“Cheska, you should tend to this man’s wounds.” Flip gestured bluntly to the guardsman lying on the temple floor, only half alive and bleeding from unseen wounds.

“Oh, is that right?” Cheska gave a sarcastic roll of her head before going and propping the man against her and carrying him over the the large open hearth a the center of the main room of the temple.

Flip didn’t bother lingering. He knew he wasn’t needed and that people seeing him dawdle would inspire panic and fear. Most of the inhabitants of Builend saw him as a nutter, an old shut in, or perhaps a heretic. But none who lived there seemed to doubt his abilities. Any man that could disintegrate an imp and carry on like it was any other day was something to be feared.

As he pressed on into the wine cellar, past the door which had been locked throughout his whole childhood but seemed carelessly free of any security, Flip took note of things that had changed. The old wine shelves had been moved to the back of the basement and several new ones set up throughout the rest of the room. The old woman’s knitting supplies were absent, as was the smell of decaying yarn. Where once there had been a chair where an old grandmotherly priestess had sat and pondered how best to care for those in her charge, was a stack of crates leaning haphazardly to the side. And then, in one of the far corners, where it had always been, the writing desk that had seldom been used by anyone other than Cheska. No one else had cared as much to learn perfect penmanship, but it seemed to be the only thing that had withstood the test of time.

To the side of the desk was a small pile of trash, the parcel wrappings among the mess. Flip strode carefully through the room, careful of the various teetering shelved items and containers, and began to rifle through the desks drawers and stacks. It was surprisingly well organized, or at least it seemed to be when Flip’s search began. It seemed strange that it would take so long to find the charms, when Flip remembered the very bottom left drawer. It had always stuck, and no one except for Joanna and Cheska had been strong enough to open it. Cheska had taken to using it as a hiding place long ago, and as Flip wrenched the wooden box of a drawer open, he was almost flattered to find his charms. Cheska had only ever stored her favorite things there—the things she shared only when forced. And there were other, smaller affects littered throughout the bottom of the drawer, some of which Flip recognized from long ago. But there, at the top, stacked neatly in a small lidless wooden box, were the charms. A few had been removed, but there were enough remaining.

Flip pulled a handful free and returned the drawer to its somewhat secure position, stuck in place and fitted roughly against the wooden frame of the desk. As the wizard made his way back through the cellar, intent to be on his way, he noticed something out of place. A broken bottle of wine. Such a thing would have never been left there in the corner where the rocking chair had been, even if the town had just started to burn. No one in this building would waste wine. And on closer inspection, the shelves near that corner had several empty spaces where some particularly old bottles would have been and a clear lack of dust indicated that they had been taken recently.

It had been interesting before that there hadn’t been a lock on the cellar door, but it could have been easily dismissed. But now, it was likely that there was someone else in the cellar stowing away and stealing valuable drink.

“I could waste my time and effort detecting you with magic, but I have more important things to do. If you remain here, I will have Cheska deliver her hammer to your hands for theft. Wine is sacred here.” Flip announced all this to the room and waited for a moment.

“I’m not leaving!” A voice called back, sloppy with the slurring that accompanied drunkenness. “I’ll pay her for the bottles. But I’m not leaving.”

There was something else wrong with the voice though. It didn’t just sound drunk. It sounded distorted, like the person’s jaw was broken. The voice was also neutral in tone, almost halfway between male and female tones.

Regardless, the response irked Flip. At least that’s probably what Flip thought his proper response should be. It was one thing to steal, it was another to admit it shamelessly and carry on.

“Go get yourself killed, idiot,” The voice grumbled. This time Flip took note of the direction and attempted to narrow down where the intruder was.

With a quick gesture of his wrist, Flip sent out a small magical spark in the corner obscured by the stacked crates. Perhaps it was a bad idea to send out a flammable spark in a room full of alcohol, but that might just scare the intruder all the worse. It went off out of sight with a loud snap like a small firecracker. A cloaked figure fell to the side along the wall with a start. Flip recognized the cloak immediately, but not the thing wearing it.

The hood of the cloak was pulled back and the features of the creature’s face were a strange haphazard mix of Cheska’s and Dovhran’s. At least one limb was obviously of disproportionate length and what skin Flip could see was a horrible blotchy mix of human and orcish skin tones.

“Well, it would appear I have the answer to my own questions, as well as an age old one.”

“Oh, shut up. Don’t act like you’re some scholar. You’re a backwater magician with a broken psyche, you don’t know the mud from the dirt!” Dovhran spit at Flip but it fell miserably short.

“You’re a changeling. You made yourself into a copy of me to get into my portable flat, and you made yourself a copy of Cheska to get into the wine cellar unnoticed. And then I suppose this is actually what happens when a changeling gets drunk off their rocker, they lose any semblance of focus and control of their appearance.”

“Fine, you got two of ‘em right.” Dovhran waved idly in mock congratulation. “I didn’t have to disguise myself to get in here though, the lock was garbage. She was just the last person I saw.”

“I’ll tell her you’re down here.”

“Do it!”

“I think I will. Though, I have one other question for you, changeling, why are you hiding? You seemed quite competent when you disarmed those robbers. And now, you hide in a basement and get drunk on stolen wine.”

“You idiot. That’s a demon! You wanna go fight some demon and get yourself killed, be my guest. I’ll stay here and not die. Since you put those fancy disaster charms up, seems they can’t touch the place.”

“It won’t be the first demon I’ve killed. And better it get done as soon as possible before it decides to lay siege to this temple. Even a changeling has to eat… eventually. How long do you think the food stores here will last with so many people taking shelter?”

Dovhran merely grunted and waved for Flip to leave. He seemed simultaneously arrogant and pitiful.

Flip didn’t bother with the rest of the questions he had for the mercenary, and he had plenty now. The demon’s approach was a more pressing matter. There didn’t seem to be any indication of how close it was and just how well these charms would work. Flip had only thought they would have to hold up against smaller beings of disaster, imps and other small devils—things you might not notice creep through your doorway. It was doubtful that anyone would miss a demon capable of such destruction sneaking into their home.

With a short jump up the stairs out of the cellar, Flip was again in the heart of the temple. The people looked more worried than ever, though Cheska seemed to be getting on just fine. The guard that had fallen haplessly through the door moments ago was recovering by the open hearth. The smell of a stew being cooked seemed to ease Flip’s nerves as he approached the priestess.

“You have an intruder in your wine cellar. They’re drunk though, so I do not think that they pose an imminent threat”

“Your friend Dovetail? I heard him crack open that lock open across the temple, you probably would have too, it’s not a sound you forget.”

Cheska was right, the sound of that padlock unlatching came right to Flip’s memory as she mentioned it.

“They’re a changeling. I wouldn’t let anyone out of your sight for the next while, though I think they’re having some difficulty keeping a solid shape when drunk.” Flip looked down at the half-orc he had known for most of his life. “I’m going to kill this one. And while I’m killing it, I’m going to take it away from the back door to the temple. You should get people out.”

“Flip,” Cheska sighed, “if I thought you weren’t going to kill this demon, I wouldn’t have stayed or let anyone take shelter here. Haemer’s warmth can do much to protect a home, but when this temple ceases to be a home, it will only be a building with a priestess in it and a charm at the door. Haemer’s warmth tells me you can do this, and that you will do this, so go do it before things change and you no longer can.”

Without anything left to say, Flip turned back to the entrance of the temple. It had always stood as a solid barrier to the unknown and uncertain world beyond it, but now Flip knew that that uncertain and dangerous world was literally on fire. The cold dark oak moved easily enough when prompted, and Flip stood now in a far more desolate vision of Builend.

Black and green flames licked up all structures in sight, save the temple and the chapel across the way. There was a tall lean man in priestly robes concentrating on a protective spell in front of the chapel, and apart from him there was no other living being to be found. Flip secured the temple door behind him, and made sure the charm at the doorway was secure. It seemed yellowed in a way that the ones he currently had stuffed in his pockets were not, aged almost.

From the middle of the road Flip could see into the old quarter of town, or at the very least, see the smoke rising from it as usual. The smoke was darker now, reinvigorated by some magic or presence. Whatever this demon was, it was causing a horrible stir. Flip squinted his eyes to try and weed out any movement in the direction o the old quarter, but could see nothing.

Just as Flip was about to make his way back to the temple, something long and thin twitched among the tree trunks of the young trees that had grown up on the border between the town proper and the old quarter. Many had been burnt and blackened, save two long thin white stalks like birch. One of which had been the thing moving. Flip followed the stalks up, and finally he saw it. A ghastly distorted humanoid form, skin blanched white with blue blotched joints. Every segment o the creature looked as though it had been stretched to its limit on a rack, the legs and torso in particular, to the point that it stood roughly twenty feet tall. And it’s head, though it was possibly over one hundred feet away, Flip could see it clear as anything next to him. A twisted and snarling wolf’s head, expressionless eyes, blood crusted around the throat where it transitions from fur to blank flesh. It’s whole body was littered with arrows and small wounds.

The being cocked its head to make eye contact with Flip. It’s dead wolf eyes barely registered anything other than that it was looking. Wings spouting from its thin shoulders that Flip had not seen at first, large and leathery with several holes, unfurled and cast a massive shadow across the town. And then it lurched forward faster than Flip could have imagined.