With a jolt I was back in the present again. Taking what I had just learned I looked through MFBI files on my new work laptop to see if they contained anything of use. I had hit the proverbial jackpot.

I was dealing with Fredrick the Killer Doll. They had been searching for the doll even before the FBI was created, and the previous magical oversight organization merged with it. The doll was a slippery one due to its various abilities. It went from one family to the next, leaving a trail of bodies in its wake.

It was a typical haunted doll story; sick Victorian boy dies of his illness while cursing God and the world around him which imbued his spirit into the doll. Now this was a harder and more involved process in most worlds that needed a lot more conditions being met, but this world was just that kind of place. Lucky for a sick Victorian boy, not so lucky for all the victims over the years. It had the standard possessed object abilities: teleportation, electronic disruption, fear aura, night empowerment, stealth, and the ability to cause hallucinations.

“Nothing to it, but to do it.” I said, psyching myself up for my latest hunt.

When heading through the front door I summoned my mask over my face and drew a quick finger painting of a sun on its forehead using faith essence. I found the paint method was the most bang for my buck and had the most versatility.

I tried pills, but those only offered weak effects for an extended period of time. Which was good info, but not quite was I was looking for. Artifacts worked about the same as the essence paint but were a waste of a slot. Not to mention that it was a pain to create one for each essence I wanted to use.

It was also extremely easy to turn essence to paint. The only problem was storage as the paint tended to “evaporate” to their natural form as energy. I solved this by turning essence to the more stable crystalline form and skimming some for paint.

The type of paint affected the result. Electricity was one of go-tos due to its wide availability and it merely increased speed. Faith was another favorite as it massively increased the damage I could put out. It had saved my skin a number of times against various night bumpers, like those jiāngshī that nearly killed me via siphoning all my internal energy.

I used the essence paint as war paint as it fits the theme of battle and strength thus strengthening the effect. I directed the intent towards the Muscle Shirt instead of my body as my current method of infusion was multiplicative instead of additive. Normally this is a good thing, but normally one does not have rotten apples for muscles. This had the effect of weakening the strengthening as the muscle shirt was already infused with other concepts due to its artifact nature. This left little room for faith or any other essence.

My painted sun gave me five minutes of faith imbuement before running out of juice and I was hesitant to put on more during what was likely to be a tough fight. So, I was on a five-minute time limit.

One might think going in without weapons was a bad call and it was no doubt, but I had little choice in the matter. I simply lacked the coordination to use any weapon effectively. While muscle shirt provided me at least a basic level of strength, it did little to mitigate my rotten nerves. That problem could not be fixed as easily as my muscles. Trust me I tried.

To sum it up, I can’t aim for sh*t and anything longer than a bread knife was unacceptably unwieldly. My knife worked for most situations, but a powerful monster made of porcelain. That was a little too much to ask of my knife.

Righty and lefty also had the advantage of attacking the mind and soul in addition to the body due to my intertwined nature. Which is always a plus

Anyways back to the action and five-minute time frame.

“Little pig. Little pig.” I called out with my voice echoing through the house.

My sixth sense felt an object flying towards the back of my head. Which I promptly ducked under. Well, fell under. All I had to do was let go of my cane and temporarily dampen my connection to the Muscle Shirt. Without either support I dropped like a… well like a guy with rotten muscles.

The vase shattered against the wall instead of my skull.

I then noticed a wave of purplish energy rushing towards me. I grabbed my cane, engaged the Muscle Shirt, and used my newly recovered strength to throw myself away from the focused center of the blast. It rang my bell a little but by and large I was fine.

The second psychic wave launched me through the wall, with some small gashes exposing my insides causing instant weakness. Without my skin keeping the rot contained, it leaked through the gaps and damaged everything around it. Namely Muscle Shirt, Suit of Armor, and my faith imbuement. This weakened the two artifacts and dropped my timeframe from five minutes to two. So, two minutes to do something that I was unsure I could do in five.

Stolen story; please report.

Through the plaster dust, I could see a porcelain doll floating in a storm of purple energy. And what I weird moment that was, intimidated by a doll wearing short shorts and a bow tie.

I was presented with a choice: continue going with my current strategy or go with a backup plan.

I decided to risk it for the biscuit. Said proverbial biscuit being my life. I shifted my intent guiding the faith paint to flood both Muscle Shirt and Suit of Armor with faith essence, dissolved the bonds in both artifacts, and weaved the resulting storm together. This was a technique I developed as a trump card; it condensed a lifetime of usage into a brief window where the artifact’s abilities spiked. The only downside to this move is when this brief window ended, I would be without any other cards to play.

I created golden energy armor so dense as to be almost opaque. The armor covered every inch of my body with paladin-esque armor.

I noticed the spread-out silverware around me all lift and turn towards me. The silverware proceeded to be launched at me. When the doll saw its opening salvo doing little more than scratching my armor, it spun the various utensils around like a makeshift shredder. Said shredder was rapidly grinding down my armor. Which shortened my already brief window to win the day.

However, due to focusing on my armor it left itself open to attack. I rushed it and threw a wild haymaker. While the doll had an energy shield, it could not stand up to the power of my temporary armor.

I, in large part due to my armor, had blown away a huge chunk of the doll’s side and took an arm. Dense black sludge started pouring out of the hole. It was all the negative energy that the doll had accumulated over the centuries.

“NO!!!! NO!!! NO!! IT CAN’T JUST END LIKE THIS! I’VE COME SO FAR, DONE SO MUCH. JUST TO HAVE IT END IN AN INSTANT RIGHT BEFORE NIGHT WAS FINALLY FALLING.” The doll screeched as its power literally bled out of its chest.

When the last of its power was gone, its body dropped to the ground and shattered. All evidence that the doll ever existed was the pile of broken porcelain, black sludge, and purple shards.

I quickly took some thread made of connection essence from my storage and sealed the tears in my skin before my rot could do more damage.

With that done I created a simple wooden wheelchair to get me around and back home. As I was without my artifact given strength and too tired to use a cane.

Now time to check my spoils.

The purple shards contained the second of the mixed energies, spirit. Spirit’s purpose was domination. Whereas chi was the combination of physical and mental, spirit combined mental and spiritual.

This energy like chi could not be used by me directly, but it did teach me a skill just as useful as imbuement. How to overcome other beings’ Aura. Aura is what I took to call the field people naturally put out that resists unnatural change, it’s the reason blood mages can’t just boil your blood. The reason telekinetics can toss people around but not rip out hearts. Well not without being way more conceptually powerful than you are. This skill will allow me to ignore some of that gap, with the amount increasing with proficiency.

I put the purple spirit shards away for later.

Unfortunately, the doll did not have any organs due to its nature, but I still had enough for the foreseeable future due to regular hunts.

I then had my mask consume some of the porcelain shards on the ground.

My mask turned from bone into porcelain shards. Where the mask used to have lines denoting the wasp jackal’s plating, the plating turned real and was held together with a black liquid. The last of the cosmetic changes is that the mask could now articulate and follow facial movements. This had the side benefit of being able to open the mask’s mouth and eat with it on.

The porcelain allowed the mask to use some of the doll’s abilities: disruption, fear aura, night empowerment, and stealth. These abilities raised the mask to tier two.

The rest of the porcelain was fed to The Mentalism Ring to grant it the doll’s ability to create hallucinations.

I laid my hand on the pile of doll remains and extracted the doll's soul. I proceeded to consume the doll's experience with said abilities and spirit in general. The teleportation ability will not be of too much use to me though as I had a better one due to my relationship with space.

After I was done, I left the scene and submitted a report to MFBI HQ that Fredrick the killer doll was off the board. Someone was getting a bonus and commendation, but that was little comfort as I still was clueless about anything to do with the falling night. Fredrick eliminated all traces of it from his soul as a final act of defiance.

Time to wheel my chair back home. Well wheel my chair to the car and hope I can drive using essence threads.

Current Equipment:

Head:

[The Black Wasp Jackal’s Face]

Earrings:

[]

Necklace:

[The Energy Baron’s Stomach]

Clothes:

[]

Rings:

[The Mentalism Ring]

[Succubus’ Kiss]

[Mena’s Book]

Bracelets:

[]

Shoes:

[Cement Shoes]

Armaments:

[Weaver’s First Armament]

[Sense Cane]

[Holy Straight Razor]

Storage:

[Various Essences]

[Chi Organ]

[Spirit Shards]

[Various Murder Weapons]

[Green Thumb]

[Glass Eye]