RE: Petty Squabble [ROUND 3] [Goldhenge]
10-30-2013, 09:56 AM
John was ecstatic. At the first chance he got, he ducked into the nearest available quiet, private corner and started frantically scanning through the comm frequencies. This place was alive with signals, buzzing with traffic, and it was all John could do to stop himself shouting his glee from the rooftops.
This place was alive. The planet itself may have been a primitive slophole, but the universe around it was crawling with traffic, its many and sundry civilizations mingling and trading and warring in the sort of chaotic, fast-paced throng that John literally lived for. Coming from a lonely, locked off, and completely isolated world to this one was like dipping into a hot tub after an hours-long trek through the snow, the excitement of it all searing into him, nearly painful, blocking out any sensation but joy.
Soon, though, the moment passed, and John realized he'd been wasting time being high on life. He had business to attend to, for crying out loud, what was he doing faffing about down here? It was the work of a second to identify a nearby vessel and send off a distress signal. Stranded stranger, trapped on a primitive world, high risk of interfering with local society, send help, etc. It wasn't hard to guess, based on the ship's comm traffic and transmission techniques, what sorts of views they'd have and what sorts of tools they'd have at their disposal, and when noninterference is one of your highest ideals and you've got teleporters on hand, your course of action is obvious.
John Smith vanished from the face of the world less than half a minute after he sent his transmission, off gallivanting about the stars as he'd been born to do.
-
The first name on Parsley's list hadn't ended up being all that useful. The town drunkard had a problem with keeping his stories on one track, and after asking about the demon five times and getting tales that led off to five different diatribes, the demon hunter decided that he'd just try the next person and hope they were more focused.
Person two had been perfect. A matronly old woman who earned a tidy paycheque hobbling around the town and passing on messages, Maude Krillbicket was in a prime position to pick up on every rumour there was, and as she'd sternly inform anyone who tried to condescend to her, her mind was as sharp as it'd ever been and she could manage without the help of a young fool just fine, thank you very much. There wasn't a fact in the town that escaped being filed away in her mind, and she could tell you anything from what sorts of treats the town baker was making for today to how old Mayor Elmwood had been when he'd got his fool head caught in a fence some fifty-odd years back. Maude was a repository of every goings-on that had on-gone in Goldhenge in living memory, and she'd certainly had a thing or two to say about the demon.
"Four weeks ago was when it all got started," she told Parsley, keeping her pace around town as she talked. "The Templeton boy, David, and his lady love, Jennifer Allis, had been meeting quietly in the center of town every night for two weeks straight, keeping it a complete secret (or rather, failing miserably in the effort to do so). Their families were hardly approving of the matter (despite what Mr. and Mrs. Allis themselves got up to back in their day), and when neither child was found anywhere in town one day, everyone went and assumed that they'd run off to Ironhold to get married and settle down. The Templetons have family out that way, you see, and apparently they'd been much more supportive of the lovebirds' relationship than anyone here in town.
"Trouble is, when David's father sent a letter off to Ironhold to ask the kids to come back, promising to be more supportive, their family out there had no idea what he was talking about. David and Jennifer had never gone to Ironhold at all, and when the two families realized that, they roused half the town and started searching!
"It was near a week from when they were taken to when we found the bodies; the poor children had been just ripped apart by something, and it was far more comforting to just think it was a bear, ignoring the fact that bears may prowl around the edge of town, but no bear comes in to the Henge, takes two struggling kids down without a sound, and drags them out to the woods without leaving so much as a footprint.
"Things got worse right quick after that. One week exactly after David and Jennifer were taken, the smith's apprentice went missing as well. He and Fitz had come up with some sort of test to work out who-knows-what about the Goldhenge, and when Fitz tried to find the boy the next morning, all he found was the doodad they'd made, broken into pieces. Another search party was called up, and when they found what was left of the body, the local Mouthpiece of the Holy Order pegged it as the work of a demon. Most people, myself included, figured it was just more of their usual hogwash, but the mayor agreed to send for a demon hunter just to be safe (that'd be you), and as you dawdled on your way to our fair township, people kept on disappearing, week after week, like clockwork."
Parsley thanked the woman for her help and went on his way. The next name on his list was clear across town (the blacksmith under whom one of the victims was apprenticed), and he wanted some time to sort some things out in his head. It could simply be a hungry demon coming out for a weekly snack- but why, then, would it come so far into town? A demon attached to the Henge, perhaps? What would cause that to be active now, after not plaguing the town for so long before? Perhaps the killings were in fact a distraction; it was not out of the realm of possibility for a demon to go to all that effort to simply keep their real motives a secret.
Hopefully, he thought, the next person he talked to would help narrow down just which theories were most likely.
Unfortunately, though, at the sight of the smiling, friendly face on the other side of the anvil, Parsley's thoughts shot from one demon to another, and he didn't think he'd be getting much useful information at the blacksmith's after all.
"Ye," Parsley said, stating the obvious to buy himself time while he glanced around to evaluate possible weapons, "are not Franklin Fitzsimmons."
"No," John replied, all cheer and warmth, "I am not." He took a step or two one side, submerged the nail he was working on in a bath of cold water, and then turned back to Parsley, hands stretched out to either side in a peaceful gesture. "Fitz didn't come back after lunch, so I offered to step in, that's all. Mr. McMalligan needs these nails for tomorrow morning, and if they're going to-"
Parsley cut him off with a threatening step forward, speaking in a hard, steady voice. "Enough tricks, demon. I know not what trick ye're carrying out now, but-"
John interrupted back, putting on a very hurt expression and tone. "Come now, Parsley, you're just going to jump to conclusions on me like that? Anything I'm doing has to be a trick, I can't just be blackly smithing for once?"
"Ye admitted what ye were doing," Parsley replied. "Ye said right out, ye are the demon subjecting us to all this. Ye cannot expect me to accept that your actions now are innocent."
John held up his hands. "Okay, okay. I'm not denying what I've done. Does that really mean you have to start in on me right here and now, though?"
"Wouldn't it? Tell me, would these people really not be better off if I dispatched ye right here?"
"Look. You know better than I how important a blacksmith is to a town, right?"
Parsley ground his teeth. "Aye. A town without a smith can't hardly build anything new."
"So tell me: Who was there to step up and fill Mr. McMalligan's order? Was there a protege waiting in the wings to cover for his mentor? Not that I saw. Is there a competing blacksmith shop in town, happy to grab up the extra business? Not that I've seen. As far as I can tell, if I hadn't offered my services, Mr. McMalligan would be out of luck, and the whole town would start to suffer without its smith."
"Ye speak as though the smith is departed from this world, not missing for mere hours. Could be ye've disposed of him so ye can take his place."
John snorted. "Yeah, that's definitely something I would do. Look, I was talking to Mr. McMalligan, and by the sounds of things, Fitz, the regular smith, is a very punctual man. It's not like him to be so late, and with the rumours of a demon plaguing the town-"
Parsley cut him off. "They're not rumours. As it happens, I came here to get some facts from the man ye're impersonating."
"Impersonating? Me? I'm not impersonating anybody! I just happened to be in a place to help the people of this town, so I'm-"
"Spare me your lies, demon. If I can't learn anything of actual use here, I'm not going to stand around and let ye waste my time."
-
"So anyway, after that, he went off to do some more investigating, being all 'I'm keeping my eyes on ye' and whatnot. I'm pretty sure he'd still love to see me exorcised or whatever, but at least he's planning to wait until they can get another smith."
Captain M'Tikk stared at him. "But that makes no sense," he said. "If you didn't want him on your case, why go back down in the first place?" (John really did need to compliment the medical researchers of the Unified Systems. The USS Fenwick had an astonishingly well-equipped medical bay for such a small ship, and the range of pharmaceuticals its systems could synthesize was just incredible. Compliance drugs, truth serums, conscience suppressors... He was like a kid in a candy store when he found all that.)
"Well, see, Captain, here's the thing. Sure, I could just run off, having adventures and doing my job, but that doesn't mean this competition I'm in ceases to exist. I'm still entered, like it or not, so even if I run halfway across the galaxy, the moment a robot goes mental and kills a family, bam, off I go to the next universe. This is as good as it gets, really, and I've got no desire to go popping off to who-knows-what-hellhole when I could be living it up around here."
"So, what, you're going to stick around and try and keep the peace?"
John grinned. "I know, right? Me, trying to stop things from getting violent? It's crazy."
"Yeah," M'Tikk replied, glancing over at the primitive blacksmith bound and gagged in the corner, "I'd say crazy's a good word for all this."
This place was alive. The planet itself may have been a primitive slophole, but the universe around it was crawling with traffic, its many and sundry civilizations mingling and trading and warring in the sort of chaotic, fast-paced throng that John literally lived for. Coming from a lonely, locked off, and completely isolated world to this one was like dipping into a hot tub after an hours-long trek through the snow, the excitement of it all searing into him, nearly painful, blocking out any sensation but joy.
Soon, though, the moment passed, and John realized he'd been wasting time being high on life. He had business to attend to, for crying out loud, what was he doing faffing about down here? It was the work of a second to identify a nearby vessel and send off a distress signal. Stranded stranger, trapped on a primitive world, high risk of interfering with local society, send help, etc. It wasn't hard to guess, based on the ship's comm traffic and transmission techniques, what sorts of views they'd have and what sorts of tools they'd have at their disposal, and when noninterference is one of your highest ideals and you've got teleporters on hand, your course of action is obvious.
John Smith vanished from the face of the world less than half a minute after he sent his transmission, off gallivanting about the stars as he'd been born to do.
-
The first name on Parsley's list hadn't ended up being all that useful. The town drunkard had a problem with keeping his stories on one track, and after asking about the demon five times and getting tales that led off to five different diatribes, the demon hunter decided that he'd just try the next person and hope they were more focused.
Person two had been perfect. A matronly old woman who earned a tidy paycheque hobbling around the town and passing on messages, Maude Krillbicket was in a prime position to pick up on every rumour there was, and as she'd sternly inform anyone who tried to condescend to her, her mind was as sharp as it'd ever been and she could manage without the help of a young fool just fine, thank you very much. There wasn't a fact in the town that escaped being filed away in her mind, and she could tell you anything from what sorts of treats the town baker was making for today to how old Mayor Elmwood had been when he'd got his fool head caught in a fence some fifty-odd years back. Maude was a repository of every goings-on that had on-gone in Goldhenge in living memory, and she'd certainly had a thing or two to say about the demon.
"Four weeks ago was when it all got started," she told Parsley, keeping her pace around town as she talked. "The Templeton boy, David, and his lady love, Jennifer Allis, had been meeting quietly in the center of town every night for two weeks straight, keeping it a complete secret (or rather, failing miserably in the effort to do so). Their families were hardly approving of the matter (despite what Mr. and Mrs. Allis themselves got up to back in their day), and when neither child was found anywhere in town one day, everyone went and assumed that they'd run off to Ironhold to get married and settle down. The Templetons have family out that way, you see, and apparently they'd been much more supportive of the lovebirds' relationship than anyone here in town.
"Trouble is, when David's father sent a letter off to Ironhold to ask the kids to come back, promising to be more supportive, their family out there had no idea what he was talking about. David and Jennifer had never gone to Ironhold at all, and when the two families realized that, they roused half the town and started searching!
"It was near a week from when they were taken to when we found the bodies; the poor children had been just ripped apart by something, and it was far more comforting to just think it was a bear, ignoring the fact that bears may prowl around the edge of town, but no bear comes in to the Henge, takes two struggling kids down without a sound, and drags them out to the woods without leaving so much as a footprint.
"Things got worse right quick after that. One week exactly after David and Jennifer were taken, the smith's apprentice went missing as well. He and Fitz had come up with some sort of test to work out who-knows-what about the Goldhenge, and when Fitz tried to find the boy the next morning, all he found was the doodad they'd made, broken into pieces. Another search party was called up, and when they found what was left of the body, the local Mouthpiece of the Holy Order pegged it as the work of a demon. Most people, myself included, figured it was just more of their usual hogwash, but the mayor agreed to send for a demon hunter just to be safe (that'd be you), and as you dawdled on your way to our fair township, people kept on disappearing, week after week, like clockwork."
Parsley thanked the woman for her help and went on his way. The next name on his list was clear across town (the blacksmith under whom one of the victims was apprenticed), and he wanted some time to sort some things out in his head. It could simply be a hungry demon coming out for a weekly snack- but why, then, would it come so far into town? A demon attached to the Henge, perhaps? What would cause that to be active now, after not plaguing the town for so long before? Perhaps the killings were in fact a distraction; it was not out of the realm of possibility for a demon to go to all that effort to simply keep their real motives a secret.
Hopefully, he thought, the next person he talked to would help narrow down just which theories were most likely.
Unfortunately, though, at the sight of the smiling, friendly face on the other side of the anvil, Parsley's thoughts shot from one demon to another, and he didn't think he'd be getting much useful information at the blacksmith's after all.
"Ye," Parsley said, stating the obvious to buy himself time while he glanced around to evaluate possible weapons, "are not Franklin Fitzsimmons."
"No," John replied, all cheer and warmth, "I am not." He took a step or two one side, submerged the nail he was working on in a bath of cold water, and then turned back to Parsley, hands stretched out to either side in a peaceful gesture. "Fitz didn't come back after lunch, so I offered to step in, that's all. Mr. McMalligan needs these nails for tomorrow morning, and if they're going to-"
Parsley cut him off with a threatening step forward, speaking in a hard, steady voice. "Enough tricks, demon. I know not what trick ye're carrying out now, but-"
John interrupted back, putting on a very hurt expression and tone. "Come now, Parsley, you're just going to jump to conclusions on me like that? Anything I'm doing has to be a trick, I can't just be blackly smithing for once?"
"Ye admitted what ye were doing," Parsley replied. "Ye said right out, ye are the demon subjecting us to all this. Ye cannot expect me to accept that your actions now are innocent."
John held up his hands. "Okay, okay. I'm not denying what I've done. Does that really mean you have to start in on me right here and now, though?"
"Wouldn't it? Tell me, would these people really not be better off if I dispatched ye right here?"
"Look. You know better than I how important a blacksmith is to a town, right?"
Parsley ground his teeth. "Aye. A town without a smith can't hardly build anything new."
"So tell me: Who was there to step up and fill Mr. McMalligan's order? Was there a protege waiting in the wings to cover for his mentor? Not that I saw. Is there a competing blacksmith shop in town, happy to grab up the extra business? Not that I've seen. As far as I can tell, if I hadn't offered my services, Mr. McMalligan would be out of luck, and the whole town would start to suffer without its smith."
"Ye speak as though the smith is departed from this world, not missing for mere hours. Could be ye've disposed of him so ye can take his place."
John snorted. "Yeah, that's definitely something I would do. Look, I was talking to Mr. McMalligan, and by the sounds of things, Fitz, the regular smith, is a very punctual man. It's not like him to be so late, and with the rumours of a demon plaguing the town-"
Parsley cut him off. "They're not rumours. As it happens, I came here to get some facts from the man ye're impersonating."
"Impersonating? Me? I'm not impersonating anybody! I just happened to be in a place to help the people of this town, so I'm-"
"Spare me your lies, demon. If I can't learn anything of actual use here, I'm not going to stand around and let ye waste my time."
-
"So anyway, after that, he went off to do some more investigating, being all 'I'm keeping my eyes on ye' and whatnot. I'm pretty sure he'd still love to see me exorcised or whatever, but at least he's planning to wait until they can get another smith."
Captain M'Tikk stared at him. "But that makes no sense," he said. "If you didn't want him on your case, why go back down in the first place?" (John really did need to compliment the medical researchers of the Unified Systems. The USS Fenwick had an astonishingly well-equipped medical bay for such a small ship, and the range of pharmaceuticals its systems could synthesize was just incredible. Compliance drugs, truth serums, conscience suppressors... He was like a kid in a candy store when he found all that.)
"Well, see, Captain, here's the thing. Sure, I could just run off, having adventures and doing my job, but that doesn't mean this competition I'm in ceases to exist. I'm still entered, like it or not, so even if I run halfway across the galaxy, the moment a robot goes mental and kills a family, bam, off I go to the next universe. This is as good as it gets, really, and I've got no desire to go popping off to who-knows-what-hellhole when I could be living it up around here."
"So, what, you're going to stick around and try and keep the peace?"
John grinned. "I know, right? Me, trying to stop things from getting violent? It's crazy."
"Yeah," M'Tikk replied, glancing over at the primitive blacksmith bound and gagged in the corner, "I'd say crazy's a good word for all this."