Answer the door

You head downstairs as the insistent knocking continues. You peer through the door to see an elderly woman, wearing a black cowl and dress. She is hunched over a cane.

"Excuse me, young man," the woman asks. "One of the sisters from our cloister has gone missing. Would you know where she is?"

Rosalind turns white upon hearing the voice. Slowly, to not make a sound, she tiptoes upstairs. You wait until she is out of sight before opening the door, you keep the door only partially open, physically blocking the house from the old woman.

"I haven't seen any sister recently, but if I do, I'll make sure to let her know to return to the cloister," you say as you try to close the door, but the woman thrusts her cane into the door frame, preventing you from shutting the door.

"The problem is," the woman forces open the door with strength greater than your own, "we already know where she is, and more of us are coming. So, you best cooperate, and then we can all be on our merry way."

You leap back from the door and raise your fists. You hear Rosalind rushing down the stairs and see her holding the spellbook.

"Os fiat gravis" she screams and the whole room vibrates with the sound of the spell. The woman drops to the ground, she curses and screams at Rosalind as she struggles to pull herself up.

"How did you do that?" you ask Rosalind.

"I, I was reading the spellbook while you slept in the hospital bed," said Rosalind, barely able to register what had just happened "I've seen some of the priest carrying similar books. I just read the spell and it worked."

"It doesn't work for most people," you told the priestess. Eisheth informed you that Cecelia had, on numerous occasions, read from the spellbook trying to perform her own magic. She never succeeded. Whatever inclination your wife lacked, Rosalind had. It made sense that the Prince-Bishop would bind the barrier spell to someone who had magical potential.

The old woman is paralyzed against the floor, the spell having made her bones weigh as much as an anvil.

"We need to leave. Right now," you tell Rosalind. "I have friends who will be entering the city soon, we'll be safer once we meet up with them."

"What about her?" asks Rosalind. "She knows that you are helping me and will tell the rest of her kin once they arrive."

"What are you suggesting?"

"Give me her cane." You toss the cane over and Rosalind catches it. "Oh, mother superior, you look so pitiful now."

Rosalind takes the cane and smashes it into the woman's head. Shards of ceramic burst out where flesh should have been. All colour vanishes from the body leaving an androgynous figure made of baked clay behind. A piece of parchment lies on the ground, where the head was.

"They're called Golems," says Rosalind. "I suspected they were real, but, wow, I can't believe the new mother superior was one of them."

The two of you leave the house, heading towards the city gate to find Eisheth and the other demons.