thenearshore | 007 | Clean Up Your Act

Entry tags:

007 | Clean Up Your Act

Who: Everyone!
What: Spring cleaning
When: All day April 15
Where: All around the Heavens
Summary: The Heavens don't like things being cluttered, so it's time to clean up a little bit.

Main Hall

While the main hall of the Heavens seems spotlessly clean at all times, that's not the case at all. In fact, it's been at least a decade since the last time they actually cleaned everything out properly. There are a lot of hidden closets and back rooms that have layers of dust and dozens of boxes filled with nothing but junk. Who knows, though! You might find something interesting and useful in there along with all the garbage.

Suprises

Unfortunately, some of the older temples on the Far Shore seem to have some interesting surprises tucked away, ranging from cursed artifacts all the way to magical creatures locked up in long-forgotten rooms. You are free to be creative with this as a way to get your characters into trouble while cleaning.

Complimentary Dinner

After all of your hard work, you deserve to have some tasty food and refreshing beverages. So the Heavens have provided that for you, so that you can wind down after a long day. It's not as fancy as the banquets they often put on, but there is a nice array of food and drinks for everyone to enjoy.

Counselling

As usual, there is a white-robed shinki bearing the gold chrysanthemum of Amaterasu sitting at a table in the Main Hall. There is a small sign that denotes her as the counselling shinki. Anyone is welcome to approach her, and she will smile serenely at anyone passing by as well.

In Summary:

Clean up your home
Help clean others' homes
Get the main hall clean too!
Hope no hidden magic jumps out
Seek counselling if you need it
Enjoy your complimentary dinner
Have fun~

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[While Shun's been spending most of this whole cleaning thing hanging around less inhabited temples, it's not always easy to tell which ones are or not until you actually walk in. And from the fact that there's a pillow or two that made it outside the door as far as he can see, he's assuming someone ditched this temple in the middle of trying to clean.

What he's not really expecting when he looks in the door is to see some guy cursing in unintelligible and kicking around pillows like an angry child, and after the moment of flat incredulity that affords him, he glances over to the god and raises an eyebrow.]

Why the hell do you even have this many pillows if cleaning them up is going to reduce you to that?

You think that I have control over the pillows?

[Maybe he did have control over them but he wasn't sure how or why. They just appeared, he took several to the human world and sold them and more appeared. It was like someone - probably his own luck as Fortuna - was toying with an off-comment about how his feathers would make pillows or something.]

Besides, they keep on coming back.

It's your temple, isn't it? It's not my problem if you can't control your pillows.

[It's telling that somehow, that's the most absurd thing he's said so far today despite the general shenanigans that cleaning this place up has entailed. It's times like this he's thankful that he hasn't managed to find some hidden vulture-spawning nook in his temple. Yet.]

How have you tried getting rid of them so far?

Fortuna is a goddess of chance, yes? Do you know what it means to be in charge of random happenings?

[It was obvious, at least it was so to Ankh. He didn't know what the others thought or didn't think about their roles, but he was pretty sure that his role including things happen because. Maybe that was why in the later stories something called a 'quantum butterfly' was also associated with Fortuna.]

They don't burn, tearing them apart lasts only a few minutes, so I sell them in the human world or give them away.

I don't know what god you are just by walking into your temple. You'd think if it was random, more than just pillows would be spawning.

[In any case, it's an odd problem to have, and one that doesn't sound much like it's going to be solved easily. Even so, Shun picks up one of the pillows and holds it in both hands, focusing for a moment until the fabric blights with stains and the whole thing starts to wear and wither, disintegrating inwards into dust that Shun closes his hands around before it can drop.]

Consider that another destruction method tested. [So presumably he should be expecting a pillow in the next few minutes.] Selling them isn't a bad idea, anyway.

[Even if they don't need money, it does help, and it must be easier doing that than trying to find a job.]

[It wasn't just the randomness of the pillows. A number of other objects also did not like staying in one shape. A couple rather pink items pretending to be flamingos standing on coconuts blurred into a single long blowpipe with a small container of darts. The pictures on the walls moved from one messy blur of various colors to a different one of equally blurred colors. The rich smell of a roast filling the air turned to cookies. Only the general shape of the room, the furniture and the door leading to the back yard remained constant.

Also a new pillow just tumbled on top of the one pile by the door.]

It was an attempt at least. [Getting rid of them in the mortal world worked the best. There they lost all special properties and acted like they were dead, unlike the ones here.] The pillows are the biggest problem that this place has given me.

Edited (spelling) 2016-08-19 02:21 (UTC)

[Now that he looks, the room is disconcertingly unsettled, and now that he's started scoping it out, it's difficult to stop, his eyes going back to certain things that slightly change form in the space of time it takes him to look at their surroundings. He can't imagine he'd enjoy living in a place like this, but he supposes this guy must have gotten used to it.

He's snapped out of the observations by the dropping of a new pillow into existence, his reaction somewhere around flat incredulity. Selling the pillows is still the best option, then.]

At least that's not that bad a problem, by the standards of this place. I've even heard worse from some of the other temples, not just the usual problems this place has. [Like that guy with the apparently uncontrollable rabid ghost dogs.]

I suppose so. Some people have it much worse then pillows, but it could be all the specializations too.

[Fortunes, luck and chance was such a broad definition. It wasn't a small section of the way people thought or the way they dealt with certain matters. It could go from bad to good, from tiny things like finding a lost ring to surviving a huge earthquake that took out a whole city. There was no rhythm to it, only just a twist in the world that brought something else.

Not even Fortuna was safe from the randomness. Ankh pretty much felt that if he ever tried to force his influence that it would backlash in the worse way and that was not something he wanted at all.]

Fortunes aren't so one thing or another after all. It's good and bad, small and large.

[Shun is very familiar with luck, chance and fortune, and he can see both the frustration and the power that would come with a domain like that. Being subject to all those things yourself without necessarily being able to manipulate them, but having a deeper understanding of them nonetheless, would be an interesting position to be in.]

Luck is a broad area to be ruling over. It's the kind of thing that can both save and ruin lives at the same time...which is why I'm so surprised that pillows are the biggest problem in your temple. Though I doubt the way everything seems to shift in here isn't disconcerting to live with.

[He's suddenly kind of thankful for having a relatively normal temple built into a hill.]

Oh? [He looked at the shifting objects, which suddenly decided to be still and not shift at all, though one (an elephant with gaudy bits of glass worked into it) wobbled a little as if it was a little boy waiting for a bathroom.] Oh. That.

[He looked away, not really caring about the shifting as there was a flurry of it happening before it decided to slow down again since there was company. Ankh decided he had enough with standing around and hopped up to perch on the edge of the counter, placing his feet on the stool in front of it. Almost as if it was normal, a plat f brightly wrapped steamed buns blurred into a pile of popsicles and he took one.]

I've patterned this place after something from home. The owner was a frequent decorator as in every morning the decorations would be different, so it might be just tying to keep up.

[That just makes Shun even more sure this is something he's adjusted to living in the temple, though he does tip his head slightly at that bit of information. His own temple is earthen and linen, decked with vultures and clearly a monument to the god he's meant to be representing and nothing else. The idea of a temple that's adjusted to its owner seems just a little strange to him.]

So it modeled itself after you instead of the god you're supposed to be? Though in a place this changeable, I doubt that would take much effort. [He probably just had to think about it the right way and it switched things up for him. Meanwhile, he's not even sure he'd bother changing his own temple if he could.]

That sounds like far more effort than anyone really needs to put into a home, anyway. As long as it's safe, it doesn't really matter what it looks like.

[Or in this case, relatively safe. He still does not at all trust the Heavens.]

It's Fortuna. [Ankh shrugged slightly, poking at a pillow with his Greeed hand and extracting a strange red feather that glinted in the light, the tiny edges of it curled and the vague suggestion of an eye pattern at the tip.] I doubt that there ever was a real temple to her unless you want to count a gambling hall.

[Let's face it - the Lady of Fate was prone to being everything and nothing, good and bad, right and wrong. For every person that wished for chance to give them that one big break, there were more that just suddenly fell over it. There was no way that a god like that would play favorites, even if it was for themselves.]

I haven't noticed any effort at all on my part. [He concentrated and the feather was engulfed in flames, but instead of turning to ash, it just burned like a candle or a light bulb.] So it might be just a cause of whatever force is at work.

[That seems logical enough to Shun, and if he recalls correctly, Fortuna isn't exactly a modern god. If there ever was a temple to her, it's probably long gone and not really something to compare to.]

Hmph. It's not as if there isn't enough of those around to call her domain, anyway.

[Seedy gambling pits have their uses, especially when it comes to gathering information and making connections, but he doesn't exactly enjoy the kinds of clientele they attract. Too many pointless fights that he could win with both hands tied behind his back.

The pattern of the feather is a noticeable one - not one he can say he's ever seen before, but when it sets alight, the image makes him think of some kind of phoenix. It burns much more effectively than a feather should, he can tell that much.]

Random chance having that kind of power is hardly surprising. [His eyes are still on the feather.] What kind of bird is that from?

They're desperate places in any case. The amount of greed in them makes me less incline to actually use any for a model.

[While he was attracted to wants and needs, Ankh found those people who obsessed over gambling were not worth the effort to use them for Yummy hosts. It was the other people that gained more Medals - the people who had a deeper connection to their desires then not.

He turned the feather a little, frowning as he studied it and then pinched it between his fingers and drew them up along its length. The flames went out and the feather showed no signs of it ever being lit in the first place. At Shun's question, he raised his eyebrows and shrugged, sticking the feather into a random vase at his elbow.]

Mine.

They're useful for information in a pinch, but that's about it.

[It's not like he hasn't made that kind of use of them himself in his time, but it's more trouble than it's worth a lot of the time, and if he can find information by himself, so much the better. He hates the idea of giving up at the best of times, so being surrounded by people in that state isn't enjoyable.

Still watching as the flame goes out, Shun raises an eyebrow slightly at that answer to the question. He's adjusting fairly well to the general level of weirdness in this place, but he can't help but look Ankh up and down once more before replying somewhat dryly.]

You don't look like any sort of bird I'm familiar with. [He's mostly familiar with birds of prey and nightingales, but still.]

I can get my information through other methods.

[Even if it was to blindly trip over it in the day-to-day bustle of living around too many humans who have too much desire. Let Uva use the gambling halls to get his Cell Medals. He'll stick with collecting them through the use of OOO.

Even if neither one of them really were part of that world any more.

The vase dissolved into a pile of silver-dollar sized coins and then shifted to the form of a dish, the feather gently falling over to rest in the dish. Ankh poked at it for a moment and then snorted, hopping down from that perch to start picking up pillows again and putting them into piles.]

Not surprising; there's only one of me.

So can I, normally. It's the kind of place you go as a last resort.

[Even if he generally keeps to the shadows and picks up information for a while when coming to a new dimension, Synchro was the only one he'd really been forced to go into the underworld of. The society there being so impossibly screwed-up made it hard to just step in unnoticed otherwise.

The movement of the feather catches his eye again, the grace of the movement interesting for something subject to such radical chance. Before long, though, his eyes are back on Ankh - the new information is changing his perception a bit, and he's looking over his motions as if curious as to whether there's anything unusual or inhuman about them.]

I meant I've never met a bird that could turn into a human, though I suppose with someone here claiming humans and birds went to war in their world I shouldn't be that surprised.

[While he was very humanoid even in his natural state, Ankh was built from the essence of birds. He moved in sharp, quick darts, putting his weight on one foot at a time and his head leading the way in some motions, while at other times he would tilt his head in order to look at something with one eye before facing it head on. Right now, he was giving the pile of pillows the kind of look that would normally result in something getting set on fire, but he knew how futile that would be in this place. Deciding that its placement was good enough for now, he huffed and gave his hair a quick toss before turning to stare at Shun.

That was something new, but he should expect something to happen. Not all birds were stupid and fighting humans would be a logic conclusion only if to stop them from being gross. Still, the guy was really watching him.]

I can assume a lot of different shapes. [There is a shifting sound of metal against metal as Ankh's form blurred, growing taller and heavier until he was a strange humanoid bird creature with large, shimmering wings. His voice changed as well, gaining a strange metallic quality to it.] It attracts less attention then my natural form, wouldn't you say?

[The idiosyncrasies in motion are noted by Shun - probably not something particularly useful, but in this case they're a point of interest. His suspension of disbelief is dead enough at this point that just informing himself on the variety of creatures and worlds represented in this place is starting to become good enough for him.

It goes to show how much he's gone through that the radical change in form and voice only makes him shift slightly in an instinctive motion to be ready for any potential threat, and his eyes narrow a little as he takes in the new shape. It's unusual, definitely, and it now makes a lot more sense why he'd want to stay as human in shape, at least.]

Good point. That form looks like it'd be useful in brute-force battles, but you're right about something that unique drawing a hell of a lot of unwanted attention.

[While it might not be the question most people would ask, Shun finds himself a bit curious about another aspect of the combat applications, and it only takes him a moment to decide to voice it.] Does it take you long to adjust to the changes in size and weight? It's hard to tell whether shifting during a fight would be that practical if you need time to get used to changed range and reach.

Of course. [Another shifting and blurring before Ankh was back in his more human persona, a few red feathers falling around him. He watched them for a moment and then picked them up, depositing them in the dish with the first feather. He knew that later on they would either turn into a lamp like the ones hanging in the backyard or end up in a pillow.] Us Greeed were made in the time of knights so our forms are built similar to that of a man in plate mail.

[Which wasn't as clumsy as some people would believe. A properly fitted suit of plate was perfectly balanced so that a person can move almost as well as they could without the plate. It was only in later generations that it was considered cumbersome. Even then, he was still lighter then people would think so he could fly like the birds he was based off of.]

Think of it more like the transformation and redistribution of matter then a shift in biological structure. I don't feel any differences and any residue imbalance doesn't last any amount of time to hamper me in a fight.

[Nothing in the conversation so far had prompted Shun's memory regarding this guy, but the mention of being made in the time of knights is strange enough that his mind automatically tries to find something to compare it to. It's only then that he remembers the brief network conversation from about a week prior, and the name it had been tagged with that he'd managed to skim over at the time enough that it took all that to remember it.]

...I almost forgot I spoke to you before. You're supposed to be something like eight hundred years old, aren't you?

[He certainly doesn't look it, but he doubts most of the gods here look their age, so why should constructed beings be any different?]

Then it's a formidable power. That kind of flexibility in battle would throw even experienced fighters.

That is what I've said.

[He clicked his tongue, eyes rolling in disbelief that people just don't believe him when he tells the absolute truth about something. Was there something about him that made people think that he could say anything truthfully? There was no point in fully lying to people. After all, lying only just got a person into too much trouble.

He was going to have to find a very large bag or maybe just get a net so he could carry all these pillows out of the building. Then he was going to have to get help with distributing them around the human world. So that meant he just need to wait until Eiji came home. Giving up on chasing pillows around for the moment, he hopped onto a table and got comfortable.]

We were created for controlling an empire so I suppose that was the purpose in mind.

[Though Shun would probably be reacting with the same kind of frustration if he was in that position, his comment on it is a shade dry.]

I'm guessing I'm not the first person who hasn't taken that at face value, but I'm still learning the ropes of this place. Where I came from, gods weren't real and the dead stayed that way, and we didn't have anything that could live to the kind of age you are.

[It's a blunt statement and not intended as an excuse, merely an explanation. In any case, it's been more and more impossible to hold on to any sense of disbelief the longer he's been here.

Though Shun's lip curls a little at the idea of being created for something like that, he keeps his tone neutral, if a bit more curt than he's been up to this point.]

I can't imagine being made for that kind of purpose, though obviously it's hardly something you could keep doing in a place like this.

No, you're not. At least you aren't being stupid about it.

[He was an inhuman creature made from alchemy and birds. He did not understand a lot of things that humans took for granted, mainly because they were never that important for him. Sure, he did learn and evolved to better understand, but that did not mean he was going to find it all important to know.

Knowledge was only important when it effected him directly or the lives of those he considered his.]

Each world has its own rules, I suppose.

[Ankh snorted at that last bit, upper lip curling back though he privately agreed that it was the stupidest move on top of all other moves to make something like the Greeed. But, well, that would also mean that he would have never gain a consciousness and form but that didn't matter.]

Human greed is the driving point for a lot of things, good or bad; my existence is a part of that greed. However, we were not what that king had expected us to be. After all, we had our own wills and prides to contend with.

When the proof is standing in front of you, it's hard to be difficult about it. And there's enough stupid in the world already.

[He has no doubt that there's people here who'd refuse to believe something like that even when faced with physical evidence, but it's not the hardest thing he's had to accept. Might as well just keep it in mind and move on.

Ankh's comment on his own existence, though, isn't quite what Shun was expecting, and his eyes narrow a little as if he's trying to figure out how to read it. While he can't help but doubt something made from greed could distance themselves from it that much, this guy clearly isn't impressed with that as the source of his existence.]

So what did you do, then? [Whatever it was, he assumes they turned on the king at some point, but where they went from there is another question entirely.]

007 | Clean Up Your Act

fortuna's temple

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