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

[onehandsomeslickninja]

...Okay, I knew this place was weird, but to have four or five different variations on basic knives? [Edge can't even begin to understand it, rubbing the back of his head as he considers the name. Army knife seems pretty obvious, but a switchblade? Did it... switch blades? How did that work?] What do you call just your normal throwing knife around here? Or shuriken?

[boneofsword]

A throwing knife differs greatly from typical knife, mainly by the balance. Shuriken is a completely different weapon. [that's just logic. Or a common sense. Delivered in typical Archer style, sarcasm included. Then he simply projects a military knife and tosses it to Edge. He's not aiming at him, it's a lazy toss very much like one use with a coin.]

This is typical military knife.

[Note that Archer's projections feel like a real weapon would and vanish only when he dismisses it.]

[onehandsomeslickninja]

[Edge snatches it out of midair, then flicks his fingers open to let the knife spin on his palm. It rotates once before he catches it again, twirling it around with deft movements to balance it on one finger.]

It'll do.

[He drops his hand out from beneath it, then twists his body to catch it and throw it all in the same motion. Never mind its balance or its weight; Edge is a ninja, and this is his purview. The knife thunks into the floor a dozen feet away, quivering exactly where he'd aimed it.]

[Edge brings up his other hand, two fingers out in the familiar gesture.] Line!

[That's all it takes -- a means for Edge's mind, and thus his will, to get from here to there. The Borderline bursts into being between him and the knife.]

[boneofsword]

So you've met your God.

[That's an idle observation, since only a named shinki can cast a Borderline. Archer feels no need to show-off or to train here, he comes here merely as a spectator.

With a smirk he dismisses his projection, and the knife vanishes in burst of blue motes.]

[onehandsomeslickninja]

Yep, I heard the way of things when I was trying to figure all this nonsense out. [He shrugs, the whole naming-and-transformation deal all still pretty unreal to him.] That's why I'm trying this out.

[boneofsword]

Better accept it at face value. No one has figured it out so far. [Archer is familiar with a similar system, that's why he doesn't find it so odd.]

[onehandsomeslickninja]

Okay, but I don't even know what its face is valued at yet. Spells like walls and spirits we have to fight, and me turning into a thing? [Edge waves it all off like it's an awkward sort of crazy, the kind you pretend is all cool while you carefully back away from it.] I don't know what weird is, but I'm sure this is it.

[boneofsword]

It's what is considered normal here. No one is happy about it, but we have to live by the rules of the world we're in, not by those we do recall. [Archer shrugs. Sure, he's had his doubts after waking here, but he never denied the information given to him.]

[onehandsomeslickninja]

Saying that sounds like you wouldn't try to challenge the rules even if the chance came up. There's got to be more to this than just 'it is what it is.' How do we get the power to do this sort of magic? Is it just because we're dead?

[boneofsword]

To answer the first, we only know what we've been told and what we tested ourselves. There's no guarantee that we truly know what the true rules and repercussions are.

[Archer's smirk is grim. He sees no reason to sugarcoat the facts.]

To the second one no, not really. It's a result of being named by the god you're assigned to. Nameless shinki can't use Borderlines nor the spells.

[onehandsomeslickninja]

So we're borrowing a god's power, basically? [Edge begins to pace, because he thinks better while in motion, and he has restless energy to burn at this moment.] Because for some reason our own isn't enough, which is -- well, I guess not everyone is as cool in death as I am...

[boneofsword]

Ayakashi can only be killed by a god wielding the shinki. Your own attacks can slow it down, but won't kill it.

[he tested it, as most of those shinki that can fight.]

You can find ayakashi at Western District from time to time.

[onehandsomeslickninja]

Right. We can't beat them alone, and neither can the gods. [He says this in frustration, because the concept makes no sense. Shinki don't have power if they're named. So the god gives them power. But the god doesn't have the power either. So where does it come from?]

And we lose our memories because we died. The gods don't have that problem. I get that part too. That one actually makes sense.

[boneofsword]

Which means it's most likely the bond between god and shinki that affects it.

[This part is actually logical to Archer. It's the latter that doesn't make much sense.]

[onehandsomeslickninja]

Yeah, but...

[Edge snaps his fingers as the solution finally presents itself to him.]

It doesn't come from either, it's handed down from whatever higher power's doing all these assignments and everything.

[boneofsword]

There is such possibility.

[Archer is aware that none of them know anything about the true reason behind their appearing here, or the powers they're granted.]

[onehandsomeslickninja]

Where, where else could it be from? So even the gods are playing by rules they don't quite know!

[He says that triumphantly, having established something important.]

[That triumph doesn't last.]

Wow, none of this is very reassuring, is it?

[boneofsword]

Exactly. [Archer agrees. Edge's guess is as correct as is every other one.]

[onehandsomeslickninja]

That just means I'm going to have to find out what's going on. [He snaps back his cape out of a show of confidence and conviction. Also melodrama, which he appears to favor.] Same as everyone else, if they're willing to try!

[boneofsword]

[Whoa, someone is so sure of himself. Archer doubts that anyone will find answers, given that mp pne did before.]

Everyone else is trying to, so good luck.

[onehandsomeslickninja]

Well, sure -- I didn't say it was going to be easy or that I'm the only one who can do it. A mystery like this, it'll probably take everyone working on it. The answers have to be hidden for a reason -- but nothing can be hidden so well it can't be found!