Petty Squabble [ROUND 3] [Goldhenge]

It had been a difficult month for Parsley.

Everything had started out well enough. Brother Alfonso had told him of the Order's plight and how Mayor Elmwood, deceived by illusions, refused to let them rebuild their cathedral. After dealing with that problem, the Order was free to aid Parsley in battling the demon.

The only problem was that the demon was still taking the place of the village smith, but once the COFCACo guild started up, that was taken care of. And so Parsley marched right into the smithy and confronted "John Smith".

It wasn't much of a battle, in the end. A brief exchange of insults, a few shots from Parsley's crossbow, and a splash of holy water were enough to make Smith vanish in a flash of light, leaving not a trace behind.

And yet, ever since then, it seemed as though the village's troubles had only grown.

The most immediate problem, for Parsley, was that nothing seemed to change. He had expected the illusion to melt away, but the town looked identical - down to the strange golden structure in the middle.

Yet the mirror shard showed the same images. The illusion was truly gone. That seemed odd at first, but hardly inexplicable; Parsley had already noticed the familiarity of the town.

It was clear enough, then, that the so-called Goldhenge must have been created during the demon's reign of terror. But when Parsley began asking of it, everyone in town said it had been there for as long as they could recall.

They must have been under the demon's influence so long that they forgot the times when they knew better. No one recognized any town Parsley could name; and he, in turn, had never heard of the places they spoke of.

And then there was the body.

Parsley had heard of the blood-drained bodies before vanquishing "Smith", but then another turned up after his defeat. It could not have been his work.

Parsley's first thought was simply that there had been another demon, perhaps in league with the first, or perhaps by chance. But then he recalled the abandoned workshop, where he had found the mirror shard, and a more disturbing scenario struck him.

The old alchemist might still be around. Perhaps he was looking for blood for some gruesome ritual. Or perhaps it was another twisted effort to lure Parsley into a trap, with no concern for anyone else who might get caught up in it.

Parsley wanted nothing more than to track the killer down. But the alchemist had outwitted him once before - he and his mentor both, in fact. If he was the culprit, Parsley would need aid, and so he asked the Holy Order first.

He was told very graciously by the new Mayor that yes, they would be delighted to assist him in tracking down the murderer, but sadly there was much to be taken care of in rebuilding the town's faith, and surely Parsley could see the importance of that.

And he could. But after three weeks of aiding them, and two more murders, he was beginning to wonder if the Holy Order was really doing all it could.

Finally, one night Parsley decided that was less important than whether he was doing all he could.

---

After the unveiling of the streetlights, Envoy had no particular need to leave its office at night. There was nothing else to show off in the night hours, and it didn't need to sleep.

It wasn't even an issue for COFCA as far as keeping track of the battle, because the engineers had worked out some "asynchronous transfer protocol" or similar mostly-meaningless jargon. What it meant, essentially, was that they wouldn't receive any transmissions from Envoy until there was already a meeting, and no matter how long they took agreeing on what to say, the reply would be close to immediate from Envoy's perspective.

Because of this system, COFCA's engineers would explain, if a demon hunter burst into the office in the middle of the night and said something along the lines of,

"Evening, Guildmaster. Sorry fer the trouble, but I need aid and the Order isn't available. I'm headed to the Wizard Castle to search for a killer, and I'd prefer not to face its dangers alone. Can any of yer men aid me?"

then the message would be received by the council in the morning meeting and they could spend the entire meeting discussing the pros and cons of the proposal before sending a carefully-worded response, probably along the lines of "What's in it for us?"

The message would not be received by a lone janitor in the middle of the night, desperate enough for something to do besides sweeping the floors that he would respond with something like,

"Yeah, sure, why not? Sounds like a way to kill some time."

But if the above scenario were to happen somehow, COFCA's engineers would be quick to assure you that it was in no way their fault.