thenearshore | 018 | Season Spirits

Who: Everyone!
What: Season spirits and spooky things
When: IC August 1-15
Where: The Near Shore and Far Shore
Summary: It's the time for spirits to get a bit more 'lively'.

August is a spiritual season in Japan with many people preparing for the Obon festival but many others get into the spirit in another way. All across Japan, people have begun to share their favorite summer ghost stories. Movie theaters advertise the hottest horror flick of the season, teenagers challenge each other to do trials of courage, haunted houses begin to pop up, and it feels like you can't change the channel without switching to some ghost hunting urban legend special. All of this talk about spirits comes at a cost, though.

July comes and passes easily enough but it's almost as if as soon as August begins, so do the incidents. There's an increase in spiritual activity and shenanigans on both shores. Some of them are harmless spooks but others are much more sinister. Arm yourselves with all of the ofuda and omamori you can find and get out there and restore peace!

Possessed Possessions

Inhabitants of the Far Shore may awaken to find their sheets trying to strangle them and shoes stomping on the floor around them. Others may go about their day and find out their teapots suddenly only serve lukewarm tea or their weapons are trying to take swings at them. They're just playful spirits that will abandon their hosts if you shove any ofuda/omamori at them or yell loudly enough. They aren't malicious spirits... they were only just trying to have some fun.

Spirited Festivals

There's a festival every weekend and some of them have set up haunted houses for patrons to visit. You have your standard haunted house thrills... costume make up, jump scares, special effects smoke, the usual! But it looks like some real ghosts have made themselves at home here. Visitors are going in and emerging hours later absolutely traumatized. It looks like once you enter, the real spirits walk you around in circles and give you real scares. There are some spirits here just to have fun thrills and these are spirits that can be chased away with regular ofuda. But it looks like the more violent ones are actually ayakashi out for vengeance. Be careful in there!

Cursed Charms

There sure are some weird trends out there, huh? The latest one is buying cursed trinkets off the internet and passing them off as gifts to unsuspecting victims whether it be to prank a friend or get revenge on an enemy. Cursed mirrors, dolls, fake ofuda, VHS tapes, and so on are being passed around the Near Shore and spreading all sorts of curses.

Bad luck. As long as you're in possession of the cursed item, you'll be followed by bad luck to varying degrees depending on the quality of the charm.
Fear. Holding onto this charm results in intense, crippling fear. The fear can manifest as an intense paranoia at all times or being frozen with fear in the face of danger. Some say you can even die of fright...
Sickness. This charm is pretty straightforward. Having this charm just makes you feel incredibly under the weather and your health will worsen the longer you have the charm.
Evil. Holding onto this charm results in you being followed attracting evil instead of warding it. Suddenly, you feel as though you are always being followed, as if something is stalking you and clearly out to get you. You begin to run into smaller ayakashi at first but they keep growing in strength and number until you can't fight anymore.
Bad romance. Someone's meddled with a romance charm so it ends relationships instead of making them! People stuck with this charm are suddenly hyper aware of the faults of others. Everything gets on your nerves and you can't stand being around that person because they're just that annoying. It doesn't just work on couples! It also works on friends and relatives too.
Bears? An oddly specific curse. It looks like someone has taken a protection from bears charm and made it so now you attract bears where ever you go. Some of them are nice but others...

You can try to destroy the charms but you will find that unless you have purification powers or rend it, the effects last. It looks like most people have been able to shake off the effects by simply disposing of them at temples and buying another charm to counter the effects.

Haunting Hour

There are reports of violent attacks at night-- people being pulled into alleys and attacked, school children being chased by slashers while walking home from school, homes being broken into-- and all of it is done without a single clue left behind to explain who did it. People are warned to be careful at night and as the sun begins to set, something happens. The hour between sunset and dark is supposed to be the scariest hour them all. At this time, the shadows are suspiciously bigger and darker and you constantly see things just out of the corner of your eye. Suddenly, the wind blows cold and there's a rotten smell in the air like blood. It's Oumagatoki, the hour evil spirits meet. Small time ayakashi and spirits on the verge of becoming ayakashi spill into the streets and begin to terrorize others. Protect the people of the Near Shore and watch your own backs.*

* These are just generic ayakashi! Nothing special, nothing specific. Feel free to make up and NPC your own two-bit ayakashi.

THEN WHO WAS PHONE?

In the evening, everyone will receive a set of coordinates and a message from an Anonymous sender,

I want to talk about the
mysterious things that have been happening
lately.
OF course, i
NEED
EVERYONE to come. so don't be
late! see
yoU.
:)

Everyone receives it and there is no way to track where the message came from. If you follow the directions, you'll arrive at a small temple on the outskirts of a city. A sacred fire is lit on the grounds for people to dispose of any cursed or old charms they may have collected. Hang around a bit and it'll become obvious that no one knows who has gathered all of you here tonight. The only ones around are gods and shinki. It doesn't look like any evil spirits are around so other than being invited to the middle of no where at night... there's nothing to worry about. If you wait around, nothing will happen. So while you're here, you might as well discuss the strange happenings! Or tell ghost stories around the fire.

Wildcard

Choose your own adventure! Feel free to make up your own prompts. Ronald Knox's player (

diehardreaper) has offered up their temple as a test of courage in the Far Shore for those who want to try their luck. Check out their description under the Baron's manor.

In Summary:

Beat the heat by feeling a scary chill
Deal with cursed and spirit-imbued items
Keep the Near Shore people safe
Chat about your scary encounters
Have fun~

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Izuku picked up a doll mostly because somebody threw it directly at him while assuming he was empty air. Oh, the "joys" of being a Far Shore resident. And wow he has never felt so grumpy in his life. Every single thing is getting on his nerves and when a spirit throws a pillow at him he glares in the pile's direction.]

Can't you control where those are going?

[That gets a rather dry glance from Shun.] If you want to try talking to the spirits, I won't stop you.

[Said as he rather casually punches one of the pillows to the side again. Izuku might be grumpy, but Shun's the kind of person who generally takes that in stride unless it's frustrating to deal with or offends him personally somehow.

Still, it is very strange coming from Izuku.] Would've thought this week would get to you sooner than this.

[That is very much the tone of someone who doesn't think that's actually what happened here. If Izuku was going to snap from pressure, he would've done it by now.]

[He's right, Izuku has had a very long week, he's tired and cranky. And usually he'd just pass out at home and get over it. He's not the type to snap at others.

Usually.

But everything seems to be annoying him today. And he spares a thought for Bakugou- before getting even more annoyed.]

My week's been way longer than it's supposed to and you assuming things doesn't help either.

[Definitely weird. Shun kicks a pillow back into the pile hard enough to knock the whole thing flat briefly before turning most of his attention to Izuku. Not all, because he doubts it'll take long for pillows to start flying again. Either way, he's eying the other boy with a rather wary look.]

I've been there for most of your week. And you've had every single reason to have cracked earlier than this. So no, I don't actually think this is to do with your week, or at least not entirely.

[It's true that Shun's been there, the murder mystery stress has been- well. Stressful. Who knew that not sleeping and pushing himself over his limits could possibly have a negative impact on his body? Facinating.]

Maybe it's piling on at once after I've been pushing off so we can actually deal with all the shit the heavens won't look into. Because apparently looking into a murder is beneath them.

[He swore?]

[While the sudden swearing pretty much confirms to Shun this is something to do with the haunting season that's affecting Izuku's normal personality, he remains calm, since Izuku getting pissed isn't even remotely on the level of what it would take to anger him as well. The remark on the Heavens looking into it gets a somewhat dismissive huff, though.]

I'd be surprised if they knew what to do with a dead body other than bury it. The loss of numbers to keep an eye on things or records of connected gods and shinki isn't helping us, but that's about all they would've had to offer.

[The faint derision in his tone makes it pretty clear he's not defending their actions, if nothing else.]

[Izuku is so far off from usual Izuku it's kind of worrying. Normal Izuku would actually be worrying if he wasn't suffering from the cursed doll he's picked up.]

I can't believe they don't care. Is it just because all the victims have been outsiders? That's no way to run anything.

[He's filled with fury.]

It's the Heavens and they don't even have a real governing body.

There were shinki investigating some of the scenes. [Shun shrugs slightly. It's by no means good that the Heavens didn't get involved in this properly, but it's not like they didn't touch it at all. In any case, his immediate follow-up is to level Izuku with a rather sharp glare.]

Celestial bureaucracy was never going to get any more done than human bureaucracy. It's badly run even by those standards, but you sound like you expected something seamless just because it had the word heavens tacked onto it.

[And Izuku just glares right back.]

Fuck that. I'm at least expecting some decent investigation by the time two people are dead. At least Japan proper doesn't let murderers go running around without somebody trying to track them down.

You'd think "Death to Amaterasu" would be enough to kick their asses in gear, but instead there's nothing.

[Honestly, watching Izuku swear is a little like watching a kitten try to pull off a spiked collar: cute and amusing, but the longer it keeps happening, the more embarrassing it gets to watch. While he casts an aside glance towards the pillows (some of which are decidedly angling a bit more towards Izuku as they slowly recover themselves back into a throwing pile), most of what he has right now is an unimpressed stare all for Izuku.]

Japan proper has expectations in place for multiple murders to be dealt with. This is probably the first time they've ever had to deal with a murder spree as opposed to single deaths or all-out war. You don't get heads as inflated as some of the old gods' are if people can murder you at a moment's notice.

The safe assumption is that this is a new god or shinki. I'm the last person to say their reaction is right or not complacent, but with the kind of power her advisors have, I doubt they took the threat seriously.

[It's Izuku trying to pull off Bakugou levels of anger. But with his big eyes and soft features- he's not really meant to be like this. Something is always going to look off about it.]

I hate this. I hate how complacent the old gods are about somebody murdering people. The new gods and shinki are people, and they shouldn't be dying like this. Nobody should be dying like this- without somebody trying to track down the murderer.

It's stupid to think that just because she's in power, she's invincible. She must have died recently anyway considering how young she looks now.

The old gods seem to be stuck somewhere halfway about how they consider us. When it comes to responsibilities, we're gods and should be expected to deal with our own matters. When they're comparing us to them, we're humans who couldn't hope to understand what they have to do, or stack up to them. There's a hell of a lot of people we'd have to convince before any of that changes.

[While Shun knows well enough some of the old gods are decent, that's a small fraction of what has to be a huge amount, most of which they haven't encountered. And he has a sneaking suspicion news of the murders may not have made it back to Amaterasu at all.]

That's not what I meant - a single new god or shinki against three ridiculously powerful gods protecting her would have to perfectly execute an extremely well-thought-out plan to even have a hope of killing her. It's not thinking she's invincible as much as knowing the odds are overwhelmingly in their favour.

018 | Season Spirits

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