A true expert in Nightmares...

She was three times my size, and I kicked her in the face and sent her flying. That axe of a nose broke as I beheaded her cauchemar, one of normal size, and let it tumble past me to the floor of the bedroom, venting fire and brimstone all over the messy place.

The crib was gone a few nights past, and a large bed had taken its place. Scale had gone down somewhat, but the room was still impossibly large, probably just to maintain these fights.

It looked like the Curse was wising up. Size just meant it was harder for more targets to strike at me. Equally tough opponents the same size or smaller than me were actually harder to fight… it was probably just a lot harder to justify or actually put that kind of emphasis on something so small.

I had the feeling my giant enemies were going to be shrinking down somewhat in the nearer future… without getting any weaker.

These night hags had been half again as big before. Now, they were basically only about twenty percent bigger than they should have been.

Except for this one.

Uber-nightmares and chopped-up night hags littered the rugs, burning unwhite as they were disposed of, irritating the Curse. I kept my eyes fixed on this one as she scrambled back to her feet, glaring at me in hate and more than a glimmer of fear.

“For your information,” I snarled at her in fluent Daemonic, “I have killed hundreds of night hags here. I have their attack patterns, spells, styles, and means down cold, mounts and all. You deviated from them within seconds, meaning you stood out like a sore thumb.

“You were invited in.” Her poxed tongue licked mismatched nailed teeth, purplish-black eyes staring at me. “What exactly did you hope to accomplish here?”

She fondled her crushed nose as she laughed at me, hacking a little bit from where I’d cracked her ribs. “You can actually speak and plan? I had not expected to confront such a soul when I ventured within this Nightmare. No wonder it is proving difficult to subdue you,” she cackled, long claws stretching out in my direction. “Such strength and depth despite your age… but it will all be mine, now!”

Her eyes flared with hungry light, reaching out for me with a scream attuned to shake my soul and consciousness.

A Banestar smashed into her forehead, and she crashed over backwards from the blunt impact.

Stunned, she could barely move when I picked her up and threw her face-first into the wall. She outweighed me five to one, but it didn’t matter. She crashed into the paneling and post beneath, before falling down nicely. I wound my hand into her bristling wreck of a hairdo, stepping on her back as I bent her long, skinny neck back.

“Were you just trying to Possess me?” I asked in a conversational tone, looking down deep into her eyes. The scorn in my expression was totally obvious. “I mean, seriously, are you a total idiot? You saw all those Shards and Rays and Bolts not doing a damn thing to me, and you tried to Possess me?” I kicked out at an arm that was starting to move, and it broke with a crack that sounded more like stone than bone. “Answer me, grandaunt. It costs you nothing but some bones not being broken.”

I could definitely see the fear in her eyes, and Tremble’s droning at the edge of her eyes was definitely a wonderfully impressive part of it. Still, she had to cackle her reply, “So, you know what you are, dear child. Truly a hard knot to solve. No wonder I was able to enter so easily…”

I kicked out, and the upper arm on the other side cracked and broke, leaving that arm that was moving too much dangling there, bone jutting out in two places.

I didn’t say anything, just looking at her totally calm and unmoved.

“Yes, dear, I was trying to Possess you,” she admitted, with no attempt at consolation. “A mortal life is such a fun thing to enjoy, especially when young and unmarked yet! I could have had such fun!...”

“Go ahead and try it again.”

She blinked her glowing eyes, wisps of nightmares and screaming souls writhing on her plague-dark skin. “What?”

“Go ahead and try it again.”

She stared at me, thoughts obviously racing, wondering what I was getting at. “Why?” she asked, those glowing eyeslits narrowing.

“Because if you don’t succeed in five seconds, I’m going to chop off your head,” I said bluntly.

That was evidently sufficient reason, as her eyes flared with that ugly light again, despite her injuries, reached up into my eyes, and I pulled back my Null and let it in.

Her entire body vanished, pouring up along that foul stream of power, and raced through this dream lucid body of mine, shoving my soul and essence aside and taking control.

“Hahahahahaha-eh?”

She wanted to blink my eyes, couldn’t. Move my limbs, couldn’t. Swing my Sword, couldn’t. Her voice came out of my throat, but that wasn’t my vocal chords or lips moving.

Tremble gently disengaged from my fingers, floated out in front of me.

“No, no!” she protested, but my body just stood there on the wooden tiled floor, not moving as Tremble drew back.

And plunged right on in.

Vivic fire, Banefire, Holy energy, Enmity. The physical damage was nothing, Tremble’s point avoided anything vital, and a Vigor use would seal it all off anyways. No, what she had to deal with were all the energies anathemic to her and what she was, burning her slowly away.

They didn’t do anything to me, of course.

I politely used my Vajra to send the devouring flames washing across and through me, eating her away bit by bit. 5d6+4 damage every six seconds is about equal to a raging bonfire, and she had 200 or so Health. At 3-4 Health per second, she started to get eaten away and reduced to vivus.

It was a very unique feeling. The feeling of invasiveness, of being raped by this sinister old thing stealing into every fiber of my being, was horrible, as even the Curse hadn’t been able to get inside me like this. Of course, this Hag was a personification of her own Curse, and so could do things to me that my own Curse, which was so reliant on my existence, could not.

Now, I got to sit there and watch as she was reduced to vivus inside me, inside my Vajra, and I got to sample and experience all of her being reduced to her most base Essence, and burned away.

She was pure spirit, there was nothing physical to deflect the damage to, and she could only scream and try to move around within my body, trying to flee the flames. Alas, a body has a lot of dead ends to it. I burned her out of my head, sealing off the neck, then stealing down one arm, then the other, driving slowly down my chest, pushing down one leg, and then finally beginning the final burn as black postules burst out all over my left leg and the shrieking, viscous mist that came blistering out was held in by my Vajra.

In the end, she was crushed between my heel and my Vajra, as wrathflame boiled out of the sores and cleaned up the last of her. As a future mental advisory, I noted that this was nigh as painful as popping open a chakra point, above and beyond having my own Sword shoved into me, and I shouldn’t do it on a whim.

I should also make sure my Sword couldn’t be used against me, but that was another note for the future…

Tremble withdrew from between my ribs with a mental nod from me. Vigor hissed as flesh sealed up, blood vessels reconnected, my nerves jerked around in surprise that things didn’t actually feel like a sword was sticking through me anymore, and the subdual damage began to mend.

“I get she was from outside the Dream, and came in to either collect you or take your place, and the Curse was probably willing to do the latter. Buuuut… why the fireworks?” Tremble asked, coming back to my hand. We had two minutes.

“Sealed Binder Levels,” I replied.

“Oh? You never mentioned those…”

“Because entering the Class requires you to have once been Possessed. Usually this is done by the master bringing in something to Possess an apprentice, and then removing the entity after the apprentice learns what is needed. Requires a great deal of trust, of course.”

“Ohhhh…” Tremble said, realizing he’d just done the removal part. “Nasty pre-req! What does the Class do?”

“The reason you need to be Possessed is to realize where those entities go and what they do when they come into your mind, body, and soul, and shove you off to some helpless corner of yourself.” I smiled slightly. “We have to learn where that helpless corner is!”

I could almost hear him blink. “Ohhhhh. So, then you Summon them, and draw them in, and Bind them in that helpless corner!”

“Precisely, using Tattooed Seals.” I took deep breaths. “For the Powered, it basically means being able to hook into the physical attributes and special powers of the entity they Summoned, dip into its knowledge and memories… exactly the same as they normally do to the Possessed.

“It’s dangerous and highly corruptive, as you are literally employing the powers of Soulborn, generally of Evil mien, and you want stronger ones so the powers they give you are stronger. At the same time, using the gifts of Evil against Evil seduces a lot of people. The gods help you if you try to borrow their mental Stats and graft the way they think onto yourself…”

Tremble flickered once. “No, that doesn’t sound like a good idea…”

“Of course, Forsaken can’t do this. Our Nulls will naturally force them out of us, and as you saw, they can’t even move us around, since that would require magic, and lo, no magic.” I grinned despite myself. “Forsaken become Sealed Binders, which is a bit different than normal ones.”

“Because no magic. So… you need an external power, and you have to Seal them into that empty space…”

“To be blunt, we can acquire their base racial abilities that are non-magical. A Soulborn IS its spirit. Its physical body on the mortal plane is just something used to anchor it here. On the spiritual planes, it’s just solidified ectoplasm.

“That means it retains the memory of what it wants its body to be right there in its spirit. We can learn to replicate that build, and then use the Bound Spirit to power it to effectiveness. If we are strong enough, we can burn the spirit completely and make it a permanent racial change, effectively evolving in the direction of the spirit.”

“That’s… not much different from the Curse physically changing you into a Hag,” Tremble noted slowly.

“Nowhere near as good as that. Can’t do magical abilities with it.”

“So… you want to end up all blue-black and warty, with a pickaxe for a nose?” Tremble inquired.

“The malignant side-effects of Hagdom are an aspect of the Curse. There’s no Curse powering this. It’s just an evolutionary guide. Basically, I’m going to go fishing for racial modifiers. If I want a change in appearance, that’s something else entirely.”

“Oh.” He hummed for a second. “So, kitten-ears and a fuzzy tail?”

“Optional, but possible… if you can find a possessing entity who is properly furry.” Hey, it was a serious question. “I was thinking more erinyes and succubus at the top end.”

“No angels?”

“I’m not gonna trap and Bind a celestial just so I can have some racial mods.” Unless they were totally okay with it, of course…

“You’re remarkably generous that way,” he complimented me.

“I am, aren’t I? The queens of succubi, lilitu, have a +16 Strength racial Strength modifier, you know…”

“Oh. Versus…?”

“My current +2 for being a Hagchild and not having a gender deficiency to Strength?”

“You being sixteen points stronger… Your enemies will have to resign in protest!” he judged. Lilitu were about as strong as I was with my Girdle right now, sans the Might modifier of Jotuns.

“That’s the idea.” Shadows were gathering around us as the next round was coming. “Mwa-hahahaha! I can’t believe the Curse is helping me take Binder Levels!”