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"Did the local nobles really appoint you to be mayor?" you ask. "I wouldn't have expected them to appoint someone so young, let alone a stranger in town."

Verity sighs as she shakes herself out of her trance. "I'm technically the acting mayor, until a proper one's appointed. Thorley was the only decent leadership prospect after Stephan died, but she was decades older than Stephan already. I passed through here when I was headed west to the sea, saw how disorganized we'd left everything, and I had to stay to help. Thorley made me her assistant, and after she died, everyone in town encouraged me to step up in the interim. The nobles are still debating the next official mayor. Assuming they bother to remember us at all."

"I don't remember us leaving things all that disorganized," you say. So far as you recall, you "saved" Elith and sorted everything out like always.

"Do you really think it's that simple?" Verity asks, frowning.

"What do you mean?" you ask.

Verity makes a sweeping gesture that seems to be designed to encompass all of Elith. "The omens! The trap we set for this town. We told them there was a cabal of monsters hiding among them, twisting their thoughts. That's not the sort of thing you get over easily, sealed portal or not. And on the heels of Stephan's betrayal, too? Every time something goes wrong here, any time there's any reason for mistrust, they can't help but wonder if a demon is behind it, and they're never going to stop, unless we confess."

She examines her map, smoothing the edge she ripped earlier. It's a map of Ithos, you can tell, with the different roads from Pasema to Elith heavily traced over. "I meant to just pass through here, on my way west to the coast," she says, in a softer voice. "The first night I was here, a woman was nearly executed. For petty theft, pickpocketing. She couldn't prove she wasn't a demon to the guards' satisfaction, and they nearly killed her for it. She stood there blurting desperate lies to prove her humanity until they agreed to spare her life. And I'm sure it wasn't the first time it happened." Verity exhales. "And we always said we never hurt anyone. I couldn't leave, after that. Mayor Thorley needed an assistant, so I did what I could, and I intend to keep doing that now that they've put me in her place."