Yoshitakatomo's Audience with Nodens

Life, Supernatural

Continuing her languid voyage across the northern seas of Japan, Hashinara Yoshitakatomo beheld with her* another presence. A suggestion of dark wings in the night, rubbery and silent. Remembering Kuranes' words about such a visitor, Yoshitakatomo allowed herself* to be picked up by a pair of strong black talons and borne by the Night-gaunt out of her own body and into the oneiric realm.

The familiar waters of Japan soon gave way to more alien vistas. Crystalline waters barely shrouded strange submarine ruins as a shining city and an endless forest passed her* by at increasing speed on either side. Always, looming above her, the Moon of the Dreamlands seemed close enough to touch. Once, she* reached out for it, only to have her faceless companion knock her hand away with one of its monstrous claws.   Before long, the waters below had became icy plateaus and frozen wastes, which then dropped into an endless black abyss. It was into this that the Night-gaunt plunged with Yoshitakatomo still grasped firmly in its claws. They fell for what seemed an eternity, but eventually arrived at a ponderous structure, a tomb floating seemingly without support in the darkness. With its utterly black surface and smooth angles, Yoshitakatomo felt sure she* would be utterly unable to see it if not for the benefit of her supernatural vision.   Disembarking, she* left the Night-gaunt at the tomb's stygian gates and passed within. The structure's interior was similarly colorless, but with elements of finery that pointed to a finery suited to an audience chamber or throne room. Behind a pearlescent dark throne rose the only splash of color in the hall. A massive length of red flesh, still dripping blood, that Yoshitakatomo recognized as an abnormally large tongue. It was still bleeding, pinned to the wall like a grisly trophy, and droplets of ichor splashed unseen behind the throne.   At first, Yoshitakatomo thought this to be the only sound in the otherwise silent hall. As she* approached, however, she sensed another texture just beneath it. A repeated sound, sharp and wet, as of someone butchering meat. Drawing closer, the source of this other noise became apparent as a giant of a man, bone white in skin and garments, stepped around the throne. In his right hand he held the corpse of some misshapen thing, its alien features mangled beyond any manner of recognition. His left hand carried a sword, still red and slick with the blood of his kill.   This, Yoshitakatomo felt sure, was Nodens, Lord of the Abyss. The bone-white man confirmed this thought with an introduction, and intoned that he had heard of Yoshitakatomo's coming from the Greatest Dreamer. As Kuranes was among the few mortals he respected, he would hear out his visitor's request. Naturally, Yoshitakatomo began by asking for knowledge and power to defeat Izanami-no-Mikoto, who still held Hashinara Yoshiyuki in her withered grasp.   Nodens considered this request, and answered that he would lend his aid to Yoshitakatomo's hunt upon a single condition. She* had received a missive from another in the Dreamlands, a being hailing from Cities on the Moon. This creature wished to barter with Yoshitakatomo for the release of its kin, but in order to receive Nodens' help, she* would have to refuse this offer, and instead slay her visitor. After destroying it utterly save for a single eye, and bringing this trophy to Nodens, he would lend her* his aid.   Curious about this request, Yoshitakatomo performed some mental research into The Faceless God and the Moonbeasts it begat upon the surface of the Dreamlands' moon. She* asked bluntly why Nodens would ask such a thing, and Nodens responded in kind that he wished for Yoshitakatomo to make a dire enemy of the Faceless God. This, he asserted, would help to prevent her from falling into the being's service in the future.   Pondering what she* had learned, Yoshitakatomo made to depart from the throne room. She* would consider his offer and, if she* decided to accept it, would bring the eye back to Nodens. The Lord of the Abyss seemed to accept this, stating that he would not pressure her to join him instead of The Faceless God. Should she* find herself* in league with those denizens of the Moon, however, she* too would become his prey.   The same Night-gaunt was waiting outside, and bore her back to the waking world. The trip this time seemed even shorter, and faster. All the while, that gibbous moon hovered just over her*, tantalizingly just within Yoshitakatomo's reach.