A Dousing

Winston kicked open the door and threw it at the first thing to move which happened to be a small creature in a cage. It screamed as the water hit it and the room was filled with the acrid smell of burning flesh. That was as much notice as we took as we leaped in to scour the room.

It was a bit run down for a necromancer's studio, I have to say. Faded, scraggy carpets and walls painted in cabbalistic symbols do not a dungeon make. There were iron bars on the windows and several boxes of assorted skulls and the regulation throne of bones. There was also the companion mirror to the one in the cellar and a larger open portal showing the craggy landscape of a mountainous region.

With no immediate threat I turned to the screaming creature.

It was locked inside an iron-barred cage containing the companion mirror, and it took a moment for me to realise what the ghastly thing was.

"Devious, old chap," I said, though half his skin had been burned away by the holy water. "I was beginning to worry that we'd lost you."

Alas that he must have had his mouth open when Winston had thrown the water, perhaps to call out to us in warning or greeting. Now his tongue had gone. Fear not, though, for imps are all but indestructible. To actually kill one you have to douse the bugger in holy water.

Oh, wait...