bastard."

Stein cursed under his breath. This fool could cause untold damage to his lab if this battle kept up!

But the Baron still had a bargaining chip.

"You know," he commented, "that device your apprentice is in is rather delicate. Unplug the wrong wire, and who knows what might happen to him?"

The hunter laughed.

"Stein, ya fool," he said, still chuckling. "When's the last time ya even looked at my boy over there?"

Stein turned his head. Parsley was still trapped, his hands unable to reach anything...

Then he saw the smile on the younger hunter's face as the air around his hands and wrists turned to bread. The electricity couldn't pass through it.

Parsley pulled his hands out of the bread, and then touched the capsule itself.

"Impossible! He can turn the air itself to bread?" Stein screamed.

His plans were ruined. But he still had one chance.

Stein pressed a button underneath his table as Parsley tore his way through the loaf that had moments ago been his prison. The room began to shake around them.

"This castle won't last long," the Baron said with a grin as he turned to flee. "I'd suggest you leave while you can."

Parsley ran after him, but his master's protests gave him pause. He sighed, and ran out the other way with the old man.

As Parsley fled, he heard the Baron's shouts behind him.

"Farewell, hunters! Perhaps we'll meet again! Ahahahahaha!"

The Baron's machines. They'd had that same strange material... or something much like it, at the least. He'd called it "wire", hadn't he?

Was the Baron here? It was a distressing thought. Though not outright influenced or possessed by demons, Baron Stein was still a dangerous man. If he had come to this village as well...

Perhaps the demon had brought him here? He might have made a promise to lure Parsley to this village, so that the Baron could study him... or perhaps kill him, if he still held a grudge.

This village seemed more dangerous by the moment. And the only ally he had found was an ill-tempered knight who was an easy victim for the demon's illusions. How many villagers had died to this trickery?

Parsley looked at the strange machine - stranger even than the Baron's devices had been - cowering before him.

He sighed. He could not leave this man alone. Not in good conscience.

"Sir Archibald!" he shouted at Six. "Your reckless behavior endangers innocents. I must ask you to refrain from raising your sword in anger until the demon is slain. Do you understand me?"