20 | Shopping Frenzy!

[godsoffortune]

Who: Everyone!
What: Helping a grand opening go well
When: August 21
Where: The Near Shore
Summary: The owners and employees at a new shopping center are begging for help. Bad luck has plagued them, and their grand opening is this weekend! Gods and shinki alike have been asked to respond to their prayers on Opening Day, find the source of their misfortune and ensure that the opening goes smoothly.



The Yamada Corporation is opening a new, high-class department store in a Tokyo suburb. They've been running advertisements for weeks and excitement among their prospective customers is at a fever pitch. Unfortunately, things inside the project aren't going so well. Construction has been delayed, deliveries are wrong, employees keep getting sick or hurt on the job and it's starting to look like the grand opening will be a grand disaster. Their fervent prayers for help have reached the Heavens, who are passing them along to you to be granted... but with an addition: Heaven, too, is very interested in learning where that bad luck is coming from.



Maintenance Madness

For a brand-new building, Yamada Department Store is having a lot of maintenance issues. Toilets are overflowing, lights are burning out, stair railings are coming loose, and either the air conditioning is set so cold there's frost on the vents or it's not working at all. The overworked maintenance crew needs all the help they can get! How many gods does it take to change a light bulb?

Secret Shoppers

Are you really going undercover to make sure you stop problems before they start, or just enjoying a day of high-class shopping on Heaven's dime? Whatever your real motivation is, all expenses are covered... but you'll still want to keep an eye out for mishaps. Unfortunately, the grocery and bakery in the basement are under construction (they've had some flooding problems) but there are still six floors of designer clothes, consumer goods and restaurants to enjoy.

Retail Rescue

Between mysterious accidents and that nasty flu that seems to be going around, the department store is badly understaffed. Grab an employee uniform and someone else's nametag and pitch in before the lines get too long. There are positions open in every department, from the restaurant on the top floor to book sales on floor one.

It's not just sales and service you have to worry about: thanks to the store's misfortune, displays are toppling over, the wrong orders are coming in, fancy candies are melting all over the shelves and ink tags are exploding on their own. This is hard work!

Intrepid Investigators

The Heavens aren't just sending so much supernatural help to this department store to keep their faithful followers happy. They have reason to suspect that there's something more sinister behind this mysterious streak of extra-bad luck. Between keeping the lights on and the customers happy,
you've been asked to search the store and investigate all of the "unlucky" incidents in order to determine what's going on. The shinki who brought you this request hinted that Heaven would look favorably on anyone who uncovered something particularly useful....

If your character is investigating the department store and needs to know what they have found, please comment to the "Investigations" thread below with a link to your thread. Your hint will be provided.

Investigation threads longer than 10 comments will earn 200 followers for every god in the thread and 20 exp for every shinki. Once your thread reaches that length, please turn it in by replying to your hint under the "Investigations" thread to let us know you've earned the bonus.

In Summary:

• Keep the lights on
• Take some time out to enjoy a shopping trip
• Make sure the customers are happy
• Discover the cause of the bad luck
• Have fun~

Comments

[kagenonadeshiko]

Oh, I see.

[Ayumu glances away, too, her cheeks slightly stained pink with embarrassment. She hadn't meant to put her foot in her mouth like that. But oh, well, there's no sense in dwelling on it now.]

Was it hard to learn?

[kagenonadeshiko]

[It's a smirk Ayumu's able to read perfectly, given that she's been known to make a similar one after a particularly satisfying job.]

I think it's time to find out just who was working in that basement. Someone has know a list of names somewhere. But first....

[Ayumu points to the screen.]

Is there a way to find out if there's been accounts of similar problems in other places? News stories, maybe?

[She's heard the internet called 'the information super highway' but she doesn't know much more than that, really.]

[priforprince]

[ Hibiki has her cell phone out and is punching something in, still looking at the screen. ] In a moment.

[ Let us not rush things. She knows exactly what to do here.

Which is, apparently, call someone. She places the phone to her ear and waits. ]

[revolutionfalcon]

[Shun nods a little as if he figured that would be the case.] I thought they were disappearances as well, but while I was patrolling in other districts, I noticed they'd appeared there instead. I asked the people at that office the Heavens have what was going on. Apparently they've started moving temples for gods with high enough standing. So it's another thing to get used to, I suppose.

[To him, it seems a bit like a self-aggrandizing waste of time, but he doesn't really know the reasons why the people whose temples had moved chose to do so.]

[deniles]

Thank you. Sorry for making you blush.

[redotiertwo]

Fucked if I know. It's just a thing I can do, so I'm ascribing it to sprite bullshit and thinking nothing else of it. [Because thinking nothing else of it is generally the safest way to go when you're a shinki. Also, it's hard not to figure it's sprite bullshit when it's neon orange.]

I usually write shit with it, though, so maybe it's fucking mind ink or something.

[redotiertwo]

High-end means you're going to be fucking with people way more deserving of it. [Like Robin Hood, except rearranging someone's vault full of gold bars into the shape of a middle finger instead of actually doing anything productive.]

If you need a bard to chronicle your wondrous deeds, I charge by the hour.

[redotiertwo]

I dunno if they'll have it here, I got it cheap because it was an older model they were trying to get rid of. [Still, he leans in to look at what's on Chikusa's phone, and eventually he points one out.] I think that's the current version of the same one. They'll probably have that one here, at least, it's a major brand.

[mithrarin]

[No offense taken. Dust is more amused, these days, that so many people seem to forget he's a Warmblood. And honestly, humans seem pretty normal to him after all this exposure too.]

Each individual step has been pretty easy, but -- I don't understand it. So it's hard for me to learn new things on my own, or know what I'm doing or why I'm doing it.

[letteropener]

Yes, I am from Equestria. And I cannot imagine what I do here affects there, because I have never been more cut off from there in my life.

[She doesn't pronounce that in dire and somber tones, though; it's just a fact of life, one she has accepted since being here.]

[kokuyoyo]

Then I guess it's as good a place to start as any... [Tapping on the screen, he glances over the description.] ...Yeah, this should probably do.

If worst, we can always return it.... Do you think Heaven gets the refund or us?

[declamando]

[Okay, that definitely makes Maria look a lot more concerned than she did a moment ago.]

The shelves were coming down? Was anyone hurt? Were you hurt? [He doesn't look hurt, but still.]

[declamando]

[Maria's nose is starting to get stuffy again from the cloud, and she's about to suggest Tsuzuki trade places with her again when he sneezes. It gets a laugh out of her even as she rubs her nose.]

I'm not sure which one of us would be better for this at this point. We both seem to be at the end of our ropes.

[She's going to be smelling this cloud for a week, she knows it.]

[kokuyoyo]

Charms that were being passed around.... They looked like regular good luck ones, but had effects of the opposite. So health became sickness.... Or no bears became a lot of bears.

[sweetdeath]

They do if you're buying one of each.

[It's a big section! That would be a lot of knives.

Okay, maybe not actually a hundred pounds' worth, but it'd get hard to carry all the bags because of their size before it'd get hard because of their weight.]

[sweetdeath]

Yeah, no kidding... I can switch with you if you want!

[It's just another -- he looks down at his armful -- another ten or so. He can handle that, he thinks, and nods more confidently.]

Want to put some of the okay ones back while I'm testing these?

[He steps away, and spritzes the first, sniffing. All he can smell is the cloud of mingled perfume, good and bad. That probably means it's good, though, right? The bad ones he can smell right away. Mostly.]

[mostsuitable]

[While the look on Kurosaki's face clearly shows his disinterest, Reisi's is both thoughtful yet peaceful.]

How interesting. In fact, moving might not be so bad an idea, Kurosaki-san.

[He plucks up a pair of cartoonishly thick and round frames with similarly thick lenses that seem to magnify Reisi's eyes like some kind of bad joke when he tries them on. Does this glasses store sell both serious and joke items? That's unusual...]

[mostsuitable]

That should just about settle it. Merely trying them here won't catalyze a fashion explosion in Equestria.

[Especially since she's accepted being here.]

How about it? There's no reason not to.

[kokuyoyo]

...I think there's a problem there... That's a nice thought, but, differences can be a disadvantage, or an advantage.

And besides.... It's by prevailing thoughts of the Heavens that shinki are different than gods, and technically beneath them... Subordinates.

[nopixiedust]

Ignoring the second part, how do you even do the first? I didn't see any instructions...

[alchemists]

I think it's common sense, if the lock is set to unlock when pressed or kicked up it should be normal to do that first.

[kokuyoyo]

[Chikusa thinks carefully, doing some math in his head, before he makes a small noise.]

That's... only a little over twenty knives...

[kokuyoyo]

[...]

You could have just said on the third floor.

[kokuyoyo]

[A small 'tch' but he does nod. So long as they can be trapped and destroyed again, then it's fine.]

Can you at least keep these two trapped until I can get something that might be suitable enough for a container...?

[He very pointedly doesn't answer her question.]</small

[kokuyoyo]

[Ken relaxing has Chikusa mirroring him, the slide of his fingers through Ken's messy hair becoming a lot more idle as he thinks.]

Mm... I'll tell Hakkai what we found. When he was a shinki, we investigated something together... So at least he's reliable.

....And you can go to the top floor.