[D1: LN: Open] A Dream within a Dream

[Shika Nesshin]

Nesshin has begun to twist away from the sword before it stops, and once Koi composes herself, he does, and he nods.

"I heard no song," he says, and his eyes scan about the darkened garden.

"But there are any number of things that make noise in a garden such as this," he adds. "Many of them are entirely mundane."

I've been among them more than once, he thinks.

(GM, need I roll something here?)

[Kaikoga Koi]

Koi levelled a glance at the Shika that could crumble walls, and sighed. "I know the difference between people frolicking and something wrong, Shika-san."

She seemed to focus her self and whispered softly. "It sung a song about Moth's immediately without seeing it, and it sounded hungry."

Koi reached up a hand, and held the palm flat carefully drawing the flower into her hand and began to whisper softly, her senses cutting out each background noise one after another.

The noise of the pond. Silenced in her mind.
The sound of people early in the morning doing their tasks. Silenced as well.
The hammering of her chest, calmed.
The sensation of sweat on her neck in as tension pulsed within her mind. Silenced that for now.

She focused her mind, and held the flowers to the Air before she spoke a pray.

Power of my voice cast a circle of Air around me, Kami of the Soaring Birds, Kami of the breath and whirlwind, the mischievous siblings that weave their secrets to us I draw you to me hand in hand with a gift for your aid...

Kami of air, please gift me your true sight what lurks in the darkness of the moon and hungers so...

Power of my circle spiral, spirals and spirals drawing to me but I release you to aid me in this task...

LN: Commune with Air - Air/Theology - Proper Offering TN 1. | TN: 1 | Success: 2 / Opportunity: 1 / Strife: 0
Success Boon: Sense the Kami
Opportunity Boon: Spiritual Knowledge

She released her prayer, and watched patiently for the Air to reply.

[Saibankan]

Koi levelled a glance at the Shika that could crumble walls, and sighed. "I know the difference between people frolicking and something wrong, Shika-san."

She seemed to focus her self and whispered softly. "It sung a song about Moth's immediately without seeing it, and it sounded hungry."

Koi reached up a hand, and held the palm flat carefully drawing the flower into her hand and began to whisper softly, her senses cutting out each background noise one after another.

The noise of the pond. Silenced in her mind.
The sound of people early in the morning doing their tasks. Silenced as well.
The hammering of her chest, calmed.
The sensation of sweat on her neck in as tension pulsed within her mind. Silenced that for now.

She focused her mind, and held the flowers to the Air before she spoke a pray.

Power of my voice cast a circle of Air around me, Kami of the Soaring Birds, Kami of the breath and whirlwind, the mischievous siblings that weave their secrets to us I draw you to me hand in hand with a gift for your aid...

Kami of air, please gift me your true sight what lurks in the darkness of the moon and hungers so...

Power of my circle spiral, spirals and spirals drawing to me but I release you to aid me in this task...

LN: Commune with Air - Air/Theology - Proper Offering TN 1. | TN: 1 | Success: 2 / Opportunity: 1 / Strife: 0
Success Boon: Sense the Kami
Opportunity Boon: Spiritual Knowledge

She released her prayer, and watched patiently for the Air to reply.

The air kami whispered into her left ear...

"Behind...

...you....

Just as she felt a rush of warm air on her right ear and heard

"You.
Are.
All.
That.
I.
Need."

[Shika Nesshin]

Nesshin shrugs at her words, and he is about to reply when she enacts her working. And he sees her efforts, hears her prayer, but of what she hears and feels, he gets nothing.

For all he knows, she is standing still.

Wasn't just people fucking that I meant, he thinks.

[Kaikoga Koi]

Koi hair by her ear fluttered before she moved to the side far to the left raising her lantern as the Kami whispers into her ear whirling around. Her other hand drawing the katana outward which she attempted to raise defensively.

"Back!" She called, her eyes focusing where the voice came from. "Name yourself unseen presence, reveal yourself from the obfuscation you use. Reveal yourself in the light where there is honour.." She growled, her vitiligo eye illuminating fierceness presenting the lantern where the kami directed her.

Koi's attention was fierce and pointed, this was her drawing on the teaching of a shugenja and not someone perhaps unstable but it is a matter of perspective.

[Shika Nesshin]

Nesshin starts back just a bit at the Kaikoga's sudden motion.

That spirit shit again, he thinks. I've always heard talk about them. Never did see or hear any. But then, Mom and Dad were always disappointed.

He braces to tackle the Moth out of the way at need. Should've brought my spear.

[Saibankan]

And nothing happens. Nothing rises to answers the Moth's challenge. The two seemed to be completely alone.

[Kaikoga Koi]

Koi seemed confused, scared even as she moved the lantern trying to sense where the spirit is. "I dont know where it is, Nesshin. I dont know what it is. You know this city better than me, do you know of any stories about a spirit being possessive towards people in the gardens? Anything in history? Anything at all?"

Kio turned, bracing and wished that she could do something more.

She turned towards the pond nearby, and extended her hand towards it with a open hand before she raised her hand over her head in a graceful spiral and whispered.

Kami of Water awaken our circle of power, guide they surging waves of love to my aid. Swirling around and around we ebb and flow with your might. Nothing can halt your surging tide for your perception is absolute. Grant me the name of this being..

[D1, LN] Finding out information about the spirit. Water/Theology. Class Ability. | TN: 2 | Success: 1 / Opportunity: 2 / Strife: 1

Opportunity used to negate Strife, and to create a small elemental effect.

The Kami of Water was not impressed by this matter and nothing happened, the water rose up and splashed on the ground half heartedly. Her frustration perhaps a bit clearer on her face.

"Well, I am out of ideas." She muttered.

[Shika Nesshin]

Nesshin starts at the splashing, but he shakes his head in answer to the questions.

"I've never been aware of anything like that," he says. "I mean, yeah, there're always stories about some kind of bugaboo or another, but I haven't experienced anything of the type, myself.

"But you're clearly spooked, and you were clearly here before I got out here. What happened?"

[Kaikoga Koi]

Koi kept alert, her lantern held high and visible unsure of what it was or where it was. Koi took a breath, a single breath as she tried to calm herself as the soft rattle of metal gave away her hand had begun to shake slightly. "I came here under the advise that these trees would protect you from bad dreams if you slept beneath these dreams."

She shook her head, starting over. "I am doing research into the changes within Yume-do because things are happening and its changing the creatures within. This place has to be a place filled with such things with all the love, hope, loss, pain and wishing that comes with doing the Miai's. I was given advise by an older man about the temple and the cedar trees - one gives prophetic dreams if slept under - the temple - and the other gives protection from bad dreams if you sleep under them."

Koi looked frustrated and annoyed. "In order to be able to work with the baku spirits, or denizens of Yume-do you need to be able to have them around you. I sung a song...and I heard a response."

She thought for a moment, closing her eyes as she tried to recall it.

"I am a moth.....Who just wants to share your light.....
I'm just an insect.....trying to get out of the night.....
I only stick with you.....
Because there are no others....
You are all I need.....
You are all I need...."

She said doing her best to cover the words. "It sounded hungry but I can't see it though it seems close to me at times. Then it said that I am all that it needs." She looked at Neeshin with an almost pained expression. "I am not making this up, Shika-san. By my honour, I am not but I can't see it, and at the same time it doesn't seem to be doing anything beyond whispering to me.."

Koi blinked for a moment, and looked at the lantern in her hand like puzzle pieces falling into place before she called out to the night.

I am the Night who fills the land with dreams...
Moth's protect those that drift off into different worlds...
We come from the Moon, us Moths, we ride upon it's silver rays..
We deliver hope and rest for those...
There is nothing I have to give...
There is nothing I have to give...

Koi extinguished her lantern by blowing it out.