There was hardly time to respond, and Flip could immediately tell why the guard had proved so ineffective against this demon. They were trained to deal with thieves and drunks and the occasional imp, maybe a bandit. A full fledged fell terror was not something a man with a sword, chain mail, and a few weeks of training could be prepared for.

“Be gone from here, to places you flee…” Flip hissed out the first part of his incantation and let the spell loose on the demon.

At best, the demon hesitated.

Flip dove aside as the monstrosity rushed towards him and lunged with its terrible long claws. He only barely avoided being run through, but was quickly reminded that he was not as young as he once was. The wizard rose quickly and began to brush the green cinders from his robe when the beast attacked again, cutting a deep gash across the shoulder of the wizard.

“Get back in that temple you idiot!” The priest called from the church yard, still keeping his hands out and allowing holy magic to escape him and encircle the building he stood in front of.

The demon turned to the priest, as though it had not seen him yet. It gave Flip enough time to get up and center himself again. He stuffed the majority of his talismans in his robe pockets and saved one for what he would attempt next. Before there was time to cast a spell, however, the demon unhinged its jaw and a fountain of green flames sprayed out at the priest. As the flames made contact with the magical barrier, the green and black coloration seemed to wash off and fall to the ground like wet paint as red and orange tongues of fire carried on and licked around the priest. Flip saw the magic fade first, then saw the priest fall to the ground. Unconscious or dead didn’t matter at that point, he was going to be ripped apart if nothing was done.

As the falcon flies,

Drops like a stone,

And gravity defies.

Rises and falls from heaven to home,

Swiftly it goes alone.

Flip felt the paper in his hand begin to pull away of its own accord, but continued his incantation. It had already taken the attention of the demon away from the priests body.

Masterful descent,

Artful climb,

Wings like razors bent

And cutting quick through time.

Flip released the paper and watched as it shot forward out of his hand directly at the demons head. He kept the image of that spot on its hideous head clear in his mind, even as the demon began its approach. It saw the paper clearly, moving out of the direct line it made, and even when the paper curved to maintain its target, the demon was aware and continued its dodging motion. In a matter of seconds, the demons charge had become a series of fruitless maneuvers and then outright fleeing from the paper projectile. It was as though the monster could tell what the charm embodied, though even Flip wasn’t exactly sure what would happen should the two collide.

The demon was fast, but even as it began to flap its wings to escape Flip felt the spell end. For a moment, the wizard worried that it had taken too long. That the demon had evaded the charms flight long enough for it to become inert again. But then the demon froze in place just feet off the ground and began to fall. Like a statue, it went rigid and hit the earth. Unfortunately it did not shatter. But there was no movement as it laid there.

Without a clear notion of what was going on, Flip made his way to the body of the priest. He was still breathing, but very badly burned. Flip had no healing magic, or magical trinkets that could heal, so he made sure only that the priest was alive. It was all he could do. Next he assessed the demon. It too was unfortunately alive. And it was breathing hard, as though all in could do was inhale, exhale, and move its eyes wildly… which it also did in a rather disturbing display. It was laying prone on its back, the charm firmly affixed to its forehead.

Flip unsheathed a small ornate dagger from the depths of his robe and plunged it into the chest of the demon. It’s eyes narrowed on the wizard, and it seemed that every muscle in its body tensed, but it remained frozen in place. Without further worry, Flip began to run the blade along the body of the beast, cutting a deep gouge into its form. This new pain elicited an actual vocalization from the demon, the first sound it had actually made. It was like an elk screaming in the distant forest, but prolonged and harsher. It’s whole body shuddered like there was an earthquake roiling underneath it. If Flip couldn’t see the charm still firmly in place on the beast’s forehead, he would have feared that it was going to break free. But this made sense. The charm was a charmed imbued with the essence of demons, with disaster, with the power of calamity and destruction, but unwoven and antithetical to what it began as. It was disaster spun into dark aster, a hypothetical arcane essence which behaved as aster but was made of disaster. It had never been explained exactly how the charms worked, but seeing one working now in a real stress test seemed to confirm the wizard’s suspicions.

The worst possible thing happened, however, as Flip began to cut a cross section across the demons torso to open up a cavity. It’s belly began to rumble, it’s eyes rolled back in its head, it’s throat began to quake. And although it’s jaw could not unhinge, a magmatic flow of green and black sludge and flame erupted from the mouth of the demon. The mess covered its whole body and Flip had to leave his dagger behind and fall onto his back to avoid serious burns. As it was, he was lucky to only have burns along his ankles and hands, which had been uncovered and most vulnerable. The sting of fellfire was more acidic than combustive, eating away and proliferating rather than burning away into fumes. Flip tore off the sections of burning cloth from him, losing most of his robe in the process and leaving him with little more than his skirt—now in tatters—and a new vest. By the time his hands hand finished their work, they were blistered and hardly moved… and the demon was beginning to twitch.

It’s movements were slow at first, as though it were writhing in pain amid the fellfire sludge, but they gradually became more intentional. More alive. And then it pulled itself onto its knees, still dripping in unholy flame and ichor, torso flapping loosely where it had been cut. It let out another blood curdling screech as it tried to stand but failed. It’s legs seemed to give out underneath it, but it managed to handle itself on all fours.

With a leap and the aid of its wings it launched itself in the direction that Flip had been inching backwards. The wizard hadn’t been able to crawl back very far, but he had hoped it would have been enough to get out of its immediate range. That had been a false hope. As the demon dove towards Flip with the aid of its massive wings, something impacted the beast and it shuddered and curved off to the side and overshot Flip. It skidded to a halt some ways away and Flip saw the gleam of a dagger, blade just barely visible, embedded deep into the base of one of its wings.

“Good throw for a drunk.” Flip could just barely hear Cheska grunt from the door of the temple. He definitely heard her slap the cloaked form of Dovhran across the back.

“I was aiming for its head!” Dovhran seemed slightly less drunk than when Flip had left him. But still louder than normal.

“Well, try again.” Cheska pushed the changeling all the way out of the temple and made her way over to Flip.

“Get back inside, it can still kill us all.” Flip wheezed.

“Probably. But I saw you stun it. If we can do that again, we can kill it instead.” Cheska held out a hand to lift Flip up.

Flip hesitated, looking at his blistering hands, but accepted the help. As soon as his hand made contact with Cheska’s, however, the pain ebbed away. The blisters subsided unnaturally. Cheska smiled and lifted the wizard to his feet.

“Perks of hospitality and hard work.”

“Do you intend to offer the demon some soup, then?” Flip grunted as he began to wipe himself off. The pain from the cut in his shoulder was still there, but more bearable than it had been moments before.

“No. That’s the hard work part.” Cheska hefted a large blacksmiths hammer in her hands. “Granny Jo left Discipline for me when she moved on, and I think that beast could really use some.”

Flip grimaced at the memory of the hammer and the heat of the forge… and having to help the old woman repair horseshoes for hours on end.

“I need to put another charm on it. And ideally, I can put another one on its core and it will be forcefully removed to the Obscure. Hopefully.”

“You don’t sound very sure about yourself. Is there a plan B?”

“No.”

“Okay then. Dovhran! Keep it on the ground!” Cheska shouted out to the world around here, but the changeling was nowhere to be seen. “Hope he heard that.”

Flip wasn’t sure that the changeling hadn’t just left when he had the chance, but there wasn’t much alternative at the moment to hope that he hadn’t. Looking around to check the position of the demon wasn’t very heartening either. It had taken time to lick its wounds and was circling the wizard and priestess as they readied themselves.

“If I cast the same spell as last time it’s just going to lunge for me and hope it kills me before the charm sticks.”

“How do you know that?”

“It’s what I’d do and this beast feels smarter than it looks.” A thought occurred to Flip as he spoke, and he removed one of the few charms he had saved in his pockets and fixed one to Cheska’s hammer. “There, maybe that will hurt more.”

Cheska shrugged and prepared herself to swing when the beast approached. But it didn’t. The demon continued to circle around the two, just out of reach of the hammer and growing ever quicker so as to avoid direct line of sight that might result in spells.

“Oh, why don’t you just fight like a real demon!” Cheska lunged out away from Flip as the Demon stepped just barely too close towards her. The hammer connected with its heel and tripped it, but didn’t seem to do much else. It was back to circling before Flip could begin an incantation.

Without warning, and without hinting to its intent, the demon lunged across the diameter of the circle it had been following. It didn’t make contact with either Flip or Cheska, but it didn’t take a hit either. And then again, seemingly at random, it leapt across the circle without contact being made by anyone. Though something strange was happening. It’s limp foot that had been dislodged by Cheska’s hammer was dragging along the ground.

Silently, and just as unexpectedly as the demon had been leaping, another creature leapt into the circle. The cloaked form of Dovhran collided with the back of the demon as it made another pass through the middle of the circle. The changeling only grunted as he knocked the demon off its pattern. But he didn’t fall off, he had grabbed hold of the dagger he had thrown earlier and managed to thrust another into the flesh a the base of the other wing. This disruption made it much easier to single out the demon.

Cheska ran after it, roaring, hammer held high and ready to swing. Flip began to mutter the truncated incantation of his projectile spell again. Dovhran began to shout and whoop as the demon tried desperately to buck him off its back. If it weren’t for all of the burning buildings and destruction all about the town around them, the scene might have actually been somewhat comical.

Flip completed the spell, and the paper charm slipped free from his hand and darted toward the demon. The demon saw the action and immediately started to move out of the way of the projectile, bit Dovhran twisted his daggers in and tried to keep the monster in place. Cheska landed a bone shattering strike to the monsters inner thigh and brought it down on one knee while the other damaged leg went limp entirely and hung loose at the hip. Without means to escape, the charm strike fast to the demons forehead and the beast went inert once again. This time Flip did not hesitate.

“Dovhran, I need a dagger.”

“All yours, idiot.” Dovhran managed to crawl out from beneath the beast and tossed Flip one of the daggers he had used to hang on with. It was still dripping with black ichor and had small shreds of flesh stuck to it.

Flip plunged the dagger into the chest of the demon once again and cut its torso open all the way, continuing the line he had started before.

“Cheska, use the charm on your hammer and place it on the demons tongue. That might stop it from spewing any more fire.”

“You want me to put my arm in that thing’s mouth?” She sounded incredulous, though not exactly in opposition.

“That or you can guess which piece of its internal structure is its core and hope you aren’t wrong.” Flip was already elbow deep in the beast and carefully searching each piece of internal viscera for the feeling he knew would mean he had found it’s core.

“Tongue it is.” Cheska carefully pried the beast’s mouth open, peeled the charm off her hammer, and stuck it to the demons tongue. It let out a blaring animal shriek, but didn’t move a muscle out of place.

Before long Flip grasped hold of a hard crystalline object embedded deep in the demons stomach and pulled. This was met with an even more shrill screech from the demon. The object moved, but did not disconnect. Flip pulled it to the opening he had made, but could move it no further, small purple and black tendrils of muscle and flesh held it fast to the loose structure of the demon’s body.

Without word or warning, Flip removed a charm from his pocket. The very act of touching the charm with his ichor covered hands caused the filth to spray off his skin and to the ground. Touching the charm to the crystalline object caused much greater of a reaction. Dark green mucous began to bubble out from the demons mouth and chest in a thick foam. It tried to scream, but couldn’t make a sound past all the foam choking it. It’s dagger like claws broke free from its paralysis for just a moment, enough to dig deep trenches through the earth, and then it collapsed.

That is not to say it fell limp. It collapsed in on itself, suddenly and violently, like a dying star. It crumpled around the dark crystal, shrinking into it, and leaving nothing behind but the object with a charm on it.

“That didn’t send it back to the Obscure, did it,” Dovhran muttered, still drunk enough to be wobbling on his feet just slightly.

“No. It didn’t.” Flip wasn’t exactly sure what had just happened, but whatever it was didn’t feel like finality.