October Training

[godsoffortune]

Who: Everyone
What: Information and Training
When: September 4th
Where: Meeting Hall, the Far Shore
Summary: Training and informational sessions for newly arrived gods and shinki



In anticipation of the latest round of new arrivals, Heaven has partnered with the new gods and shinki to organize a very helpful informational reception.

It seems Bishamon's temple is unavailable this week due to business, although she has generously allowed a number of her shinki to go on with their usual tasks of passing out pamphlets and assisting the newcomers to settle in.

Gods and shinki arriving at heaven's meeting hall are, should they allow it, guided kindly towards a traditional-style dojo and banquet hall towards the back of the meeting hall itself. The gods and shinki are free to take their time during this day to learn about the details of their new life from Amaterasu's shinki or from the many veteran new god and shinki volunteers.




God Training

Newly arrived gods are escorted into a banquet hall for an informational meeting covering the basics of proper god behavior, although the minor deity conducting the meeting is in too much of a rush to take questions afterwards. They are encouraged to discuss the information with each other and ask questions of more experienced gods, as well as instructed to guide their new shinki appropriately.

Shinki Training

Various volunteers are stationed around the dojo, passing out helpful informational pamphlets. There are many shinki, including Bishamon's and Amaterasu's, who will be more than happy to train in using the borderline as well as offering a lecture on the basics of what is expected of a shinki and the importance of teamwork with other shinki and with gods. Shinki are encouraged to work together to practice what they've learned and discuss their perspectives.

The garden is available for borderline practice, and a few of the last training's slightly tattered crayon-drawn borderline targets have been brought back out and pinned to bales of straw to make a practice area. One of Amaterasu's shinki is drawing replacements with a large inked calligraphy brush. His targets are simple but elegant, but somehow, before they make it over to the target bales, they're ending up crayon-scribbled into much brighter colors. Maybe it's the child shinki who are in charge of putting them up? They do seem to be giggling a lot, and Amaterasu's artist shinki is looking more and more annoyed...

Physical Training

The dojo is stocked with a wide variety of practice weapons, traditional and modern, to offer some practice opportunity to gods who, for example, find themselves with a sword shinki but are at risk of cutting off their own toes. It's also useful for veteran new gods wishing to train with their current partner shinki.

There's an additional task that the hosts are more than willing to ask for help with. The Meeting Hall seems to be suffering an invasion of cute soot sprites. Although they're harmless little spirits, they leave smears of ash and soot wherever they go, and the shinki are running themselves ragged trying to keep the hardwood floors and white walls clean! They're handing out cleaning rags and flyswatters to squash the soot sprites flat and scrub the resulting smears away -- and, for the softhearted, butterfly nets: although they implore anyone with a net to be sure they let the soot sprites out again far, far away.

Rest and Refreshments

The meeting hall's facilities are less modernized than Bishamon's: there are rainwater barrels set out by the dojo with fresh towels for hardworking gods and shinki to wash their face and hands. The water is ice cold, so it's very refreshing, too-- brr!

By lunchtime, the banquet hall where the gods' informational session was held has been cleaned out and re-set with cushions to sit on around long, low tables. Gods and shinki who come inside for lunch will be served a plain but hearty meal, with soup, rice, fish and pickled vegetables to refresh them for the afternoon's training.

The hall will stay open even after the lunches and tables have been cleared away, so that those who want a quieter space to talk with their new partners can find somewhere in the room. Hopefully the occasional stampede of soot sprites won't be too distracting.

In Summary:

• Get all the information you can handle
• Veteran new gods and shinki are welcome to volunteer showing the ropes
• Get in some training
• Help catch soot sprite pests
• Spectate if you want
• Have fun~

Comments

Rest and Refreshment

[darkestbefore]

[ At the question, one of the other gods sitting nearby glances up with a curious expression on her face. Seeing his puzzled expression, Yona cocks her head to the side and glances down at his plate. ]

No, not at all. Although I should hope if they expected that, they wouldn't be teasing us with food in the first place. Is... something wrong with your meal?

[fauxcalibur]

There's no meat...

[It certainly looks like the sort of meal you would eat if you were fasting. Nothing but fish and vegetables. He has to admit that he's a little disappointed. If you were spirited away to Heaven and promised a meal, this certainly isn't what you'd expect to be given. However, he's not certain if he should complain or accept it. The whole situation is completely alien to him and this time he hasn't been given any knowledge of how it's supposed to work.

Maybe this is supposed to keep them humble?]

[darkestbefore]

Ah! There's fish? [ Didn't fish count as a meat? She'd never really thought about it before. ] Perhaps that was just what they had a lot of today.

[ ....she really hoped this wasn't the result of that recent prayer that had gone up about all the washed-up fish needing rescued. ]

Don't worry, there is other meat, if not at this particular meal. This place has the widest selection of food I've ever seen, and what you can't get here, you can find down among the humans.

[fauxcalibur]

[That's promising, at least. He'll definitely have to go look for something else to eat later. That is, if it really is true that they're just being served what's available and there's no other expectation tied into it. Usually, he'd just do whatever he felt like, but it's not every day you're told that you're now an archangel.]

One would think there would be any and all kinds of food in the kingdom of heaven. That's why I wondered.

[darkestbefore]

Oh, there is! Or at least, there seems to be. [ She gives a self-conscious laugh as she props her chin in her hands and smiles at him. ] There's far more types of food here than I ever imagined could even exist before I arrived. I'm sure it won't be that hard to find something you prefer.

[fauxcalibur]

I guess I'll just have to figure it out.

[It's hard to ask the questions you need to ask when you're not 100% certain what those questions need to be. It's pretty clear that nothing here is what he would expect, so maybe the best thing to do is not ask questions and just observe. It's just that that's very, very hard.]

Perhaps this isn't truly Heaven at all...

[That's what would make the most sense, to be honest.]

[darkestbefore]

[ Yona hums softly and thinks that over before giving him a crooked smile. ] Or perhaps it's just not the Heaven you were anticipating to find? No one ever claimed there was only one.

[fauxcalibur]

There is a certain amount of sense in that, but...

[There's one thing that's keeping him from really wrapping his head around the whole situation.]

They tell me I'm to be the next incarnation of the archangel Michael. Where would he be found but in Heaven?

[It's very confusing.]

[darkestbefore]

[ Yona tips her head in curiosity at that. ]

I'm afraid I'm not familiar with the name. What is an archangel, if I may ask? Is that a type of god?

[fauxcalibur]

[Surrounded by heathens. Oh dear. Well, such is life.]

An archangel ranks high among the heavenly host, the messengers of God. So no, not a god, but rather a divine being in the service of one. Michael is one of the highest ranking, God's very own sword against the forces of evil.

[darkestbefore]

Oh! [ She looks very impressed by that. ] That sounds very important indeed. Which god was he the sword of, though?

[ This world seemed to have so many, after all. ]

[fauxcalibur]

[He's not sure how much interest he has in complex theological discussions at the moment. To be honest, he has a lot to sort out in that department at the moment. His current state certainly runs counter enough to what he believed in life and it's only become even more so. He tries to keep an open mind, but at the moment that only means he's managed to acquire more information than he can easily sort through.]

Certainly Christianity can't be that obscure in this day and age...I feel I would know if it was...

[darkestbefore]

Ahh, perhaps it is not? [ She looks bewildered for a moment before giving him an apologetic glance. ] I am afraid I am from neither this age or even this land. Most of the gods I hear about in this world are new and unfamiliar to me, even the one I am here to fulfill.

[fauxcalibur]

[He probably should try to control his expression, but he can't help but look a little disappointed.]

Is that so? Have you found anyone who knows more? I'm rather well-traveled, so I may well have heard of something that might be of some help.

[darkestbefore]

Ah, yes! I have found a few people here familiar with Irish gods, and there are books. [ Although some of these she is still struggling to read. ] But there's one or two gods here who know a great deal about it, it seems, and they've been very helpful.

[ Caster spoke as if he'd known of them personally, after all. ]

[fauxcalibur]

Ah, Ireland...

[So much for helping.]

I can't say as I've ever been there. I was king of England, of course, and that's certainly close enough that I could have traveled there had I wanted to, but I didn't spend much time in England, either...

[darkestbefore]

[ She looks surprised, and then intrigued by his explanation. ]

You were a king? I have heard of England, it's popped up many times when I've been researching Ireland.

[fauxcalibur]

I was! Not much of one, certainly, but a king nonetheless. I acquired my share of fame or infamy, otherwise I wouldn't be here now.

[And that's something that requires even more explaining. He'll restrain himself.]

[darkestbefore]

[ That has her tipping her head to the side in surprise at how he phrased that. ]

Here as a god? You think you were chosen because of your fame as a king? I'm... not sure that's how that works.

[fauxcalibur]

Oh no, it's quite complicated!

[So much for restraint.]

"I" [He points at his chest.] am not truly the man who lived in the mortal world and accomplished the things attributed to my name. I am...in a way a recording of all that memory and ability summoned forth by magecraft. If not for my fame, such a thing would never have been done. And if it hadn't, I could never have been brought here, either.

[darkestbefore]

[ She blinks, because she's pretty sure she wasn't following any of that. ]

So you are a sort of... copy? Or something like hero reborn?

[fauxcalibur]

A copy is about right! Without the mana to maintain me, I would simply disappear! There seems to be no danger of that happening here, though. I suppose gods have no shortage of that sort of thing. I'm no mage, though, so I haven't the slightest idea how any of it works.

[So he doesn't really know that much about what's going on, but he's choosing to run his mouth about it anyway.]

[darkestbefore]

Ahh, I see. I'm not sure how it works either, to be honest. There are no mages where I come from - not like I've heard them spoken of here. But the gods of this world - or whoever it is that has brought us all here - clearly have a great deal of power and reach, to have brought so many people from different lands and times to assist them.

[fauxcalibur]

Certainly so! I'm definitely on the lookout for someone I might recognize or that I've heard of. In fact, I have quite a list!

[And as yet he's found exactly no one on it, unfortunately.]

[darkestbefore]

A list? [ Yona blinks, looking a little surprised. ] Ah, I hope you can find them, then! Although I suppose wishing that could be dangerous, since not everyone is very happy to be brought here. Not that I can blame them. But still, I think it's better not to have to worry about being alone in an unfamiliar place.

Has someone showed you the phones yet? You might be able to locate who you are looking for with that?