The VVitch

Molly was having yet another day of finding the great and wonderful magic components that people just threw away in their trash cans. Molly found himself never lacking for things like glass, scrap iron, arsenic and tin to make bronze, all these things people tossed that could just be smelted down and reused in his forge. In dis, metals were difficult to find and ironically enough the most common metal they had was the gold used in coinage, but God help from him had he been caught with a gold quarter much less had smelted it down into ingots. New York had proved a great hunting ground for components, however every so often Molly would find something even more interesting than metals and discarded trinkets.

Today there was an abnormal amount of inexplicable human teeth. It started with one or two… then a whole bag. Every time he’d encountered human teeth on this scale it meant hauntings by malevolent creatures, however he saw none at the moment which then meant there was a mage around summoning the wretches. He gives one of the teeth a light pinch as it crumbles into dust. The amount of teeth he found hinted that it was a strong devil but the lacking quality pointed to a novice at best. It was as he ventured closer to an apartment building that the sacks of teeth became stacks made of pigskin and tied with human hair full of teeth with markings burnt into the hide. Each sack an attempt to bind a demon and by the awful smell emanating from the witch totems all failed. So far he’d found twelve.

Faced with the choice to continue his happy existence and leave it be, return to his force and leave the demons to do as they will. In this world he only fought where he pleased. And given the thought, he pleased very much. With a roll of his shoulder his bronzed armor shimmers into place, half plate glimmering in the sun and eyeless helm resting under his arm at his side.

He ventures up the stairs, sun-gold eyes searching through each wall for anything that might be of a hint to which resident was about to get their asses kicked. It only took three doors before the figure of something wretched entered his view. It was unclear what it was, but the fact that it was highlighted in his vision meant this was the place he seeked. A heavy knock reminiscent of when the police have a warrant had a mousy looking boy answering the door only to attempt to slam it shut upon seeing what looked like a fully armored lord of hell. Molly had jammed his boot in the door way before forcing his way in and closing the door behind him.

“Found your totems, Vvitch.” He mocks, holding out a fleshy bag of teeth to the horrified young mage. “Tell me what you fished up out of hell with this thing.”

“I- I, No. Get out of my house!” The mage shambles, picking up a houseplant and hurling it at the reaver to which only ended in ceramic pots and dirt on Molly’s gorget. The reaver reaches up to dust the potting soil from his braids and horns. He glances to the item on the coffee table thats originally drawn his attention. A grimoire of sorts, written in the familiar silvery sheen of blood.

“Right, mages don't like to talk. Maybe this will help.” Molly rushes the beanpole of a man hooking an arm around his skinny waist and hauling him up over his shoulder in an instant scooping up the grimoire in one smooth movement before hauling the screaming mage to the window as fists weakly hammered against his pauldron. With an elbow he knocks the glass free of the window pane and sets the book down to remove his stainless white cloak, setting it over the glass before shifting his grip on the devil summoner who’d moved to trying to cling to Molly instead, but to no avail.

He ends up dangling from the third floor window by his ankles, as Molly holds him effortlessly with one hand and has the grimoire open upon his lap with the other.

“You know I can read your spellbook, right? Either you cough up what you did, or I’ll find out this way and have no use for you.” Molly flips the page taking in the Latin text. He could read it, sort of. Latin and reaver tongue shared the same base but the translations weren’t one to one. What stood out more than the texts were the horrifying pictures of hell creatures and the atrocities they could wreak on the world if left unchecked.

The mage scrambled and screamed, but refused to talk coherently, rather trying to curl his way up to cling himself to the window or begging for help. The reaver sighs, he supposed he’d have to keep reading, then he’d decide what to do with him. He looked young, and perhaps a little dumb, he wouldn’t waste his life over this… but it would be incredibly useful if he would just cough up the information he needed.

As the young mage clung to the reavers arm, desperately trying to avoid being let go, and dropped to the pavement below, the closet door to their right opened.  

“Oh...” Taliesin stated as he raised a brow, looking from Molly to the kid. “Is this a bad time?”  

Taliesin had never met a reaver in person, they tended to usually only deal with those who gain their magic through devils and demons. Still, Taliesin approached with caution, being a magic caster himself.

“Look, whatever the lad did, I’m sure he deserves it...” He pointed to grimoire. “But I am here for that, so if you don’t mind handing it over so I can reverse the shite this lad has sent out, then we can be both be on our way.” He held his hands out for the reaver to see, showing he wasn’t pulling any tricks. “Demons are your specialty, magic is sort of mine.”  

“Please...” The mage begged. “This psycho is gonna kill me!!”  

Taliesin looked over to the window. “Well, I suggest you tell us what spell you used, make this all easier for us, and maybe my friend here will feel kind enough to let you go.” He gave Molly a side glance, a concerned expression on his face.  

Suddenly, the front door was kicked wide open, the gunslinger Sean stepping inside, gun drawn as his aim shifted from Molly to Taliesin. “Which one of you summoned the Dybbuk?”  

Taliesin quickly waved his hands over his arm, a blue translucent shield appearing as he shifted into a protective stance. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, easy there mate, clearly tensions are high, but I think the three of us are all on the same side here...” He looked from Sean to Molly, then back. “You two are hunters, right...?” He paused. “Do either of you know anything about summoning spells and how they work, cause I do.”

“Can, can I come back inside now?”

Both Sean and Taliesin stated in unison. “Shut up.”

“If I kill you it will be because you squirmed too much and I lost my grip. Stop wiggling and start talking.” Molly gives the man a little shake for good measure even if the threat of losing his grip was a complete bluff. He could hold him there all day if he pleased. Luckily the surprise mage from the closet did give him a bit of a clue but he couldn’t help but laugh at how cautious he was being. “You are adorable mage. I may be an asshole, a complete bastard and a dick, I am not evil.”

Molly leans his head back against the window frame, ram’s horns scraping the wood. “I-I don’t know what I did!” The mage shouts, gaining the reaver’s attention.

“How do you not know what spell you cast? You did it at least twelve times!”

His ears twitch as yet another figure shows up mentioning a Dybbuk. Molly seemed to not care or notice that a loaded gun was pointed in his direction, rather that there were two souls here now and both had given him the information he needed, but still part of the story was missing. There were binding totems, failed binding totems. He hadn’t seen much in the way of summoning components around the man’s home and him not knowing what he did began to rag on him. He remains quiet as Outlaw and Talisin talk, amber eyes venturing back to the man desperately paying he didn’t drop him.

With a sigh, Molly straightens, hauling the man back onto solid flooring, but notably keeping the Grimoire. This thing was dangerous and he didn’t feel like just handing it over to the first mage who asked. “You’re safe now,What’s your name?”

“Kevin.”

“Right, Kevin,  just tell me about the Dybbuks.”

“I didn’t summon them! I was trying to catch them!” The mage breathes, finding himself glued to the floor as the blood rushes to his head.

The reaver crosses his arms, eyes going from the mage to the hunter. “So you didn’t summon them, you were trying to bind them, where did they come from in the first place.”

“Ebay!”

“Ebay?” Molly tilts his head as if the word were completely alien, eyes narrowing suspiciously. All the mage had was to hope and pray Outlaw and Talisin had some knowledge of the 21st century.

“Yeah, I bought that stupid wine cabinet for my moms birthday. Only when I opened it, there were twelve open wine bottles in them and a dozen demons attacked me and ran off to god knows where!” The mage stands dusting himself off. “I bought that thing to try to put them back. But that didn’t work. And here we are!!!”

“What is this Ebay, and how are people buying cursed boxes and cursed books with it?” Molly looks up, seemingly disinterested in harassing the poor amature demon binder. “Your world is amazing, but in some ways terrible. Anyway, I am Molly, And this.” Molly holds up the book. “Needs to get burnt because I hate having to chase down what mages summon.”


Taliesin did seem a bit more trustworthy than most mages. He did say they were on the same side, but Molly didn't get this old by being foolish. He'd need more than a promise of trust  worthiness to hand over the grimoire.

Sean cocked his head as he looked from Molly to Taliesin, then lowered his gun. “Where is this Ebay located?” He asked the young mage. “If this man is obtaining cursed furniture from there and spell books, then it is a place that must be dealt with.”

Taliesin raised a brow as he looked at the other two men. “Right, so you see...” The shield vanished as he lowered his defensive stance. “Ebay’s not exactly a place, per say...” He thought for a second, contemplating how he was going to explain the mechanics of using an online shopping website, or even what the world wide web was, for that matter. “It’s a bit more complicated...” He scanned the room, then finally spotted a wine cabinet in the room. “This the cabinet in question?” He waited for the Mage to nod, before walking over. “Right, Dybbuks are not demons, but rather disembodied wandering human spirits that tend to latch onto living people...” He walked back over to the closet, sliding his key in the knob before opening and stepping inside.

Sean raised a brow as he holstered his gun, walking over to Molly and the Mage, looking at the reaver. “Reaver, huh...” He stated, before looking to Mage. “Now, explain this so called Ebay.”

Before the Mage could respond, Taliesin came back into the room, making sure to lock entrance to the tower behind him, so that if anybody were to open the door again, it would lead to its intended closet. “Right, so Dybbuk comes from the Hebrew word, meaning to “cling” or “adhere”...” He opened up the book he had returned with, flipping to a specific page. “It is commonly believed that Dybbuks don’t pass on due to egregious sins they committed during their time alive, and thus wander until they can find a host and latch onto their soul...” He looked up to the others. “Most common cases of possession are females, the spirits themselves being male.”

“So they could be anyone in the city?” Sean shook his head. “I can sniff out spirits, but the city is huge, and it would take me days to cover that much ground, and that’s not taking their own mobility into account.”

“Well, people possessed by a Dybbuk often act out, often making horrible, or even lewd statements...” Taliesin flipped to the next page. “To be fair, there are a lot of cases of lewd words and acts...” He raised a brow, before continuing. “Well either way, the whole out of character schtick is something at the least...” He scanned for a specific part. “Ah, here we go, so Dybbuks usually have some goal they’re trying to achieve, based on the legends, and once they complete their goals, they will leave the host, oh, and they can be exorcised by a Rabbi.”

Sean looked over to the Mage again. “You wouldn’t happen to be Jewish, would you?”

The mage pauses to consider the fact that there are still people on this earth that still do know know what ebay is. Then again one of them looked like they were from a time where electricity would be considered magic. “Ebay is-”

He was cut off by Talesin reentering with a perfect description of what in the hell he’d let out of this box. “And I thought the only thing that could inhabit bottles were genies. I-I’m really sorry. I’ll never order anything off ebay again.” The mage raises his right hand in swear, hanging his head from shame. “And no. Not jewish, ethnically nor religiously.”

Molly shakes his head. He knew sort of what Dybbuks where, they were rare in Dis, but they did still exist. However anything past that wasn’t as big of a deal to a reaver. They knew they were a more human type of demon, barely classifying as one, and that they were a big enough nuisance to demand a reaver or two to be deployed to handle the problem every now and again. “They used to run rampant through the brothels. Problem is, a possessed whore amongst a motley crew of them doesn’t stand out much to the average man.”

The reaver rubs the back of his head, thinking. “It’s alright, I can see them literally sticking onto people, however it’s been pointed out to me that our method of dealing with them is less than acceptable here.” The reaver’s hands cross, resting on the hilt of his sword still in it’s scabbard at his hip. “I can kill almost any demon, but possession type demons have a nasty way of sticking around and finding someone else to latch to eventually. In Dis, we shattered them to pieces, emptied them into a jar or bottle and then left it at the door of the church for them to dispose of… A friend told me that your churches here are not equipped to deal with that.”

The mage goes quiet staring at Molly.

“Did you…”

“I didn’t. Another reaver who lives here now did. And they had to go clean up the mess it made a week later.” Molly gave a light shrug. “I am hoping at least one of you has an answer to her growing collection of demonic pickle jars and so I don’t dump 12 more on her.”