O, great King of the Gods, First Wielder of the Vajra, Yenra Asra! Bequeath unto me, your vahana, your mount and servant, the proper blessing of subjugating the weather, and bending it to my will. For I have done just that in service of your name and in service of humanity.

From Chapter 34 of Salaysay Penagmulen

Let us peer into that night, to ascertain as to how Sintra Kennin survived the onslaught of specters. It would be a dishonor to the great River Dragon Prince not to.

That night, Sintra Kennin rose high into the night as a hundred hundred ghosts chased after them. During that night, the Clouds blocked the vision of the great Horned Moon, empowering the ghosts.

Sintra Kennin flew, up and up. A lava colored streak, lightning through the night. They broke through the darkened clouds--thunderclouds? Does a storm approach?--and intot he night sky unimpeded by thunderheads, revealing the sinister grin of the Horned Moon planted against the obsidian sky.

Sintra Kennin knew that the Horned Moon was the Supreme Ghost Hunting God. They were the form of the Argent Moon whenever they needed to strike out during the night. This is why ghosts are so afraid of the Horned Moon (sometimes known as the Smiling Moon). Any ghost spotted by the wicked Horned Moon's burning eyes would suffer the Argent Moon's Serene Arrow, skewering them through and piercing them.

Sometimes, however, great Ghost Kings could bribe or convince local storm and weather gods, or even local naka, to summon great and dark clouds that could block the Horned Moon's line of vision. The Horned Moon never looses their Arrows without a clear line of sight, you see, because the last time they tried it, a billion kalpas ago, they accidentally killed their five beloved husbands.

And thus why ghosts can still live in haunted loci. In houses and trees, but it is not safe for them to venture out into the open at night, especially without the clouds.

Crafty, these ones be, thought Sintra Kennin. But as they burst through the thunderhead and into the clear light of the moon-night, a hundred other ghosts immediately burst through the thunderhead, chasing after him as well. Fools.

And fools they were. You should know: the Horned Moon is shaped like a crescent, with both tips pointing up, like a carabao. One might be wondering: where does the rest of the moon go, as it ventures across the Obsidian Dome? Well, the Horned Moon takes that section of the moon and forges it into their Ghost-Expunging Serene Arrows. And tonight was no exception.

The moment the ghosts dumb enough to follow Sintra Kennin broke through the clouds, a hundred javelins of moonlight erupted from behind Sintra Kennin and pierced through each and every one of them. It was a massacre. Every ghost slain in this manner was immediately flensed away, burned away, the aggregates that make up their terrestrial form melted into moonlight milk. That moonlight milk then immediately coagulated, and then flaked away into nothingness, like dried wax.

Sintra Kennin placed their hands together and offered them to Rutra, the Scarlet God. Sintra knew that their mindstreams would finally be made to descend down the Maw, and into the Interstitial, where their karma will dictate the shape of their next reincarnation. Offering them to Rutra helped whatever last few evil karmas they had accrued to be purified, so that their next rebirth might be a better one, and they will not have to suffer the same faith as becoming someone that could become a ghost again. Though being too attached to something is a very human quality...

The night sky looked like a burning star as a hundred ghosts were turned into moonmilk and melted away. A few of the other ghosts stayed behind. No matter: the hole in the cloud was line of sight enough for the Horned Moon: a hundred more moonlight javelins skewered through the night and pierced through the other ghosts that it could see.

Did you know this? That this phenomenon is often just invisible to the human eye? It requires someone of gentle soul and sensitive Third Eye to see the Moonshower every night. It happens every Horned Moon night, after all.

Before long, the majority of the ghosts had scattered, and even more of them were expunged, ripped from their attachments and thrown into the Interstitial, where due to their attachments they will no doubt suffer a heavier, worse rebirth. Sintra Kennin could only make that offering mudra to them, to ease their pain.

When the majority of the ghosts had scattered and fled away, Sintra Kennin descended down again into the town. Through the thunderhead. Underneath the canopy of clouds, a great number of ghosts still abound, though they were hiding now, keeping to themselves. There were some tall ghosts cowering and bent down trying to hide from the moon's rays by squeezing into tree-copses or tall enough canopies of houses. Some tenanggal--ghosts of witches, often the astral expression of resting witches, other times actual witches--hid under the canopies of branches like real branches. No good witch would be caught dead performing dread sorceries in the middle of a Horned Moon night.

Sintra Kennin made sure to obfuscate his form from any still-awake people upon Imos Town, so that his draconic form would not attract any attention. Despite being a common enough being, dragons are still majestic creatures, and the majority of the time they do not reveal themselves to banal humans for fear of forcibly opening their Third Eye due to their corpus--something that happens all too often and causes premature deaths for these humans. Sintra Kennin would not want that kind of blood on his hands.

Sintra Kennin first descended to the house the three of them had rented. All around the house were debris and residue of the moonlight javelins, spiraling and tapering like narrow starflies in the night. Sintra Kennin slowly descended into the open kitchen, and then immediately changed shape back into his human form. He took a minute to kneel, not out of respect, but to catch his breath. Despite being a spirit prince, changing shape into his true draconic form always took a lot out of him. It was sort of like focusing completely on one task. After that, you'd be completely drained, mentally. Except this one was also physically draining.

He walked back in through the back door, dakgatana at the ready. I'm at a disadvantage. I won't be able to swing this huge blade too much indoors. As a contingency, Sintra Kennin harnessed his Force again to turn his right hand into a draconic claw.

He walked slowly through the little hall that led to the living room. The majority of the ghosts had been cleansed, but he paused immediately when he saw something move in his periphery. When he looked at his periphery, it was less of a movement and more of a blinking. Looking up, Sintra Kennin saw... an arachnid ghost with 68 eyes blinking all at the same time.

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Then, Sintra Kennin looked down and saw a large number of ghosts still waiting in the living room, all looking at Raxri's room. They all sat immaculately and perfectly, like good and nice waiting guests. It was unnerving: none of them breathed, none of them moved. They all watched, perfect predators for a prey that had holed themselves in.

These are the smarter ones. The wicked ones. And the spider ghost above... is that their "Queen?" Could that be the patayenak? Without another word, Sintra Kennin walked back again, harnessing their Force again to make their steps light through their bloodline cultivation. When they finally arrived outside, they shapechanged into their draconic form again and began circling the town.

Not yet time. I should clear these clouds and then wait for the morning. All naka are also water dragons, even if they live in volcanos or in the skies. They all have an inherent capability of manipulating the local weather, due to their ancestor, the first naka, Hri Nakasra, subduing their twin God of Drought Weritra and making a pact with the Storm God Yentra. *I haven't done this in a long time, but let's see..."

Sintra ascended high into the sky and encircled the majority of the thunderheads--they truly were just concentrated at Imos Town, and they had almost no rain within them! They were only there purely to block the night of the Horned Moon's gaze. An interesting development. Their Queen must know a local naka? Perhaps it's that Mountain Dragon I keep hearing about...

After circling the thunderheads three times, he plunged deep down into the earth, and then ascended. As he did, he focused their Force upon the clouds. He focused on expulsing the clouds, on creating enough air and enough jet power to blow them all away.

At the height of Sintra Kennin's focus, he quickened his already rapid ascent. Up, and up, and up. Until he touched the clouds and broke through them, and the clouds immediately dispersed in a great booming cloud--though silent. Little rain droplets that had begun to accumulate within the clouds whisked here and there, but now the full might of the Horned Moon burned through Imos Town. A few more Serene Arrows erupted from the moon and skewered through some other ghosts that did not have the wit to understand that they were no longer safe under the cloudy veil summoned by their naka coconspirator.

Sintra Kennin then descended down into the docks. The docks tended to have less earthly ghosts in them. Not only because the waters of the sea were inherently purifying, but also because the spirits and gods of the sea were different from the gods of the earth. The ocean played on completely different rules from the sea and sky.

Sintra Kennin found a vacant barge and landed upon it. He changed back into their human form, and limped into a corner of the boat. There, he collapsed into exhaustion. Finally, into the invisible palace of rest.

"Oi! You're not supposed to be sleeping here you layabout!"

Sintra Kennin jolted awake by something poking his body. He opened his eyes to see an elderly woman, hair greying, back hunched, but still wearing sailors' clothes. She was poking him with the butt of the wooden scabbard of some sort of ceremonial blade.

"Ah, lady, forgive me."

"Don't lady me. I am your mama!"

Sintra Kennin bowed low. Of course she was his mama. All the old aunties here were. "Of course, mama. Forgive me. I just passed out because of all the work I had to do. I'm sorry. Here, for your troubles." Sintra pulled out a bundle of 200js.

Mama nodded, smiling. "Good! I like that. You're a good boy after all. You can come back anytime, but let me know first if you're gonna use one of my barges as a sleeping vessel!"

Sintra Kennin suppressed a grin. "Of course, mama. I will go now."

"Yes, yes! Go! This barge about to embark. You stalling its movement. Go!"

Sintra Kennin leapt off of the barge and walked back to the docks. There was little commotion going on. As if they weren't just almost assaulted by a huge horde of ghosts the night before. The sun was bright that morning. A good omen for the coming days for Sintra Kennin. White Sun at morning, blessed be the week. Something he had learned from river sailors that he had traded with before.

As he passed by a few of the dockhands and the other workers drinking on coffee or tea to prepare themselves for a day's work, he overheard a few of them. "Did you know that there was a ruckus going on by the rentals?"

"Oh? What kinda ruckus? There's always a ruckus there. Don't tell me they found another human trafficker."

"No, no. This one's about ghosts, doy."

"Ghosts? Shit. Miss me with that. I hate anything to do with what I can't see."

"Right, but remember that abandoned, haunted house by the river?"

"Yeah? Don't tell me that bodoh Galakal managed to rent that apartment out?" Bodoh is another word for stupid or fool.

"He did! Bitch mother, he did. And I don't think Galakal is the bodoh in this arrangement. The real bodoh is whoever agreed!"

They broke into laughter, and then their work day began.

Sighing, Sintra Kennin hurried to return to the house.

Back at the house, Sintra Kennin came across two officials who stood outside of the house. The house now, in clear daylight, truly looked battered and bruised. Like a real ghost army had assaulted it. Then last night was not some nightmare, then.

"Greetings," said one of the officials. One of them had a moustache and was tall and lanky, while the other was clean shaven and was short and pudgy. They wore the usual officials' clothes common across this region of the Utter Islands. A black sarong, a collarless, sleeveless best, and some sort of headcloth. In this instance, tengkolok with medium height horns. "Are you one of the people that live within this house?"

Sintra Kennin nodded. "We are renters. Our rent ends tomorrow."

"Hm. I see. Then who owns this property?"

"A fellow named Galakal offered it to us for a place for us to stay."

"Hm." The moustached official wrote something on their palm leaf paper.

The pudgy one said: "This is the visitor quarters after all."

"Right. As Imos Town expands, we won't be lacking in landlords and capitalists, it seems."

"Why have you come, noble ones?"

The pudgy one said: "We've been asked to investigate, because of a ruckus that happened last night, here. Would you happen to know anything about this?"

Sintra Kennin wondered whether he should disclose the information. It wasn't a long internal debate, of course: they were looking into the ghost problem under command of the High Chief. That should definitely give them some semblance of officiality and truthfulness.

And so Sintra Kennin did explain what had happened to them. From the beginning of the night to the end of the night, to that very morning. After his explanation, the two officials were nodding.

"Unfortunately," said the tall, mustachioed one. "You should know that this house has long ben seen as a haunted area. In fact, the majority of that particular part is considered haunted."

"I see." Sintra Kennin crossed their arms. "Is there any particular reason why this is so?" Perhaps... a new lead?

The official thought about it for a moment. The pudgy one said: "I think it would help your investigation--as it seems to be a matter of the high chief--if we told you the story."

"We would appreciate any and all support," said Sintra Kennin, nodding. "Come. Tell it to me over tea."

"That's a good idea." The mustachioed one said, hiding their notes. "We don't want any of the High Chief's goons listening in on us. And that house seems to be devoid of the eyes and ears of the High Chief."

Sintra Kennin raised an eyebrow. The three of them walked up the path to the ladder of the house. "Why is that?"

"I'm afraid this ghost problem is connected to the High Chief himself."

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