Flip woke gradually. He had performed perhaps the most powerful magic he had ever dared to harbor the thought of, been pulled through an unintelligible voice, seen Cheska, and been engulfed by darkness. By all accounts, he thought he had died. And that was the biggest relief Flip had ever felt, morbid though that may be. And when he finally awoke, staring up at the familiar rutty ceiling of the hearth home temple in Builend, he thought at first that it was a vision of comfort to welcome him into whatever existence beyond mortal life there was for him. But then he felt the very real pain in his body, the very real nausea in his stomach, and smelled the delicious scent of home cooked food. And that all equated to one thing. Survival.

“You are alive, in case you were wondering.” A hollow voice spoke to Flip as soon as he blinked. “I believe you have done admirable magic. More than that. You have honored my father and the cords across your waist.”

“You’re still here then…” Flip grumbled as he sat up on the familiar couch and searched the temple hall for the helmet.

“You do not sound pleased to learn of my survival.” The helmet chuckled from a nearby end table. “Would you care to explain why?”

The wizard, still fairly uncomfortable from his aches and pains gained through adventuring, laid back down. “I didn’t expect it. No further reason than that.”

“I will accept this explanation.” The helmet hummed. “Would you care to get to know me? We have ample time and I have already spoken much with the women here. They tire me with questions, but I have been without conversation for many years.”

“I have heard whispers constantly for years, and now they are inexplicably quiet. Forgive me if I’m not eager to replace them.” Flip was ready to ignore the helmet completely, but something seemed off about the offer and so he continued. “I would like to know your name though.”

It was not clear to Flip, nor could it really have been, that Archimus had desperately been wanting to talk to a mage. Any mage. Anyone that could feel like his father and creator again. Now that the construct had no assigned purpose, it was eager to find one. And that very task had been on its mind since it had arrived at the temple.

“My name is Archimus Stoll.” Archimus didn’t bother saying more. He had peered, however briefly, into the mind of the wizard when Flip had donned the helmet and he knew it would be pointless.

“Your father was Gmid Stoll, yes?”

“Affirmative.” Archimus wasn’t sure what the wizard was leading to now. He hadn’t expected any sort of follow up.

“I stole a book from his library. I apologize.”

Without thinking anything of it, Archimus offered his forgiveness. “I see no error. My father is dead. And though that saddens me, I know you did not intend to disrespect him. He would have given you the book had you been able to ask.”

Without actually responding, Flip let out a sigh and turned over on the couch he was resting on. Forgiveness for that theft had been one of the very few things still weighing on his conscience, and though there were still other troubles locked in his mind having some forgiveness was more soothing than his resting had been. The wizard closed his eyes and let his mind wander to poetry. It seemed like it had been so very long since he had written anything. But rather than write, he let the words come and go; creating their own imagery and passing like a country view.

The sight of the peaceful wizard was relaxing in turn for Archimus. He had seen and experienced the mind of more than one wizard frantic and obsessed with solutions to immediate problems. While he couldn’t peer into Flip’s mind without the wizard donning his helmet, Archimus wondered where his mind had begun to wander.

“If I may, I know your name… but I do not understand it.” Archimus hazarded a request, which Flip seemed at worst ambivalent to. “I have seen into your mind. I know you are a Finnigan wizard. Your name is Faengil. But in your mind, you call yourself Flip. And your sister seemed to as well. Why?”

“It’s… it’s a silly thing. It was a nickname when I was a child, something I earned when I started to learn magic the first time.” Flip chuckled at the memory, recalling, for the first time in a long time, a positive image of what his childhood had contained. “Perhaps I will show you if you decide to remain here for a time.”

“Perhaps.” Archimus echoed the wizard. “I have no means of leaving on my own, though that is a problem that can be resolved at a later date.”

“Uh huh.” Flip hummed.

Cheska returned to the main hall of the temple from the forge and saw the helmet and her brother much the same as she had left them. Flip had shifted though, so she made a quiet approach and leaned down to the helmet.

“Has he woken up yet?”

“I’m awake, priestess.”

“You can’t just call me by my name, can you? Or call me sister even?” Cheska asked with a mildly frustrated sigh. “And your friend, the very shy elf, she said she knew who I was but that you had just called me your friend?”

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“I didn’t say that. Dovhran said that.” Flip grumbled as he sat up. His moment of conscious silence had lasted for perhaps ten minutes. “He also impersonated you with a grossly disfigured torso… speaking of which, has Selian spoken to you about courtship?”

Without warning, Cheska burst into raucous laughter. Her green toned face had gone a shade of light brown as the blood had rushed up to her cheeks. “Flip, you can’t just say that. Ugh. I missed you, little brother.”

“I’m about to go help her with her hair though. She burned off a lot somehow and someone needs to show her how to style a partially shaved head.” Cheska announced after a moment of quiet. “I can tell you want to be left alone. Do you want to come with me, Archimus?”

“Negative. Put me in the fire.” The helmet requested.

“I got it.” Flip held a hand out to stop Cheska as he reached out to grab the helmet and made his way over to the hearth. Without missing a beat, Flip reached into the flames and set the helmet down in what he guessed was a convenient location. “Is that alright?”

“Fantastic.”

“I’ll get to the hair then. Have some soup while you’re up. It’s been stewing all morning.” Cheska called behind her as she left the room.

Flip turned his eyes from the fire to the soup pot just off to the side of the flames where the coals were colder. It was a brown stock with chunks of meat and vegetables floating around. The meat looked tender and well braised, the vegetables looked soft. Flip’s stomach grumbled and he had no control as he reached for a bowl and ladle. It had been… Flip wasn’t sure when the last time he actually ate was if he didn’t count nibbling on rations.

“Do you eat, Archimus?” Flip asked absently as he began to fill his bowl and blow cold air over it.

“My form does not require food, though with my full compliment of mail I was capable of smelling and tasting food. My current sensation is limited to sight, hearing, balance, and limited sensitivity to heat in addition to my sensitivity to various arcane elements.”

Flip finished slurping down a mouth full of broth before realizing that Archimus had just offered a veiled complaint. “My apologies for damaging your body.”

“It can be rebuilt. Perhaps better. Arcane studies have no doubt progressed since the time of my creation.”

“Hah.” Flip chortled. “No. Your father was a genius. Ah… that’s good soup.”

Flip took a deep breath and dropped his bowl down on the counter nearby the hearth where other kitchen dishes were laid in a haphazard manner with traces of soup and gruel still littering the sides. The sound of the bowl colliding with the counter reverberated through the wide open room. The sound was alarmingly loud, louder than Flip expected, and it made the wizard all the more wary of how empty the temple was. An empty hearth temple was an odd thing, but not that strange. Still, something felt off.

“You are agitated, Faengil.” Archimus observed the wizard’s reaction to the noise. “That noise was not from within the temple.”

“Oh?”

“I sense an arcane disturbance.”

“You can do that?”

“I sense sarcasm.” Archimus was well aware that Flip knew at least part of his abilities.

“Whatever it is… it probably isn’t my problem. Not anymore.”

Flip grinned. He hadn’t anticipated the level of joy he now felt upon hearing about trouble in the town he had spent nearly his whole life in and having it not be his problem to fix. There was still a chance that it was related to his tower, as there were few other arcane resources in the town that didn’t belong to him. But if that was the case, then a certain young man would have comet o find him and alert him to the disturbance.

No sooner did the thought of young Jimothy cross the wizard’s mind, than the doors to the temple opened and Jimothy stumbled into the main hall. The scene was reminiscent of one Flip had seen not long before. Of a soldier stumbling in, burned by fell fire and torn by sharp claws. Only this soldier was Jimothy and he wasn’t burned. He looked to have a bad cut across his face, something like a claw mark, and the stump of his left arm seemed to have some kind of broken attachment still hanging loosely from it. In his one good hand, Jimothy held what had once been a spear but was now more of a quarterstaff. Whatever had roughed the boy up hadn’t been as interested in killing him as they were in getting rid of him, or so it seemed.

“I’m… I’m sorry. The tower…” Jimothy was frazzled to say the least. He was barely coherent and what words he did manage to utter were incomplete garbles of phrases. He had begun to tear up, both from pain and from fear.

“What did this to you, boy.” Flip growled, a rage building in him he had never fully felt before. “Cheska! Cheska get the hammer ready!”

Flip’s preemptive calling of his adoptive sister was loud and sudden and unusual. Naturally, her response was immediate and the sound of her jumping to her feet and scrambling for her preferred weapon could be heard throughout the temple.

“I think it was a demon. A small one. It looked like a man…” Jimothy garbled out with a sniffle of his nose. “I couldn’t stop it. I think I put my spear through it four times before it just broke the tip off in its hands and threw me to the side.”

A kernel of fear began to form in Flip’s mind, and in the mind of Archimus as well. It very well could have been a small humanoid demon. Or it could have been something much much worse.

“The door, boy. Did it go through the door?”

“The door?” Jimothy repeated.

“The door to my tower. Did it walk through?”

“Sir…” The boy could hardly continue past the weak honorific. “The tower’s gone.”

Flip gritted his teeth and stormed up to Jimothy, grabbing the boy by the collar. Flip dragged him to the couch where he had just been resting not minutes earlier and sat him down just as Cheska rushed into the main hall.

“Rest, dear boy.” Flip growled. “You did splendidly. But now I need to pluck a blemish from out world and cast it into oblivion”

The wizard turned to thrust his arm into the fire and retrieved Archimus, singeing the cuff of his robe in the process. In a swift motion that reopened the cut on his brow, Flip donned the helmet and began a his march out of the hearth temple. Cheska was right behind him, and Selian was close behind her.

As the three stood on the meager porch of the hearth temple, they could see discolored green and violet smoke billowing up from the direction of Flip’s tower. Commotion filled the streets. It appeared that Jimothy had made good time. Flip wouldn’t be able to match the boy’s speed, but that meant that he would have more time to formulate a plan of attack when he arrived at his destination.

There were a handful of things that could have happened, and none of them were easy for Flip to wrap his mind around. He was still tired and worn from adventuring, and while his magic had returned it had returned feeling weaker, like a circuit had been overloaded and now acted as a worse conductor. Regardless, Flip could feel the rage building up inside him, rage for the sake of his home and his uncle’s legacy; but also, rage against the being that Flip was almost positive was responsible. It did not matter who had set his home ablaze, there was really only one thing worth breaking into his tower for so desperately. And it was the demon in his basement.