Ghost Stories (and an entity injuring me in my sleep)

I mentioned in my intro post that I come from an old, very haunted town. As a precocious child with way too much curiosity to be healthy, I started getting nosy about it at an early age (not least of which because our house had some spirits of it's own). I will freely admit that I was very, /very/ lucky when it came to the spirits in my family's home-the story that's been passed down for generations is that for whatever reason the house and it's incorporeal residents were fiercely loyal to our bloodline. Anyone related to us within the house was well protected.

They did reject /anyone/ who wasn't related who tried to stay for more than a few hours. Weird things happened the few times my sister and I tried to have sleepovers, and by and large anyone we had over for the night was so terrified by morning that they wouldn't speak to us anymore. When I was in middle school, my parents tried to rent out the attic apartment to local college students. They were a bit more resilient to the haunting, but none of them lasted more than a month. I don't know what happened to them despite my best efforts. We stopped trying when the last one ended up in the hospital after 'falling' down the stairs. Dad almost got arrested because of the bruises where she'd been pushed-but since we'd been out grocery shopping in a busy store with lots of people to see him there, they had to drop the case and rule it an accident.

We might have attempted to get rid of the spirits, but for two reasons-one, they were obviously powerful enough to be dangerous, and two, they were valuable for protection. We lived in kind of a bad neighborhood-not /terrible/, but bad enough that we were the only house on our street that had never been robbed. When my sister and I were being bullied, all we had to do was get onto our own yard, and no bully could touch us (as far as we know, none of them were harmed, for the record. Just unnerved enough to leave). We learned how to communicate with them, and eventually how to make it known that someone was our guest and not to be harmed for a certain period of time.

And then we got confident, and started seeking out other ghosts, to interact with or to get rid of, as needed. Most of the spirits we encountered were weak and not particularly malicious. The ones who have grown so used to being gawked at by tourists that they've made newcomers a part of their games. We thought at the time that we were dealing with major spirits, but looking back they were either weak or just toying with us. We researched and made our own rituals (some of which I'll be putting up once I've gotten them properly written up). A few of them we did manage to exorcise, others we left alone because we were convinced they were harmless.

And then I graduated and arrived at my current university. A very old school in another very old town. There are still a few weak ghosts that make for good tourist attractions, but there are also plenty of less friendly entities here. I went looking, thinking rather foolishly that it would merely be more ghosts. I didn't believe the stories I'd heard of more dangerous and powerful entities. Needless to say, I do now. I went looking for one of the reportedly more intense hauntings in the area. Nothing happened that night until I got back to my dorm room. I was finishing up a last cup of tea before bed (to calm my nerves), when there was a knock on the door. Without thinking, I answered. In a dorm room it's not unusual to have random visitors at weird hours. There was no one there. Foolishly, I assumed it was a prank, and went to bed. Since that night, things have been rearranged while I'm out of the room or asleep. I hear weird noises at all hours, and I've recently started waking up with bruises and scratches on my arms and back. My normal protections aren't working-presumably because I let the thing in when I opened the door.

I tried using the protection ritual put up here last night, and while it kept me from getting injured further I woke up with everything I own strewn randomly across the room, like a tornado had been through. I wouldn't really call this an emergency, but I do need help.

Ah yes, you invited it in. :/

Does your dorm room have a window?

It does, yeah. Third floor. I keep it lined with salt and a stick of Rowan wood.

Hrm.

Step One: Mirror Surviellance to see what exactly you're up to.

Step Two: Are you alone in your dorm room? If not ,think of a way to make sure that no one enters or stays there until you got rid of the problem. That means also you. Sleeping anywhere haunted is a big no-go if you're not trying to pull off a Dream Confrontation Ritual.

Step Three: Research about the haunted place you last visited. First from afar ,later maybe you have to visit the place itself again if you still don't know what chases you.

These are the thing you have to do to find out what exactly that thing is without endangering yourself or your surroundings. After that we can brainstorm how to blow that bit-ch out of our world.

I have a single dorm room, yes, but there's not really anywhere else I can sleep. It's finals time, after all. I'll be out of here in another week (at least for a month).

The haunted place I visited was an old 'Indian School'. A hundred or so Native Americans were brought in, not fed properly, and forced to attend school in the building. A lot of them died from malnutrition and disease, and all of them were trying desperately to escape and get home. My injuries more or less fit with someone being abused-like they would likely have been in that building.

I was thinking, Disperse it really good and let a strong draft take care of the rest! :p

But Mirror Surveillance beforehand is a really good suggestion! Keep us posted, please! 83

Ow. You guys weren't kidding about the migraine. I had to take a few minutes before I got back online because of the pain. I've taken aspirin and am wearing sunglasses so hopefully that'll help.

The ritual worked like a charm. I did it from the corner of my room that my bed is in, buried in the corner so I could see the whole room through the mirror. That's one of the benefits of such a tiny dorm-one mirror was plenty to observe the whole thing. Sure enough, there was a humanoid figure drifting around the room. I watched it knock a water bottle off of my desk with a strange sort of fascination. What I wasn't expecting was that it seemed to notice me watching it, and it started approaching. I panicked, threw the salt, and the thing was gone. It managed to tear up a lot of my stuff on the way out, though. Not that I noticed at first. All that I really noticed right off is the pain in my head that felt rather like my skull was being cracked open.

I don't know what to do next, but I've got three days to figure it out. Otherwise... well, judging by the wreckage of my bookshelf, it's not going to be happy with me.

It sensed what you were doing? Interesting... But if it seemed human alright the thats a good sign!
I'll do some research and tell you when I have ideas for the next step. Till then i have to post a ritual i found to be quite useful.
Hang in there and get some rest ,yeah?

I will, thanks.

So, I can't seem to catch anyone, unfortunately. I've got a few hours before the thing should be back, and I was hoping to get someone's opinion on whether or not using the cage instead of concentrating it down is a good idea...

If you got an idea on how to banish it, caging sounds like a great deal! Otherwise, that might just piss it off! :/

If you're not already in the middle of the ritual I would suggest the standard procedure maybe combined with extra security spells if you have some at hand. Sounds like the cage is really more made for swarm entities.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I'm getting my stuff together to do it now.

... That could have gone better. The entity decided to muck with my salt lines when I was trying to tie it to my sock. On the bright side, I managed to get it done. On the less bright side, I may have a minor concussion from the violent reaction of salt touching the sock. And also the RA thinks someone has a gun in the dorms. I'm very lucky that she didn't get too nosy about what I was doing.

The sock is currently in a very large container of salt, and the string is tied to my pinkie while I regroup. I dunno what to do next.

This is maybe a little too obvious but try Dispersing?? :? If there is an object your entity kept knocking over a lot, that could work as a resonance object!! Or you'll have to bring something from the haunted place you visited!

I doubt she wants to bury her pinkie with the red string alongside the container... ;D

In for a penny, in for a pound. Simply releasing it is not a good idea. Get yourself a mask somehow and disperse it.

Right ,releasing pissed entities is one of the big no-nos (of which there are like 284 to my countings).

@Deep: Ambit thinks that she alone won't be able to pull of a proper Disperse for now ,so we planned for her to seal it away until her sister shows up.

I mean you told me you have some Binding Rituals Ambit ,right? With which you were going to trap it in the sock-and-salt container? Like we discussed in the chat? Right?

Right, sorry. maybe I should read the entire thread before replying. Anyway, i gather those.. spirits at your house are seemingly benevolent?
Personally, I would advise against relying on a paranormal entity. Those things are fickle and inscrutable. have you ever confronted those house spirit things with other paranormal entities? if not, don't do it now. And if your sister won't be there soon, you'll HAVE to disperse it by yourself. is there anybody else who can help you get the materials needed?

I'm headed home in about three hours, so I think my current precautions will hold until I get home. And Deep1, I've been chased home before by a spirit, and whatever's in my house destroyed that thing the moment it came onto the property. So I /think/ that would work. Probably.

And Shutter, I did, and I do, and that's why I think I can get it home safe. Otherwise I wouldn't risk it in a car with my family for two hours. @_@

I'm glad you're okay.

I'm back at home now. I got the Entity back safely, managed to avoid awkward questions from my family. It's... well, it's no longer a threat.

I'm lucky that my parents decided to take the heavy stuff ahead and put it in our shed until I need it again moving back into my dorm in January. When Dawn and I grabbed the light stuff and started heading for the house, we started to smell something burning. I felt the warm through my pocket and pulled the box out just in time to see smoke start pouring out of it. The whole thing went up quickly, and thank goodness we were on tile floor because I dropped it to avoid getting burned. Within a minute, the entire rig-sock, salt, box, and string-was nothing but ash. And I have a nice shiny burn on my finger where the string was tied to prove it.

The house is definitely defensive about spirits trying to enter, even unwillingly. I'm not sure yet if this will mean that I'm in trouble with it. I'll have to wait and see.