thenearshore | 018 | Season Spirits

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

[Sidestepping the pillow that flies out of Chinatsu's hands, Shun kicks it back towards the pile hard enough to knock the entire thing down for the moment. Keeping half an eye on it in case the spirits recover from their laughing fit sooner than expected, he turns to her after a brief glare at the pillows.]

They've been like this all morning. I figured if they weren't going to stop, they might as well make themselves useful. [With a slight, frustrated breath, he looks over towards the rectangular copse of trees off to the side of his hill temple, a small gap revealing bushes of flowers and some kind of water feature in the clearing within them. More importantly, on the outside branches of one of the trees, there's a handful of vultures peering cautiously at the pillows. They're all larger than Keba, and though some of them share her white, downy head, others have bald pink ones closer to traditional vultures.]

I'm surprised that lot haven't attacked them yet.

[She follows his line if sight, spotting the vultures watching them from afar. Those..were definitely not Keba.]

Soo...you're using them as punching bags?

[Chinatsu looks back at the pillows, a little creeped out by the giggling. At least they weren't ghost futons.]

[The vultures watch her right back for a moment when she looks at them, turning their heads almost in unison. Apparently they decide soon enough that she isn't a threat to the temple or to Shun, though, because they peer back at the pillows a few moments later.

The question gets a slight shrug.] I train every day anyway. This isn't the worst warm-up I've ever had. And it's not like I use them for anything-- [Brief pause while he punches a particularly excitable pillow that just bounced and hurtled itself back towards him, without bothering to even actually look at it.] --else.

...You don't sleep? Is that why you're such a ball of sunshine?

[The corner of her lip tugs into a grin as she scoffs. There's another giggle and a pillow shoots towards her. This time, she reacts on time, smacking it to the side. She points at it, as if telling it to stay down.]

Uh-uh. Not this time.

I hadn't slept in a few days when we met, but that has nothing to do with it. And these are spare pillows anyway. [Hence why he doesn't use them. Honestly, if he didn't have a general opposition to wasting resources, he probably would have thrown them away.

When Chinatsu smacks the pillow out of the way, Shun gives a faint snort.] I should be glad none of the spirits took the advice I gave about the futon one the other day when that guy posted about it.

[If he'd woken up to pillows trying to suffocate him, he probably would've burned them all.]

...Why not?

[There's a hint of concern in her voice as she looks back at him.]

Ah, you mean Urashima-senpai? What advice?

Nothing I'm interested in sharing with someone I've met all of twice. [There's a very curt, final sort of tone to that, as if he's closing the subject to further discussion.

Moving on from it, he nods a little at her guess.] He was talking about the futon spirits throwing people out first before trying to suffocate them. I said it'd be more efficient if they just kept people in their beds and did it, so it didn't make much sense.

Damn, sorry for caring. [There's the asshole she remembers.]

[At the mention of the futon spirit, she winces. She had a not so fun run in with it this morning and--]

....Hang on..

[She turns her head slowly]

So it's your fault?!

[Shun just shrugs at that. As far as he's concerned, caring also covers respecting when someone doesn't want to talk about something, but he's not arguing that point with Chinatsu.

Nor is he looking in any way perturbed by the kind of look she turns on him after that, instead levelling her with an unimpressed and mildly intimidating glare.]

Do you seriously think a spirit whose entire legend revolves around suffocating people in or out of their beds is going to change their method of operation just because someone pointed out they don't make sense on a network post? If it was that easy, all the spirits would disappear the first time someone pointed out that them existing doesn't make sense.

[Yeah, Shun has never exactly been a spiritually enlightened sort.]

You're the one that made it sound like they didn't notmally do that! But that's exactly what it tried to do!

[Okay, maybe it wasn't likely a futon spirit would be checking online messages. She was still pissed about this morning, alright?]

According to what that guy wrote about it and what I remember, it's part of the legend. And so is the spirit getting angry because it wasn't being taken care of properly. [Is he implying that Chinatsu wasn't taking good enough care of her things? Absolutely he is. If they're working with legends here, it seems reasonable to assume the rest of it followed the legend as well.]

Excuse you, I do take care of my bed!

[Okay, maybe sometimes she doesn't make her bed and she may leave a small mountain of clothes on top of it every now and then...but for the most part she treats it well!]

Obviously your bed doesn't agree with you, so take that up with it.

[It's...really hard to tell how serious Shun's being with that remark, given it's so deadpan it's almost impossible to distinguish it from actual seriousness. The pillows start giggling eerily again at it, but then, they've been doing that at pretty much the drop of a hat anyway.]

........Should I buy it a cake as well?

[It really was hard to tell with this guy. ]

Is that why they're shooting themselves at you,

[she gestures towards the giggling pillows]

or do they just like to annoy you?

If you think mashing a cake into it is going to make it any happier. [Spoilers: it isn't, and the dry note to his tone makes it a bit more obvious this time that it's a sardonic remark.

As for the pillow spirits, Shun shrugs slightly.] I'm not sure they're the same thing. I don't use the pillows, so neglect could have triggered it, but from their behaviour I'm guessing they're just out to annoy the hell out of whoever happens to come near them.

[Why are you like this--is what her face is saying right now.]

Yeah, I can see why they'd target you.

[As if on cue, another comes flying towards them.]

[As soon as Shun catches the motion out of the corner of his eye, he direct a solid punch towards the oncoming pillow, sending it flying right back the way it came and knocking down one or two that were readying themselves for a follow-up down like bowling pins.]

They're not doing a very good job of it. There are easier people to annoy here.

[Shun might get frustrated reasonably easily, but actual anger out of him about something like this might as well be a pipe dream.]

....Really?

[He didn't exactly strike her as the patient type. Then again, he was here still minding these things rather than just walking away. Although they might've just followed him. She looks back at them as they prepare for another launch.]

At least they're not going for the birds.

I'm not what you'd call patient with people, but actually making me angry enough to react takes more than petty little things like this. [So in other words, it's not hard to frustrate him mildly, but if they actually want any kind of payable reaction, they'd be better off going to someone else.

At the mention of going for the birds, Shun gives a faint snort.] They probably know they'd get torn apart. Vultures aren't known for their patience either.

[How half-decent of him.]

You don't think they'll keep this up all day do you?

They'll stop for a while eventually. Some combination of wearing themselves out and only getting reactions they don't like out of me.

[Read: mostly threatening glares and none-too-subtle reaches for his dagger or similar.]

Hmm okay.

[She didn't have that kind of patience.]

By the way, how's Keba doing?

Fine. She's tried attacking these things a couple of times, but I think she's still picking at food scraps from earlier right now.

[He glances back towards the garden, from which there's the occasional odd noise of light scraping or tapping.]

Aahh..

--!
[Chinatsu barely manages to catch the throw pillow that shoots towards her. It's struggling in her hands now, but she's able to hold it in place. She glances at Shun, then back the pillow. Facing it towards him, she releases it, and off it goes towards Shun.]

[Shun watches the pillow streak towards Chinatsu, not seeming surprised by the fact that she manages to catch it. Nor is he surprised when she chooses to aim it at him - he does raise a brow at her as if wondering what her end goal here is supposed to be, but when it fires towards him, he spins sharply and kicks it back in the direction of the rest of the pillows. Another one has just tried to fire itself off, so the two collide in mid-air, the one Shun kicked winning out on momentum and sending them flying backwards to land somewhere a bit further back from the rest of the cushions.

There's a slight sigh from him.] For annoying spirits, they're not very good at getting close enough to be annoying.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

018 | Season Spirits

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