Nora held off on her spells, running towards the half formed monster. She swung down with her right arm at the pile of flesh and it melted down to the floor like a beige puddle, pulling itself away from her attack.

Nora didn’t let up, stabbing the floor over and over, finding purchase here and there but nothing debilitating on a creature so formless.

She pulled back and observed from afar, paying attention to the way it put itself together.

A core, a pattern of formation, any insight that gave her the advantage of interruption, of a weakness. It took a bit for the pieces to form into something humanoid; a gargantuan frame with a vestigial head lacking discernible facial features. Its arms were oversized with plates of jagged bone poking out of the forearms, knuckles dragging on the floor like a gorilla. It looked like the monster had cramped as many bones and muscles into the arms with the unnerving way the grooves writhed and stretched uncomfortably underneath the taut translucent skin.

It’s legs were bent and squat, bundles of meat lined with more anatomical understanding that told Nora the monster could spring at a moment's notice.

It leapt into the air and towards Nora.

She threw her weight to the side towards the front pew aisles and scrambled back to her feet as the weight of the creature crushed the wooden floorboards.

The monster swung its arm across the pews, seats shattering with sheer strength.

Nora leapt out of the line of fire and retaliated, throwing her knife at its vestigial head. The knife sunk into the flesh and blood poured out, the meat deflating like a balloon but no worthwhile damage.

“Return!” Nora shouted at the knife as she charged the monster. The hilt hit her palm and she grabbed it on the return, sliding on the ground to slice at the creature's arms and legs.

The knife slid through the monster's marrow and flesh but the cuts were superficial.

It lifted one of its arms and pounded the ground, scattering more wooden debris all over the room. Her body was sent back by the shockwave, back striking the church wall with a sickening crunch.

“Ah” Nora gasped as she tried to catch the breath knocked out of her.

Not enough time.

The monster swung its other arm at Nora and sent her flying, body ragdolling across the floor onto the wall at the church’s entrance.

Her body was lead, arm bent and broken in several places. Through her good eye, she could see the creature slowly lumbering towards her crumpled frame.

It’s not fair.

“You’re right. Life never is.” Nora mumbled, spitting blood to her side. The engine was lit within her, a roaring fire erupting inside of her with incensed rage. With her good arm, she gripped the knife in a combat stance and squared herself for the second round of combat.

“Righteous Justice.” Nora whispered like a prayer and the spell took effect. The roaring engine in her body spread out the warmth across each cell in her body. Minor cuts visibly seared away with a sizzle and steam. The fatigue melted off of her body. It would come back but she just needed to outlast her opponent.

The time was what worried her.

She shattered the floor beneath her feet and spun her body with the knife outstretched.

“Sever!” Nora cried out. The knife’s runes illuminated. The curved blade slid through the monster’s shoulder in a clean motion, a guttural shriek billowing from its chest. Its body fell unevenly towards the ground, the arm landing on the ground with a thud.

It’s shrieks kept coming, the flesh in the arm inert.

Nora breathed a sigh of relief. Her assumption has paid off.

The golem’s shrieks subsided. Nora saw the monster's skin writhe and move towards its stump.

“No you don’t!” She cried out. She charged the monster with the knife and swung wildly, severing pounds upon pounds of flesh. The creature kept shrieking but there was too much meat, the knife merely whittling away at the immensity.

“Graaaaaah!” The monster bellowed and sprung into a shoulder tackle.

Nora tumbled to the ground and felt more bones crunch in her lame arm, a silent yell reigned in by her fury.

“Sssssss.” A sizzling sound from outside. Nora looked at the open church door and watched more freakish golems throwing their bodies at the barrier, the radiant wall flickering with their coordinated assault.

Rumbling from the end of the church drew her attention back to her opponent. It’s body was gaunter, skin once taut now ripped and flapping like billowing beige ribbons. Its chest was exposed now, an indented heart webbed into the flesh with pulsating veins. Ribs began to poke out in jagged angles to protect the core.

“I’m taking one of you down, dammit!” Nora lunged with her knife. The golems' new shape was more agile, slender body and limbs pressing itself low to the ground to skitter out of harm's way.

It retaliated with its slender claws, raking at the air and Nora alike with the strength of a whipping tree branch. It didn’t knock her down but her flesh bursted open, rivulets of blood pooling on the ground faster than her spell could sear close.

The golem didn’t let up, using its center of mass as a fulcrum to whip its arms left and right, again and again at Nora’s vulnerable body. She turned her back to the monster and fumbled for the grimoire with her good hand. Feeling the bound leather in her hands, she muttered the incantation.

“Shield!” Nora cried out the spell's name. The assault on her body seized, the force field keeping the monster's weaker attacks at bay. It wasn’t going to let up and unlike her need to catch a breath and think, the monster was a machine with a sole killing directive.

I can feel their mind a distance away.

Nora disregarded the Snake’s hiss. That wasn’t an option. She wouldn’t allow it.

She slid her body to the ground and felt the heat of passion in her body begin to subside. It was costing her too much mana to maintain the shield and Justice at the same time.

The fatigue and pain that were once used as fuel to keep her going rebounded with all their malignance. She couldn’t feel her arm, bones splintered in all places as if mangled by a rabid animal.

A shattering sound pierced the halls and the radiant light glowing from the outside faded away into the dim red hues of the wizards domain. Other lumbering creatures poured into the church, paying their gaunt comrade and Nora no mind. They sniffed out the secondary barrier that Liliana drew within the basement and began their assault on the new obstacle.

I feel its fears, child. Let me feast and this fight will end.

The Snake hissed in desperation.

Nora chuckled, mind single-mindedly focused on maintaining the thin threshold between herself and the constant waylay of her opponent.

Maybe now she’d find peace.

“Incoming!” A voice roared from above. Nora looked around and wondered if it was her imagination before the roof of the church bursted open and a ball of fire impacted the ground.

Emerging from the flames was a tall tan man wearing a purple AWW coat. On his hip were smooth obsidian disks bound together by a thick metal chain. His eyes were easy going, almost tired, but they shined with an unnatural brightness. His long hair smoldered at the edges like recently unlit candle wicks. The two locked eyes and he smiled, toothy, uneven, and mischievous.

“I’ll take over from here.” His voice was coarse and dripping with confidence. “Hey,” Tyler called out, “You should pick on someone at your own level.” His hand crackled with a small mote of fire and he flicked it towards one of the golems.

The mote of fire splashed harmlessly across the golem.

And then a column of brilliant fire came down from the heavens and smited the creature where it stood, the scent of burnt flesh filling the church. The wooden roof above caught fire, flames licking at the wooden columns underneath and around the building.

The monster's waylay ceased as it turned its attention to the new foreign threat.

They golems charged at the wizard with a primal force. Tyler stamped his foot onto the ground and flew above the rabble. The tired expression ebbed away from his face, filling in with one of manic glee as his fingers lit up hues of red and orange.

Gouts of fire poured out of his open palms and onto the creatures below. Nora broke free from her transfixed gaze and scrambled to her feet, shattering the Shield spell as she ran towards the basement door.

Bones cracked and flesh ripped as the golems rended their bodies to reach the flying wizard with outstretched maws amidst the flames. The varying tones of skin and marrow charred black against the heat of the fire that gushed out of the wizard’s palm.

Nora captured the scene of cataclysmic heat and flame with the nauseating stench of hair and ash before descending into the basement.

“Stay back!” Liliana shrieked, swinging a loose piece of wood wildly in the air.

“Liliana! Open your eyes! It’s me!” Nora held out her good hand to shield herself from the manic housewife.

“Nora!” Thomas crossed the threshold past Liliana and held tightly onto her waist. He buried his face into her midsection and she winced at the stinging beneath the skin. “I’m so sorry, Nora! I didn’t know. I didn’t know!” The boy sobbed.

Nora placed her good hand on the boy's head, trying her best to smear the viscera off her palm with her coat before doing so.

“It’s not your fault, kid. You didn’t know.” Nora consoled the boy.

“Get in. Quick.” Liliana gathered her senses and urged the two to cross the threshold into the empty basement. “What’s happening out there, Nora? Court above!” She ran towards Nora and rubbed her hands together, muttering her incantations to cause a radiant light to coat her open hands. Nora bit her lip as the woman’s spell slowly took effect, shifting shards of bone and muscle tissue around to their natural place.

An agonizing effort not to pass out from the reconstitution.

“Our reinforcements arrived. Your barrier held out for a bit above ground before the golems poured into the church.” Nora answered.

“And what about the wizard? Is he fighting against the reinforcements or what is he doing? It sounded like earthquakes up there.” Liliana peppered Nora with more questions.

“No. Another trick on his end. I think he’s done with keeping your people as hostages. One of them was used like a trojan horse, minor damage crossing through your threshold to ask questions before communications fell.”

“Do you think we can do anything for the townsfolk above?”

Nora shook her head, “Spells like that are permanent affairs. Unless the caster fixes their mess or a friendly wizard with a similar spell comes round to fix the issue, there’s not much that can be done for ‘em.”

Liliana fell silent.

“The only peace of mind that we’ve got right now is that our reinforcement seems to be a capable wizard. Against someone self-taught like that creep, it won’t be much of a battle.”

And yet Nora felt uneasy. She felt reassured by the wizard top side but there was a nagging sensation about the whole confrontation that she was trying to piece together.

There were high pitched shrieks from above and gales of blistering heat that poured from the cracks of the basement door. It wasn’t long before ash and charred wood crashed onto the weakened door, soot spreading across the passageway and their threshold.

Thomas helped Nora bring a cot to their basement entrance so she could observe what there was to see in the view above. The once muffled shrieking noise and wooshes of fire subsided with each gale of heat and flame. Amidst the crumbling building, Nora could hear the crunching of boots approach their safe zone.

“Are you safe in there?” Tyler called out from the entranceway. His silhouette was occluded but Nora could see the smoldering tips of his brown hair had flared up into an ashen gray, the remnants of lit incense.

“Has the threat been eliminated up top?” Nora shouted.

He looked to either side of him before descending further into the hallway, “Seems so. Come check it out.”

Nora looked to the others and gestured for them to trail behind her. The wounded wizard leading a housewife and a child, what fun.

One by one, they emerged from the hiding hole and gawked at the remnants before them. The monsters were nothing but smoking black meat chunks. The stained glass that once covered the upper walls of the church were pooled kaleidoscopes of glowing color.

Nothing remained. The wizard scorched the earth beneath them with soot covered circles littering the ground upon which creatures were smited down by the heavens.

Nora was well aware of what kind of destructive power the man before them could bear if they suffered under their delusions of godliness. Too many tragedies littered their recent annals of history over wizards succumbing to mania and delusion.

“Sorry I didn’t come sooner. I was dealing with something along the way. A caravan of people were coming from the south and I had to direct one of my imp’s to help them to Imockalee.” Tyler explained to the group.

Fire powers and contracting imps. An aesthetic of sulfur and brimstone. Quite the traditionalist for someone not of the era.

“That has to be the rest of the people from Cienmiedos! Was there a man of the cloth there leading the flock?” Liliana asked.

The energy within Tyler waned with each passing second, “I think so. I don’t like to keep them in mind if I can help it.” The wizard turned his attention to Nora, “Would you mind giving me a full rundown of the situation so far? The message was quite scant on these sorts of details.”

Nora raised an eyebrow, “I think the issue’s pretty fucking self explanatory. Rogue wizard set up a domain in the town. Townsfolk tried to fight back like the idiots they are. Wizard retaliated. We had a small chat about his motives before I got the shit kicked out of me.” She gestured at the lame arm.

“This wizard’s setting up a ritual of some kind, right?” Tyler asked.

Nora narrowed her eyes, “Yeah… how’d you figure?”

“Well I flew through the domain towards this place ‘cause there were so many meat things pouring into the building but there’s still a lot of heat radiating out of the town center.”

That lurching feeling came about in her stomach once more.

“How many monsters d’you reckon were in the building when you came from up top?” Nora asked.

“They kept shifting around so,” Tyler paused, “I’d guess six or seven?”

Oh no.

“You need to get to the center as quickly as you can.” The agitation in Nora’s body rose as she connected the disparate weird behaviors together.

“Why? What’s gonna happen?” Liliana asked, alternating her concerned face between the only two people capable of stopping the problem.

“Was planning to head over there anyway since I figured the rogue wizard was over there but what’s the urgency all about?”

“It’s the ritual. I think he came up with a solution to his child problem.”

This was all just a distraction from the main problem. The weakening of the barrier with meat golems over phasing through with their simulacra. The oversized monsters to attract attention away from the town center.

The missing townsfolk still under his spell.