[UPDATE IN PROGRESS] Onmyou-Pocketville: Fallen Dusk

Chapter 30: The Folklorist

The group all opened the several sakura-decorated fusuma as they came to the dais. Malorie and Hana gasped at how large the area of the room was and the moonlight itself.

It was a circular and spacious room with dark red wallpaper decorated with white blossoms, golden curved gilding, unlit candles on the walls, scroll tapestries with paintings of flowers and other nature, and fabric-woven ones bearing the Omori Family Crest. The floor was mostly wood, but in the middle inside of the pillars' circle it was shining marble instead. Creating a ring on the marble floor was a collection of lily petals.

At the other side of the doors was the eponymous golden dais, where two red thrones sat, presumably for Queen Ami and King Minato. It made the entire room seem like a second throne room where the royal couple could just watch over the attendees of their party dance away.

Malorie could just imagine all the Onmyoujin, both tenneko and commoner, scattered around the floor during a huge royal event, all wearing cloaks of different colours and collars of different jewels, and musicians with instruments such as flutes, kotos, shamisens, and kokyuu. For sure that event would be part of Ami's jubilee celebrations for reaching three decades on the throne.

The room was mostly dark, though pale azure rays of light from Yozuki fell through the ceiling opening in the centre and hit the middle pedestal. Shimenawa with their lightning-shaped paper tassels hung around the ceiling's gap. Another figure resembling a tenneko was visible in the distance: Chouko, who was sniffing around like she was a dog.

Immediately, Ami recognised the cat. "Chouko?" her voice echoed. "What are you doing here?"

"My sixth sense indicates that there's an important and powerful object hidden in the palace, and it's drawing me to look for it."

Just like Yuri has, thought Ami. "We're here for a ritual to summon the Folklorist. For now, do you care to help us for a moment?"

"Of course," Chouko's paws made clicking sounds on the floor that bounced off the walls as she approached her mother.

"Are you ready?" Emi asked.

Lilie nodded. "We're ready."

"Good, now you need to spread out to where all of you stand in a circle and face the centre of this room."

As everyone else got into their places, Emi placed the spirit bowl in the centre of the ceremonial room, where moonlight touched the spirit sand, rose quartz, and herbs inside. "Ammy, the potion," she said, reaching a paw out.

The fox priestess answered by rushing over with the vial in both paws. Luckily she already opened it by using the corkscrew, prying the cork seal loose back in Emi's room. She carefully tilted the bottle, making sure only one drop would come out and enter the bowl. As a drop of the potion fell down, it glowed for a moment like a tiny speck of glitter, or the remnant of a star, and touched the top of the quartz crystal. The sand surrounding the herbs and stone turned fuchsia and sparkled in the moonlight, which shows the spell is starting to work. Emi and Amaterasu stepped back and got in their places.

Perhaps this vial did contain the blessing of Kyuubi Emiko, hence its name.

The light of the moon suddenly shifted into a beacon which rose from the bowl. From such a sight, everyone gasped simultaneously, even noticing that a faint silhouette of a bipedal figure emerged.

A glowing golden magic circle appeared on the floor, which appeared to be a huge circle with a pentacle in the centre along with nine sigils. It was spinning slowly in a clockwise direction.

"Do you hear that?" Some curious members of the palace staff were at the other side of the fusuma in so many murmurs as they heard a ritual beginning at the dais.