“Cheska, I need perspective.” Flip growled as he made his way down the main road of Builend.

The dirt under his boots was dry and still had traces of soot scattered in the gullies to the side. It had not been long since the last time a demon had run amok in his home. And it had been even less time since he had killed one. Now that he had no obligation to the town to clean up its messes it was only fitting that the next one would be a personal affront. Nothing else would have called the wizard to action.

“Will I be sent to languish in torment in the darkest pits of the obscure as punishment for attempting to slay a holy man of the highest order, not once, but twice?”

Since the moment that the wizard had returned to the temple, Cheska had heard more or less the entire story of his adventure from his companions. Her mind, much like Flip’s, had locked on Helbrin Velsaffe as the most likely culprit for this disorder and destruction. And when Flip asked his question of his sister, she could only chuckle.

“Little brother, you know as well as I do that trespassers and home wreckers aren’t protected by Haemer’s charitable grace.”

“Home wreckers?” Selian muttered as she followed behind her only two connections in the town.

“Anyone who disturbs the unity of family and the safety of the home… they deserve punishment.” Cheska growled. “Even if the other gods would turn your spirit away when you die, you’d have a place in the glowing halls of the world hearth.”

“Fantastic.” Flip said with a hollow grin. “Archimus. I take it you want to assist me.”

“Affirmative. I will assist in undoing your failure.” Archimus, who had remained silent from his position tucked under Flip’s arm hummed.

“Wha…” Selian knew she wanted to ask questions. She had thought she was in the loop before, fully informed of all that had happened. But the helmet was being sarcastic and talking about things she didn’t have context for. “You now what, I’m not going to wait for you to ask what I’m doing. I’m going to put an arrow through it now that I can see what I’m doing and I can stay at a distance.”

Selian peeled off from the group without further comment or argument and vanished into the chaos of the town. Flip took note of Cheska’s attention shifting from the smoke in the distance to watch the elf leave. As Flip turned back to the distance, he placed the helmet on his head only for it to whisper in his ear as he did.

“Focus, Finnigan.” Archimus whispered. “There’s time for that later.”

“What plan is there, Archimus? What magic will do what my best cannot?”

“I don’t know if he’s talking quietly to you or something, but I have a hammer. Did you try a hammer last time?” Cheska didn’t sound as confident as she wanted to.

“Affirmative. Many weapons were tried before my father resorted to imprisonment. Much like the form of a vampire, the arch priest’s body cannot be fully destroyed. Not with any weapon yet constructed.”

“Did you try a bigger hammer?” Cheska asked, genuine nervousness now growing in her voice as the three approached the outskirts of town and could see the rubble of Flip’s tower more closely.

“Affirmative. Eight sizes of hammer were used initially, the heaviest with a load of fifty pounds.”

“Is that a joke?”

“Unclear.” Archimus answered the orc, for once unable to properly identify why he was struggling to focus on the task at hand.

“There will be time for that later.” Flip mirrored the helmet’s words. “Cheska, I want to draw Velsaffe out. But you cannot go down into the basement with me.”

Cheska stopped at the edge of the rubble and turned to try and look Flip in the eye, but her brother was carrying on as if nothing more needed to be said. “Why? What’s in the basement?”

“A demon too dangerous for anyone to interact with. Only the Finnigan clan could seal it properly, or so Philmarten wrote.” Flip said with a sigh as he assessed the remains of his once homey tower. “But I am beginning to believe that he was not fully honest or aware of what our family had done.”

Flip stepped over the half splintered remains of his front door and onto his front stoop. The stone was cracked and scattered with loose stone. Fortunately, the whole tower seemed to have been push away from the entrance as it toppled. It wasn’t all that surprising, Flip knew well how rickety the tower had become without proper maintenance or lingering magic to hold it in place. But to see it all in disarray as though each piece of stone had been ripped free was saddening.

“Do you have desires?” Flip muttered to the helmet fastened to his head.

“I desire to be at peace as I thought I was.”

“What about seeing your father again? Perhaps having your body restored?”

“Perhaps.” Archimus was struggling to connect the questioning to the current situation. “Perhaps I do have desires. What will these desires bring about?”

“Chaos.” Flip grumbled. “And for that I need to leave you behind too. I had hoped you could help with this part, but I think I will have to do it alone.”

“Very well, put me…” Archimus began, expecting a gentle departure. “No, don’t throw me!”

The helmet was quickly in the air and on its way in Cheska’s general direction, and the orc had to drop her hammer and scramble to catch it. Archimus’ rough landing was accompanies by a multitude of curses in a language that Cheska didn’t recognize. She found herself stroking the dome of the helmet and shushing Archimus as if she was trying to calm a cat. A few more phrases she didn’t recognize accompanied a harsh vibration within the darkness of the helm before he calmed again.

“I may be made of metal, but I am not unbreakable.”

“Don’t worry, little guy, I won’t drop you.”

“With my full plating I stand roughly six inches higher than you. I am not little.” Archimus growled. And upon looking up and seeing the curious gleam in her eye, added on “I would not don my helmet if I were you. Your braids will tangle on my embellishment.”

Flip used the distraction between his sister and Archimus to slink quietly out of sight in the ruins of his home. He didn’t want to face his sister as he walked into what may have been his own tomb. She would have dragged on about how he should be careful, about how she’d be there for him. She might have even suggested another way of doing things, or insisted on coming with him. He knew that she trusted him, but she cared for him too. But the truth was, he was the only one that could face this.

“Yes, claw away. Claw away. Soon. You will have all you desire.”

Flip could hear the familiar voice that had haunted him for years and it rumbled from beneath the trap door. But he didn’t open the small hatch built into the floor of his home. He dropped his own portable hatch over the top of the one he stood over, letting the magical aperture cover up the other.

“Sixty shackles of walnut,” Flip sighed to himself. “Ten shackles of brass, and 20 of silver filament. All replaceable.”

Flip placed the point of his finger against the small lock of the hatch and began to recite one of his most simple spells. ‘Knock, knock’ comes the ticking of the clock... But then new words began to populate in his mind.

Bid my thoughts to unlock

The depth, darkness blessed

And where pests infest.

This touch be a rock

To make the stone rock.

These homes arrest

As I bid to wrest.

They were rough, callous in rhyme and blunt in delivery, but Flip felt power in them. Power unfamiliar to his practices. And he felt the power shake the foundations of his tower. Loose stones that had barely evaded the pull of gravity as the structure had tumbled, clattered to the ground. The hatch he had placed down and the one that was built into tower floor crunched together. The sounds of movement beneath faded, and as Flip touched the merged hatches he felt them shake. It was a chaotic union, one destined to fail if too much time passed. Hopefully it would be long enough that he could venture in and do what needed to be done.

New unintelligible whispers caught Flip’s ears as he opened the hatch into this new amalgam of spaces. They stopped with a sharp hiss in the darkness as the light of the world above filtered in. As flip descended, he steeled himself. No immediate attack came as his foot went from ladder to floor, but he feared death all the more as it was withheld.

“You should know better than to try and leave.” Flip hissed back at the voices that had grown silent. “And you”—Flip directed his voice to a different portion of the room—”should know better than to try and free it.”

“Leave, child. Your time… has ended.”

“You should know better than to stop me!”

The second voice, crazed and frantic came from a different part of the room than Flip had expected. The mangled and bloody form of Helbrin lunged from just within the darkness to Flip’s right. And with the first footfall he heard, Flip jumped.

As the lunge of the crazed beast wormed through the small column of light that Flip had been standing in, it found no victim. Flip stood on the ceiling, looking up at the basement beneath him from his desk that had once sat in the portable room of the hatch. As he touched a finger to a candle and illuminated the space, it became clear what had happened. The space of the basement and the portable room had merged, locked together in a way that neither the locking and unlocking spell or the enchantment of the hatch had ever intended. A cracked seem of wood and stone ran around the perimeter of the room where the two spaces clashed and gravity shifted. The portable room, bring upside down, had joint the basement as the ceiling. And though the spaces had become one, the gravity of both of them remained the same.

“Witchcraft!” Helbrin screeched. “Sorcery! The filth of the arcane will stop me only once!”

The twisted figure jumped awkwardly into into the upside space and clattered to the floor that was the ceiling like a dog scrambling across a freshly polished stone hall. Claws scraped against the ground as he righted himself, but before he could leap again, Flip jumped again and twisted smoothly back to the ground of the basement.

“Neither of you can die. Not properly. Not here.” Flip declared calmly. “But I will drag you back to the mouth of the serpent with my last breaths if I must.”

Helbrin followed the wizard, more slowly and carefully this time, but the second his feet touched the floor Flip’s left it. The wizard jumped more lightly and felt himself catch between the two competing forces of gravity. He stretched his arm out to the basement to keep himself there, and he drew from that power. He could feel his stomach turn at the strain in his head as he dealt with the competing instincts of how to orient himself, and as he slowly turned sideways his disorientation only became worse.

As the falcon flies,

Drops like a stone,

And gravity defies…

Flip began another incantation. And, as he spoke, Helbrin lunged; quietly this time. The beast had put more power than intended into the motion and pushed right past the wizard, but his claw caught Flip’s side on the way up and opened a deep cut. Flip began to spin out of control from the impact, but continued his incantation.

Rises and falls from heaven to home—

Swiftly, it never flies alone.

Flip closed his eyes to avoid further nausea and held out his left hand and let loose the contents of it. numerous slips of paper with dark aster inscriptions darted into the air like arrows. One curved around Flip and stuck to the bottom of his foot, it’s magical force counteracting the impact of Helbrin and pushing the wizard to the side as the beast lunged again. Another slip slapped itself to Helbrin’s face, covering both of his eyes. A third pushed against the wizard’s side, covering his fresh wound and pushing him in to the gravity of the portable room. The rest, nearly thirty slips, darted into the far reaches of the room. The space now illuminated for the first time in years with candlelight.

In the far reaches of the room sat the beast that had haunted the Finnigan clan for generations. A demon, unique in its intelligence, with a form like a melting candle. It bubbled and oozed in a tall and slender column of pitch-like slime. Its form twisted twice over in a clockwise corkscrew where it passed between the spaces of the new room, but its dark tendrils held it fast to the gravity of the basement. It had no discernible mouth, but it howled in rage as the charms flew toward it. The very force of its voice disintegrated five or six of the closest charms. The rest, as they drew closer, were dodged. The demons inky body contorted to evade them, but it could not uproot itself fast enough to save its roots.

“This betrayal… I will not forgive.” It howled.

Something about the howling of the demon distracted the beastly remains of the arch priest. It became disinterested in Flip, as if on a dime, and leapt to the side of the demon. As the charms began to diminish the form of the demon from the ground up, Helbrin scraped through the rooting tendrils of the demon and severing its connections to the ground and the charms that threatened to revert the demon to nothing more than its crystalline core.

“Fear not, my love. Fear not. I will not let them touch you.” Helbrin cooed softly in his crazed voice.

His adoration was not reciprocated.

“No! You fool! Leave my feet!” The demon growled. “Break the charms.”

Helbrin hesitated and looked deeply at the figure before him for a moment before doing as he was bidden. But it was too late. Flip’s feet touched the ground of the basement as the demon began to lift into the space of the portable room. Helbrin had done what Flip had hoped the demon itself would have and detached it from where it had sat for unknown years. It still was confined to the space beyond the marked bricks Flip himself had replaced to ward the demon into its own space, but it would not be for much longer. When the mashed magic of the hatch and the lock faded, it was anyone’s guess what would happen to anything or anyone left in that space.