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

If you mean before I came here, we didn't have this sort of thing in my world. By the standards of what I've seen and heard of here, it was mundane. [Granted, they did have some extremely advanced and abusable technology, but he prefers not to talk about that unless he has to.

As for the blessed water question, Shun gives a faint snort.] A friend suggested it a while ago, though his choice of weapon to use it from was a water gun instead of something that could also be used as an actual weapon.

[So that's something the people who get dragged here don't have in common. She...may have known that already, but it's not like there's an official tally, and double-checking isn't burdensome when it requires this little effort. She's not qualified to speak on whether something's "mundane" or not, though, considering this world resembles hers in so many ways, so she merely inclines her head.]

[...She also may not be entirely sure what a water gun is (that's a toy, right?), but it's not like her ilk run around with flamethrowers, either.] Depends on the weapon, I would assume. [She knew someone who used a magic gun. Briefly.] It wasn't effective?

It sounds like he had some trouble with it because he didn't bring any other kind of defense with him. It seems to work a bit better backed up by something else. [Like a sword. Conventional weapons may not actually do much to ayakashi, but they can still at least bother them, and combined with blessed water also bothering them, it makes for a marginally better effect overall.]

I just figured using it with a weapon you could use against things that aren't ayakashi was a better idea.

I see. [She can see that being a thing; even Rian had had a conventional brush with her as well as the gun. And obviously someone alone wouldn't be able to deal with ayakashi completely, since everything indicates that it requires not only two people, but a specific method. But if it does work, even a little, that might be useful.]

[At the mention of things other than ayakashi, she turns abruptly.] What else would you use your weapon on?

It's not always ayakashi we're dealing with. We had an attack of undead once, and occasionally gods or shinki go rogue and start attacking people themselves.

[There's a rather terse note to his tone at the second thing, because he's actually seen that several times since coming here. The recent killings were just one example among many.]

[She relaxes and continues walking. In a way, that's good news, since that's way better than her gut-response assumed it would be; the edict about harming humans is so ingrained that that's what she jumped to, and it was already on her mind. On the other hand...unfortunately the second thing doesn't surprise her.]

Blessed water doesn't work on the ones who go rogue?

[...More importantly, do gods count as human when they do that? If blessed water works, then that's a no, but that's contingent on blessed water being identical to Madou flame, which...sounds like it isn't. For one thing, there's the critical difference that ayakashi are spirits whereas Horrors are different things entirely. There are ethical problems with this entire set-up and she doesn't know what to think about it.]

[Outwardly, though, her slightly downturned head where before she was looking up is the only indication that she got rattled by something.]

How are they dealt with? [...Okay, that and her slightly forceful tone.]

No. It doesn't seem to do anything to their status here, or their power, so blessed water doesn't do any more to them than it would while they're a normal god or shinki.

[They've got at least one god still persona non grata for unacceptable behaviour who doesn't seem to have been taken down from his position in any way, so it seems like the ridiculous edict of "anything a god does is just" still holds when they're abusing their power.

At the more forcefully put question, Shun spares her an aside glance before returning to scanning their surroundings.] Either the Heavens apprehend them, or if it's bad enough, they're killed. The only god I've heard of being killed for it was an incarnation of Susano'o we had a while back, who used power from his world to craft a new kind of ayakashi that attacked the Heavens.

[And then there's Ebisu, but he's not getting into that. Suffice it to say it takes pretty major treason to earn execution, assuming the Heavens get the right target.]

[So... Human. Unless she isn't human now herself by becoming a god. Which, while unsettling, is pointless to speculate on right now; from what she's looked into herself, the god she currently embodies may essentially be a god of evil, but they can't all be gods of evil here, and she's even recognized one or two names while fiddling with the phone she was given.]

[The execution part is the more pressing issue.] "His world," you said. So he was one of the ones who was drawn here against his will.

[...Which circles right back around to whether that's the right thing to do if gods aren't human anymore. She doesn't know how to think about that...]

How was he killed?

That's why I said it was an incarnation we had a while back. I think we've had at least one other person get dragged here to be Susano'o since then. Some other guy from his world was here as well, so at least we had information on how to fight the things he made.

[But the taboo ayakashi were still one of the most annoyingly persistent things he remembers having had to fight here. Having to do it both alongside his shinki and another god and shinki, and also sync their moves as much as possible, had made it a disaster waiting to happen.

At the question, Shun shrugs.] Wasn't there to see it, wherever it happened. But it was mentioned later he was killed and the Heavens were very sure of the fact.

[So, regardless of how it was done, it's certain that the Heavens had had someone killed who hadn't even wanted to be here. The things she fights are invaders from another dimension; there's no such thing as a Horror that didn't want to be there. She has nothing to compare this situation to to determine what should be right.]

[But it's also true that that new god had attacked. The details shouldn't be important. In fact...she may be comparing Horrors to ayakashi far too much.]

[(Which is the third or so time she's realized this in the last few minutes, but it hasn't settled into her mind yet.)]

...If it happens that rarely, then it sounds like it's nothing to worry about.

[He'd also mentioned undead, but that's pretty much the same thing as ayakashi, details excepted. The fact that there's a special method for eradicating ayakashi implies that they're meant to fight them specifically, which is a concept she's familiar with, if nothing else.] You mentioned the undead, too. How did that happen?

I wouldn't say nothing, but it isn't as much of a concern as things like ayakashi that turn up regularly. [And then there's the whole mess of the unspoken enemy of the Heavens with a propensity for torching major locations, but that's another matter entirely.

The matter of undead, too, gets another shrug, though Shun looks somewhat more troubled by it this time.]

They never specified, but I heard afterwards that it involved spirits from worlds other than this one. It might've been something to do with how we get here as well.

Then we're agreed. [The regular occurrences are the things to worry about.]

[The part about the undead being involved in how they were brought here gets more of her attention. She doesn't fail to notice his expression when she glances over, but doesn't remark on it.] What did you hear? And what happened?

Not much, I just heard at least one mention afterwards that people had dealt with spirits from their own worlds. Dead people they knew, or whatever else. [The single time he'd considered himself somewhat lucky the souls of his dead allies are trapped back in his own world.]

Corpses got possessed by spirits, basically. Some of them were vicious, but not all of them seemed to know what they were doing, even though they all attacked the festival that was going on at the time.

[Attacking without knowing what they're doing... In other words, a compulsion. That attack would certainly have been orchestrated, then. The fact that they'd appeared in the form of those who knew them, though...] They're certain it wasn't an illusion?

[She'd met ("met" being a light word for it) a being who could imitate its victims; it doesn't seem unlikely that beings here could do the same thing, not without verifying that they can't do that. The fact that the spirits appeared as dead people only lends credence to that theory.]

If that's all, then that's just a guess. [As to how they were brought here, she means.] Did they say anything else?

I killed a hell of a lot of them over again, and most of the other gods and shinki there did as well. They weren't illusions. [They left remains, and were honestly more solid than most other monsters they have to fight here, so Shun considers that to safely be in the category of "not an illusion".

There's a slight shrug at her question.] Not that I saw. It's not the kind of thing most people would talk about that openly, anyway.

[He knows Bishamon dealt with spirits she knew, and that was his only real personal experience of someone having been confronted with them.]

[The casual reference to killing is a bit of a warning sign (but, she supposes it's a fair way to look at it, if...unsettling), but she'd meant the spirits. Not that it matters; the actual important part—that they might have something to do with how they were brought here—seems to be a dead-end. Defiled dead is certainly a travesty, but in the grand scheme of things, not something she's very worried about.]

For now, thanks.

[She gives their surroundings a glance.] If we haven't seen anything, they might be hiding until we're alone. Split up?

[It definitely seems like the spirits are more inclined to attack isolated investigators, and after another scan over their surroundings, Shun nods slightly.]

Might as well. If they're avoiding groups, we're not going to get anything done like this.

[And since they were both out independently to combat them in the first place, it doesn't really make a difference.]

[She's forbidden from harming humans and didn't have a means of distinguishing them from enemies when she first set out, but if ayakashi really don't take the form of humans, then that's not an issue. If she does encounter a human threat, she'll...deal with that as it comes.]

You gave me good description. Do you have a signal?

Depends what you mean by that. If I know what god you are, I should be able to contact you if I need to anyway. [Pulling out a phone during a fight isn't exactly ideal, but it's a lot more likely to work than any other kind of signal he could pull out in short order.]

I'm Rekka. God name Rangda.

[It takes her a minute to suss out the rest.] The phone? Would you really be able to do it that quickly? [Because she certainly couldn't. (Technology is hard.)]

[Either way...] If I need assistance, I'll send up a flare.

[He inclines his head slightly.] Kurosaki Shun. Nekhbet when I have to be.

[As for her question on the phone, he nods firmly.] I'm used to it, it'll be fine. But if a flare works better for you, I should see that anyway.

[Assuming it reaches above the buildings.]

[She's halfway turned to go when the suggestion to see the flare comes, which surprises her. It's...a flare. She does realize her issue in a second, but she's nonplussed anyway as she takes out her forearm-length brush, aims up, draws a circle, and fires a bolt of green energy into the sky. Final verdict: it definitely reaches above the buildings.]

[And while she's at it—] Have you seen anything else like that?

[He was more implying he should be able to see the flare, but he has no objections to actually seeing it to ensure that's the case. Sure enough, once it shoots up above the buildings, he inclines his head slightly.]

That works. And no, I haven't. [Seeing new magic isn't really a surprise by now - he does still get curious, but he can't really learn everything about all of the kinds he sees.]

That's all I needed to know. [She'd expected as much—she can identify others from her organization easily from their clothing, but if shinki don't remember, then the spells would be a giveaway. Sometimes people go missing or there isn't a body back on her world, but on the other hand, the chances of them ending up here are unlikely.]

[With a nod, she heads off.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

018 | Season Spirits

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject