Astrid takes a step back as the remains spill to the floor. "Eww... That's disgu - ! Wait, is it trying to get away?!" Once again, the cleric attempts to freeze the creature. Most of the mass has squeezed through the boards, but she manages to keep some of it from escaping.

     "What should I do with this?" She points to the small blob that she managed to keep from getting away. 

Caio quickly locates a door to the cellar behind the bar, but it's bolted from the other side.

Following the others towards the cellar, Shiva sees Caio pushing against the door and quietly mumbles to herself. "Ok, now is the time for forceful."  "I got it, look out, Caio!" 

As Caio steps out of her path, she hardly stops her forward momentum as she raises her left leg and delivers a forceful kick. There is a loud crunch of wood, followed immediately by a popping sound as the bolts are knocked away and the door comes off of its hinges to clatter to the ground. 

The passage beyond the door is pitch black with steps leading down to the right. The tension is palpable in the brief moment of silence that follows the crash of the door falling to the ground. Then comes a shout from behind the gathered warriors.

"Waaat de bleedin 'ell chucker yer tink you're doin'?!" An angry halfling woman dressed in a nightgown demands.

Alaris explains, "Danger in your house, goodlady. We're not here for your stores, but to stop a hostile fae."

The mention of 'hostile fae' seems to leave the halfling lady quite flustered.

"Waaat? Ah, aye, please. Gods guards us from dees changelings."

"The Septem Mortale hunts monsters, so the light of the Lady has shone on your house today. Prepare fire and put water on to boil. Your guests may need help." Alaris nods to the halfling and follows Caio deeper into the cellar.

The halfling lady hurries away to stoke the fireplace while the four warriors enter her cellar.

When Caio impaled the fey creature in the common room, the inquisitor's supernatural hunter's senses were attuned to his quarry's direction. Now, the elf leads his companions down into the darkness in pursuit of the changeling. The air is thick and musty between shelves of preserves and salted cuts of meat that hang from the ceiling. A fluorescent trail of some kind of ectoplasmic slime glows a soft pink on the ground, leading towards a wall against which spades and rakes and brooms are leant.

      Astrid's face twist in disgust as she scoops of the piece of flesh with the edge of her shield. She quickly hurries along after the others, stopping at the hearth to throw in the remains. "Sorry about the mess," she offers to the halfling, before continuing to the cellar. 

Caio sneers down at the place where the glowing trail ends. Was this an illusion? Had the creature transformed into some mundane object to hide? Or had it actually slipped through a crack in the wall and escaped? There is one easy way to find out. Caio lifts his sword above his head and with one great sweeping blow swipes it down through the space in front of him.

There's a clatter and a crash as broom handles and other objects are swept aside, revealing a continuing trail that runs up the wall behind the tools, ending just beneath the low ceiling at a narrow iron grate through which moonlight shines.

Never losing momentum, Caio thrusts one hand forward and summons Ghoul up into the night air beyond the grate. He steps back and places a hand on Alaris' shoulder as his senses are transferred into his familiar. "Outside. Move!" he shouts to his companions, urging them back the way they'd come.

Ghoul materialises outside the building and Caio sees through his familiar's eyes how the trail of ectoplasm ends and becomes a pair of footprints that lead off into the village.

     "What?! It's outside already?" Being in the rear, Astrid steps to the side and allows the others to take the lead. As she she does she begins to invoke an incantation to hasten their steps. "Let's quicken our feet." However, her connection to the weave seems to be clouded by something. Realizing that is going to take some time to complete, the cleric cuts the spell casting short. 

     "Sorry. It didn't work," she says with some shock. "I- I don't know what happened." Astrid takes a moment to compose herself before following behind.

While Alaris had spoken with the inn owner, Shiva reached within herself and drew upon the strength of her demonic essence to bring the world into shining focus before following Caio down into the depths of the building. In the cellar, the silence hummed as Caio inspected a nearby area before calling out that it was now outside. 

Shiva barrels back up the stairs, unconsciously registering Astrid's struggle with her spell. She brings out her claws and nearly knocks the entrance of the establishment from its framework as she runs outside to catch the creature. As Caio had described while she was exiting the cellar, she could see the entity's trail of slime shifted into footsteps that led further into town.

As Shiva hurries to follow the footprints in the dirt track that runs through the middle of Hearthstead, she hears screaming from up ahead. Several lamps emerge from the doors of homes as the locals come out to investigate the ruckus. Fallen in the middle of the road, just up ahead of Shiva is the halfling lady from the inn. She screams again as the tiefling comes closer to her.

"'elp! Save me! We trusted de big folk an' nigh they've broot their demon ter pillage an' ransack our 'ums!" She cries out in halfling.

All around Shiva, halflings and gnomes brandishing pitchforks and other farming implements slow advance on her.

Shiva doesn't understand what the masquerading creature says, but she doesn't need to. She recognizes what lies in the eyes of each of the townsfolk as they begin to advance on her with their makeshift weapons. The familiarity of this moment sparks a conflagration of rage that truly makes her contemplate killing every mother's son that raised their arms against her on this night. But rather than fuel this, the clarity provided by the demon allowed her to feel the anger and the hurt, and then let it pass. These people didn't know her enough to hate her. They just hated what she meant to them; the unknown. She releases the tension from hands that had unconsciously curled into fists and looks about the crowd that is expectantly waiting for her to lash out. 

Without Ari, she's unsure of how to assuage the villagers or make them see that they're protecting the real monster. She thinks back to the magics she'd seen Alaris and Astrid do, and racks her mind to think of some way to reveal the changeling. It then hits her, the ring. As the crowd closes in, she raises her left hand and focuses on the figure lying in the dirt. Several people gasp and yell in a language she doesn't understand, but she brings all her mental fortitude to bear to keep all else from her mind but her goal. "Come on. Come on. Come on, damn you."

Then she feels a pull from within her, and her breathing becomes labored as sparks begin to fly from the ring. The space around Shiva's hand becomes distorted, with electrical currents weaving between her fingers. Then the space around the creature begins to shimmer and shift. "You need not fear me. I am of the Septem Mortale. I am the demon that your worst nightmares dare not speak of. Now, look at your real enemy." Within seconds, the charade is torn away to reveal the creature's revolting, amorphous form. 

Alaris lays a hand on Astrid's shoulder and squeezes. "This place... there's something unhealthy. No time to speculate now - we must keep in sight of the others." With a nod and a nudge, Alaris hurries along to catch up with Shiva as the tiefling faces the growing mob of halflings. The bogatyr's eyes, hands, and glaive all glow with the Lady's radiance as their aasimar nature shines forth. "And I am the angel who stands between you and the darkness. The goodlady who hosted us at An Teach Beag called this creature a changeling..."

The villagers recoil in reaction to the sudden transformation of the innkeeper's wife, as the changeling reverts to its goo-like form. Alaris's arrival appears to quel the remaining looks of distrust being thrown in Shiva's direction, but then the monster lying in the dirt before them begins to move. It's head turns unnaturally until it is looking straight backwards at Shiva and then the creature speaks.

"I curse you, demon! Look upon me and despair!"

One of the changeling's eyes bulges horrifically as it talks and Shiva feels a hollow open in the pit of her stomach.

Shiva watches on in abject disgust as the mass of gunge that is the creature twists its head completely around and curses her. Then comes the sensation of something being carved from her, the disruption of a physical or spiritual function that she had taken for granted until the moment that it failed. The world shifted into a malformation of its former self. The sky, the people that surround her, the very air in her lungs menace an unknowable yet impending threat. 

This intensely off-kilter perception is quickly combatted, however, as her demonic essence surges forth and drags the world back into a shade of what it had been moments before. Unrest etiolates in the pit of Shiva's stomach, but she is able to get a grip on herself and bring her attention to the task at hand.