Occulturation #5 "The Taming of the Shrew'd Old Crone"

Willheim is akin to things that bump in the night. Things that are heard but not seen. Yet, when he hears bumps in the night, he gets scared when he’s not the one doing the bumping. Bump, bump, bump. What a dreadful sound. He was scared when Ystra came knocking at their door. He hid. He didn’t even see the intruder. Now he knows better. He won’t let the sounds that go bump in the night scare him into allowing intruders.

Willheim is frustrated that he was tasked with babysitting yesterday. He is frustrated that he had to resort to working with a False Bargainer, a witch who uses Fey deals and bindings instead of the accepted Incorporel callings. Willheim wants vengeance. It’s what he was promised. However, he also has to help Garesh with his vengeance as well. It makes him so mad that he sometimes pounds on the walls. Even that isn’t very satisfying because everyone ignores his fits.

Willheim hears the footsteps of an intruder. He makes no effort to hide his own footsteps as he rushes to the doorway to stop whatever would-be burglar is trying their luck in this house. Willheim is out of luck. This isn’t a burglar. The creature before him is a withered old woman. He remembers her from this morning. She’s Ystra’s Incorporeal, Lauren. She doesn’t see Willheim. This makes him mad. He’s always being overlooked. Nobody notices him unless he makes a fit. Even then, people don’t pay much attention to him.

Lauren walks over to where Garesh is sleeping on the couch. She sits down on Garesh’s chest and grips her hands around Garesh’s throat, throttling him. As she attacks in Garesh in this way, Lauren screams out in pain struggling against unseen chains. Willheim grows furious. An intruder has come in and attacked his master in his sleep. Willheim knows just what it’s like to be killed while asleep.

Willheim grabs hold of Lauren by the shoulders and tries to throw her off, but she is too heavy and strong. Willheim could barely move the body of a three-year old boy. An Incorporeal strong enough to kill is too strong for him to do much to. Willheim starts picking up objects and throwing them at Lauren. Lauren is mostly ethereal. She can’t go through walls, but if there is a hole in the wall as there are holes in the door, she can pass through seamlessly so that it appears as though she passed through the door as though passing through a wall.

Willheim knocks on the walls of the house and makes a great clamor. He bangs pots and pans. He throws and shatters dishes against the wall. He slams doors and windows. He stampedes around the house. Soon Svartr and Jack show up to see the cause of the commotion. When they see Lauren straddling Garesh, and choking him.

Jack shot through the long haired wrinkled crone but to no effect for the flame has no heat, causes no burning and has little substance. Svartr, try as he might, could do little at all for he had no form. His struggle is impotent. Yet, stomping down the stairs, causing the whole house to shake, is the quaking of Millie’s feet. For she thunders down the stairs, and assaults the old lady. She throws her off the master and sits upon her as she did to him.

For all the strength of the intruder, she has little physical form, and all her strength is nothing against the weight of Millie’s small, thin form. Garesh gets up. He has been awake for a while, but he could not move nor speak while the spirit sat upon his chest. He gasps as he climbs off the couch, for he couldn’t breathe while under attack.

Upon catching his breath, Garesh demands the spirit explain the reason for her intrusion and attack. Lauren, panicked for own life, speaks at once. She explains that she came out of anger, against the wishes of partner, Ystra. She pleads for mercy, for him to let her go so that she may feed. Garesh notices that she is panicked but doesn’t understand why. Garesh doesn’t think that Lauren is in danger of death. It’s not like he can physically hold her, and she will eventually escape Millie’s grasp. Yet, it comes to his mind that what Lauren did is something he thought impossible. She attacked him despite Ystra’s compulsion preventing her from doing so. She must have strained against her bond. She speaks of needing to feed. Garesh begins to see now. He has the upper hand.

“I will let you go, Lauren.” Garesh says, “But first, you must sign a contract that promises that you will never again harm me in exchange for your release.” Lauren scowls at Garesh and says, “I should only expect such despicable demands from a False Bargainer.” However, despite her reluctance, she agrees to sign. Garesh drags her into the three concentric chalk circles and writes out the terms of the contract in the blood of the third victim, the one he disposed of in a dumpster in the city. He still has the inkwell of his two-day old blood. Garesh makes sure his censers are standing and burning incense while they both sign.

As soon as they have both signed, Millie releases her hold on Lauren and the intruder races out through the keyhole of the door. Millie has a confused expression on her face. She looks at her hands. “Why did I do that?” she whispers to herself. She shakes her head and walks back up to her room. Garesh extinguishes the fires of the censers and tries to go back to sleep.

He lies on the couch for less than an hour before he hears knocking on the door. At first he thinks it’s Willheim, but he never knocks on the front door. “Willheim, open the door, I’ll be there in a minute.” Garesh regrets his decision as he hears the door open. He doesn’t know who is at the door, he shouldn’t open the door before knowing who it is. What if they come in and see his chalk circles? What if they get suspicious of the door openings seemingly on its own. Luckily, it’s the young witch, Ystra. She looks scared but is slightly relieved upon hearing Garesh’s voice.

Ystra speaks so quickly it’s hard for Garesh to understand what she is saying: “Garesh! You’re okay! I was so worried. I felt that Lauren had broken one of my compulsions and I feared the worst. It seems she isn’t here, I’m sorry for bothering you. I’ll be going now. I need to find Lauren before she does something I’ll regret.”

Garesh beckons for Ystra to stay. He states that Lauren attacked him and his Incorporeal drove her off. Ystra is astonished that Garesh has an Incorporeal strong enough to repel Lauren. “Willheim, that’s your Incorporeal, right?” Ystra asks, “I don’t see him. Is he invisible or hiding? What kind of Incorporeal is he?” Garesh doesn’t know what type of Incorporeal he is. He explains that he is noisy, invisible and not capable of carrying things of much weight. Ystra isn’t sure what kind Willheim but thinks she can figure it out over a few days of observation.

“Willheim can’t carry much weight?” Ystra asks, “Then how did he get rid of Lauren?” Garesh laughs and replies “Willheim isn’t the Incorporeal that got rid of Lauren. He made such a clamor that he woke the one who got rid of Lauren.” Ystra stares, incredulous. “You have two Incorporeal?” she asks in amazement. “Two? No, I have four.” Garesh says. He looks around, spots Jack and points him out, “That’s Jack.”

Garesh shows Ystra all of his Incorporeal except for Millie, explaining that she is sleeping. Ystra finds Garesh’s lack of knowledge concerning Screamers, specifically Incorporeal, funny. She explains that Screamers don’t need sleep in the same way that they don’t to eat or use the bathroom or breathe. Ystra doesn’t know if they are incapable of eating would even pretend to be sleeping and breathing, but she doesn’t understand why an Incorporeal would sleep if it doesn’t have to.

Ystra is incredibly impressed by Garesh’s ability to call forth multiple Incorporeal. Garesh asks her about the abilities of his Incorporeal and how to enable them to perform the tasks they’ve agreed to do (help him overthrow the government). Ystra decides to go back to her home and get a few books on Incorporeal that she got to study when she was an apprentice. She comes back with the books in less than half an hour.

Garesh reads through some of the book by the light of Jack’s glowing blue flame. Ystra tells Garesh that he can borrow those books and she makes her way back to her house. Soon, Garesh also decides to go back to sleep. He closes the book about Screamers. He places his hand on the front cover, which is emblazoned with the sigil of each of the five Screamer types. He waves his hand through Jack’s flame, gesturing for him to leave. “Jack, go.” Garesh says. The flame disappears. Garesh didn’t know that Jack could extinguish his flame. The room isn’t any darker. He looks down at the book and sees that it is covered in blue flame. He takes his hand off the book, but he notices that the fire is not hot and the book is not being damaged. It is a strange fire that does not burn or provide heat and is blue. It is just like Jack’s fire. He notices that the sigil in the middle of the cover is glowing a bright light whitish-blue. He can’t read the sigils, but he knows that since it is the middle sigil of the five Screamer sigils, it must be the sigil for Fey.