ok, so my 2 MCs have connections to the spirits in different ways. my FMC can see and hear spirits and also knows how to keep them at bay (warmth and light). my MMC can hear and smell them (to him, spirits smell like rot). He doesn't like them and, for the better part of his life, has put up mental barriers to ignore them. now, these two MCs are working together.... but i cant figure out how to make his abilities useful to hers. In an earlier chapter, the FMC was being verbally tormented by a malicious spirit, and my MMC, by force of will, forces it away and snapped her out of it's trance (this works because, the MMC and that particular spirit have a history, and he's able to exert some control over it). in the chapter I'm on now, there is a different spirit actively trying to do the FMC physical harm. She is in a cave, her light has gone out, and she's following her rope back outside where the MMC is waiting. I'm trying to come up with a way for his ability to be useful to her in this moment as she's trying to get away. So far his barriers are for him, and has a lot to do with compartmentalizing, and his beef with the first spirit is one of the reasons why he's able to get rid of it. neither of these characters have "magic," so no spells conjuring fire or whatever. What are some non-magical ways to temporarily dispel a spirit? ......Or i just accept the fact that he's useless to her in this chapter...
can the smell let him give her an early warning? can you introduce your own ways to dispel spirits that the MMC has always known about but keeps quiet because of his indifference - stink bombs that smell worse than the spirits? a really, really bright torch? the pre-recorded sound of the pope reading a christmas mass? Incense? I suppose a lot depends on the tone of the work; I tend to write fairly light-hearted fantasy, so something like a dog would work followed up with a comment along the lines of "yeah, spirits really hate dogs"
Rock salt. It should be available in a cave from water drips and stalactites, and rock salt has often been considered a pure, magical ward against spirits. Throw it at them or sprinkle it around to create a barrier. Table salt can work too, in a pinch, but rock salt is the shizz.
Or, maybe he can smell somewhere that smells "pure" and clean amongst the rot, so he leads her to that place, which turns out to be naturally repulsive to spirits (lots of salt formations?).
Is the spirit manifesting physical harm in a direct way like hitting her (poltergeist), or by misleading hear senses, causing her to fall/trip? I guess the point of this scene is that she doesn't have the resources to produce warmth or light to ward away the spirit as she normally would, and so by necessity she grows, incorporating his methods as well. Can the female and male lead hear each other at this point? I'm imagining a spirit trying to taunt and mislead her, both parties hearing this, and the male starting a persistently banal conversation with the other MC. It could be that this particular ghost is furious at being ignored, making it feel diminished, which in turn actually diminishes its influence. This could even work if it's a poltergeist scenario, too. The rocks on a narrow ledge give way, leaving the heroine hanging on to the rope by her arms. She shouts, insists that there's a presence in the cave, and is at first bewildered that her male counterpart is seemingly in denial about it, then slowly catches on, coming up with increasingly wildly improbable reasons why pickaxes are launching at her at Mach 1, why her gear suddenly fails, etc... At the end, they could even be hysterically laughing about what they've been saying as she finally, and just barely, crawls from the cave's mouth.
Sorry, totally forgot to respond to this.... Thanks for the responses! I got a few sparks of ideas that i may explore
