Areta looked from the report in her hand, the the anomaly in front of her, and then back again. The magic was red and angry, pulsing with violent, whip-like streaks of power that illuminated the sorceress' face and made gooseflesh break out along her arms. Her eyes scanned the paper in her hand a final time, cementing each character, every space, and all of its lines to her memory before folding it neatly and tossing it into the air. A halo of light pulsed around it, then contracted into nothingness once more, taking the paper with it.
Her own magic reached out to brush against the sharp corner of the Hex and collided with a pulse of energy shooting through it. Like water onto hot lava the wall burst into a thousand crimson droplets, hissing and sparking erratically, but it was all the confirmation she needed to finalize her strategy. The spell was powerful, but it was shoddily constructed. Press on its weakest parts---and it'd collapse long enough to let her through without strain.
Again she reached out her hand and allowed the golden strands of power to grow from her fingers until they were wedged into position, and this time when the Hex reacted to her, the hole it made was large enough for her to step through mostly unchanged. She could tell, before she could see, that the clothes on her body stretched and hiked and pinned into new positions and shape, and something unspeakable had happened to her hair.
"Just lovely." She sighed, trying to summon her patience.
The town's streets were frozen with statues of living flesh. At the furthest points they could scarcely move their eyes to plead with her, but as she drew closer to the heart of the incantation, their dead limbs began to move robotically; repeating a given action again and again.
She made a mental note of another source of power, thinly concealed and trickling from the windows of an unassuming home, but didn't think it was anything to worry about.
The doorbell chimed as she looked at her watch, clocking exactly how much of her time this was eating up. It'd been a ten minute walk to this sad little house. And another forty-seven seconds for a young woman with red hair and an overwhelming magical aura to answer the door.
"Good afternoon." Her tone was cheery, if not a little clipped, and she had her most diplomatic smile painted on her face. "My name is Areta Fuchs, and I'd like a moment of time to extend a formal invitation to you. Might I come in?"