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

"It's all right. I felt your fear, so I came to make sure you were all right."

For all that Komaeda is a somewhat insane mess, he's still generally a friendly person who cares about others. And he can - more often than not, although the ratio is not tremendously in his favor - demonstrate that caring in normal, non-destructive ways.

"Would you prefer to stay like this, if it makes you feel safer? I could carry you around. Or would you like to be back in human form?"

Edited (removing redundancy) 2017-07-25 02:04 (UTC)

Well, if a lighter could look embarrassed- not that it is, but Garry is definitely feeling it. Sorry you had to feel that. It must have felt strange. So much so that Garry can't even imagine it. The bond between a god and shinki is going to take a little more getting used to than he thought.

Thinking carefully, he tries to nod, remembers how he is, and speaks up instead. I think it might be for the best. It would make you safer, too, if I was immediately like this, wouldn't it? We don't know what else might be lurking out here.

You don't need to apologize! You might have gotten in real trouble if I hadn't known to come find you. As you said, your borderlines weren't enough. So it's just as well I felt it, isn't it? [He smiles.] One might even call it lucky...

And if you're comfortable like this, it's no problem for me to carry you around. [Then, after a pause, he asks curiously - ] Is it comfortable to be in your vessel form? I suppose you don't have any senses for processing discomfort, but as long as you're conscious, one might think it would have some effect on you mentally, at least...

Well, it's... a little hard to describe.

[So much so that Garry needs a few minutes to really focus on it, and then find the appropriate words.]

It's almost like... Feeling two different things at once. Only one of those things is completely different to my regular body, and the idea of my regular body is really faint. But I can feel your hand, sort of, and I think if I tried, I could even...

[The lid of the lighter starts to wiggle a little.]

[Komaeda laughs in amusement.] Fascinating! Perhaps since we have the time, you should test to see just how much you can do on your own power? I wonder if you can light yourself...

Maybe! I mean... It's just small parts moving, right?

I assume so, although I wonder if you're really nothing more or less than a normal lighter like this...doesn't that imply you could be disassembled, or melted down? Not that I'd try, of course. But surely the physics can't be quite the same...

[He holds the lighter away from him.] In any case, go ahead and try to light yourself. It should be safe enough, right?

Don't say that, I don't want to get jinxed!

[Hey. Komaeda. Remember how you made him not be afraid anymore? Well, guess that changed. Oh god he's going to have nightmares now-]

Calm down, Garry. I doubt many people even know how to disassemble a lighter, much less would try it. And even fewer would try it on a shinki vessel! Add that to how unlikely it is that it's even possible, and I'm sure that particular stroke of bad luck could never befall you unless I bent probability specifically to made it happen! And I'd never hurt my own shinki. I like you! And even if I didn't, what could I possibly stand to gain from something like that?

[Not on purpose, anyway. There's no accounting for his luck...but he should be able to control that when it comes to other people now, shouldn't he? At least when it might resolve in catastrophe.]

This place is just so strange, I can't help wondering how things work. You shouldn't let it frighten you. When your god is a god that averts disaster, what could you have to worry about?

[Right..... Right. What kind of weirdo goes disassembling a random light? What kind of horrible person would do that to a living person? (Well, sort of living.) Garry tries to focus on calming down, wishing he could do some breathing. He's just... not sure how that works when he's a lighter.]

Right... I guess it's just so strange. I can't really do anything like this, at least on my own. So I'm a little... on edge.

There's no need to be, is there? After all, you're with your god. Anyone or anything that wanted to harm you would have to go through me first. And, well, I'd wish them good luck with that...but I seriously doubt they'd have any.

So try to calm down, all right? You're as safe with me as you could be anywhere!

Right....

How did you find me so quickly, by the way? I didn't think you'd be in the area.

Oh, you don't know? I hadn't considered that you might not know how it works.

Well, to make a long story short, I can sense certain things about you as your god. Things like when you're afraid, and your general location! So I came to help you.

Oh! I remember the part about emotions- [Mostly because of how he remembers the part about blight.] But I hadn't realized you could figure out where I was.

That's really useful...

I suppose it's so we can come to you if you get in trouble, especially since only we can activate your greatest powers if you find yourself threatened. It wouldn't work as well the other way around, since shinki can't teleport at will anyway.

018 | Season Spirits

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I keep switching between action tags and prose idk wtf I'm doing

and I didn't even notice smh

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