The Day of Thunder

Naraku drunk his tea soon after Reo had taken his. He feels his eyelids heavy and his body numb as his consciousness slowly drifted away. There is a warm breeze rocking him gently, carrying him into a sea of light.

He opens his eyes and once more is in the same forest where he met Chuchu. The light filters through the canopy casting ethereal patterns in the ground bellow, and the soft rustle of the leaves sound like happy chuckles being carried by the unseen wind.

He stands up and looks around, wondering if it had always been as bright as this before. He would love nothing but to admire the forest, but he has a mission that he must fulfill. He must find something that will allow them to have an edge against the enemy.

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D3 | Ayahuasca fueled nightmares | Poison/Fire | Void +1k1 | 2 CR | 10k5 ⇒ 39 (TN: 30)

Not only was the forest bright, but each individual color seemed to display with a higher intensity than it did in the normal world. Red was more red, blue was more blue, and the division between light and shadow was almost too intense to look at directly. Every detail of the forest around Naraku was clearly defined and easy to see, his senses so sharp that he could see the veins on a leaf falling to the ground from a hundred paces away.

This made it clear that, while the patch of forest he stood in now was quite the same as the forest at the edge of the village, beyond his immediate surroundings things looked different, hazier and less distinct. At least, until he turned to look at them. Whatever was on his periphery remained little more than a blur of shapes and colors, but within his immediate focus, he found he could slowly focus shapes into sharper relief, turning blobs into trees and frogs, and even observing new paths ahead of him if he tried hard enough.

His newly gained vision was overwhelming to say that least, but he managed to center himself and allow himself to slowly process what was happening around him.

He searched around to situate himself and pinpoint sources of, as Chuchu would say, the Rot. Perhaps there would be something that he could retrieve to help them fight against Yume-Jigoku.

Among the swirl of colors, there are occasional splashes of a color that can only be describe as foul. It looks disgusting, half withered and barely clinging to the soil surrounding it. And it smelled....purple.

Naraku's experience with poisonous substances would easily identify this mushroom as especially toxic, if it were equated to a real-world variation, with hints that it was distorted or corrupted in some fashion. And weirdly larger than most of it's species would allow.

It also seemed to be wriggling and wobbling, as if it were trying to rise up and walk, or otherwise generate some locomotion to move from its current location.

He grimaced at the sight. The rot was spreading into the dream, its mycelium slowly creeping into the untamed purity of Yume-Do. Perhaps there was something he could, some action he could take to make sure he could remove and burn this figment of corruption and thus grant a reprieve to his fellow companions.

At that thought, something else slowly faded into focus, just around the outside of the mushroom.

First it was simply noise, a distinctly loud and rather unceremonious sound of chewing, with the occasional pause before a piece of the mushroom was rent free and began to vanish into the air. Or...a small patch of greyish fog beside the mushroom?

The more Naraku looked, the more the amorphous blob began to take on a shape. Short, stumpy legs with widespread toes, and a small nub at the posterior that someone might generously refer to as a tail. Coarse, close-cropped looking fur with a variation of stripes and spots lined a squat little body, terminating in an elongated face with beady little eyes and rounded ears. And a nose that...wagged? Certainly more than the tail did at least.

Whatever this creature was, it seemed to be casually chewing away at the rotten bits of mushroom, mostly ignoring the parts that remained in clear focus and free from corruption. It sat there, blissfully filling its belly and occasionally glancing at its surroundings, at least once looking straight at Naraku before going back to the mushroom.

It stopped before taking another bite, and turned back towards the Crab again.

"Who the fuck are you?"

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Beyond this point the dream fades into incomprehensible gibberish, but Naraku will clearly remember details up until this point upon waking on Day 4.