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]

There are evil spirits haunting people out there, we're the only ones who can deal with them, and we're not at war?

Hold on, how the heck does that work?

[reformedsinner]

There are plenty of bad things that can happen to mortals, you know. Ayakashi are a threat, that's all.

... [And, thoughtfully:] You could liken them to bandits, I suppose.

[onehandsomeslickninja]

Hnh. They're some bandits, if we need to be turned into objects and wielded by gods just to beat them. And at the same time there's not that much for us to do? Except watch over the living?

[He's really having trouble grasping this.]

[reformedsinner]

Watching over the living can be as full-time a job as you want it to be. They always find ways to get into trouble.

[Ayakashi aren't bandits, obviously, but it's a good enough analogy for an omnipresent threat that attacks the weak but poses minimal threat to the general order of society. Hakkai shrugs.]

[onehandsomeslickninja]

But... we're not here to just solve romantic disputes and find lost hats...

[...Are they?]

[Poor Edge is going to have a rough entry into some of the prayers.]

[reformedsinner]

[He really is. Hakkai's eyebrows inch up a little further.]

Isn't that a question for your god, not for me?

It depends on the sort of prayers that he wants to answer.

[onehandsomeslickninja]

You've gotta be kidding me. So I'm stuck following whatever they want? Didn't I read something about that... not working?

[Back into the pamphlet he goes, his remembrance of the whole 'guilty conscience' thing not quite clear from his initial skim.]

[reformedsinner]

How else would it work? Gods are the ones who get the prayers. [He watches Edge skim through his pamphlet. At least this conversation seems to be encouraging him to re-read.]

If you can't stand the prayers your god receives, it may be that your partnership won't work, that's all.

There are other gods here should you wish to find another.

[onehandsomeslickninja]

Guilt, here it is -- [Edge looks up over the pamphlet.] So if their actions make me feel guilty, they'll suffer for it.

Really, just guilt? That's narrow...

[reformedsinner]

Do you want to injure yourself and your god with other emotions, too?

That's an unusual perspective.

[onehandsomeslickninja]

But that's to stop the god from forcing his shinki into bad situations, right? If the god does, he'll regret it.

[reformedsinner]

It's a sign of corruption. To knowingly do evil blights you -- and while yes, it can injure your god, and even kill, it will kill you first.

[He looks evenly up at Edge.]

Pain, fear and distress will hurt your god without blighting. Should your god choose to ignore those, I doubt that they will be deterred by blight, either.

[onehandsomeslickninja]

Ah ha. They don't mention that part quite like that. So we're not entirely at their mercy!

[This quite improves Edge's attitude to the whole thing, and he perks up as the tension visibly leaves his muscles.]

[reformedsinner]

At a disadvantage, yes, but not entirely at your god's mercy, no.

[Hakkai can't really argue with the man's viewpoint. It's likely reasonable, and the more so if he turns out to have a less trustworthy deity. Still, being so casual about his plans to punish his god for missteps are...

Well, to each their own.]

Should you be taken advantage of, there are plenty of gods who would assist you.

[onehandsomeslickninja]

[The simple truth is that Edge has strong views about right and wrong, and a refusal to back down from them. Being at anyone's mercy suits him poorly if they think they can make him betray what he holds at his core.]

Hmph. I'm not a man who wants help or wants to ask for it. Besides, it may all work out for the best anyway, right?

[reformedsinner]

It certainly may.

[He smiles.]

But don't hesitate to ask for help if you need it, no matter whether you want it or not. We're all in this together, after all.

[onehandsomeslickninja]

If that's really true, there's nothing to worry about from a god anyway -- mine or anyone else's! [Which would solve everything quite neatly, wouldn't it?]

[reformedsinner]

One does have to look out for scorpions.

[The sort who would sting a frog halfway across a river, whether or not they both drowned as a result.

Hakkai doesn't believe anymore that it is a matter of their nature, but he's certainly met people both vicious and stupid enough to fit the bill.]

But I'm sure you'll be all right.

[onehandsomeslickninja]

[Edge takes this literally, and glances down to the floor to check for actual scorpions.]

[Look, he's a pretty straightforward guy.]

[reformedsinner]

Figuratively.

[Is he really looking for... oh dear.]

... I don't think we have any real scorpions about.

[onehandsomeslickninja]

Then why did you tell me to look for them!? [Really, he JUST said!]

[reformedsinner]

There's an old story about a scorpion and a frog. The scorpion wanted to cross a wide river, and so he asked the frog to let him ride across on his back.

The frog said, "No, you'll sting me," but the scorpion insisted that he would never do something so foolish. After all, if he stung the frog, they would both drown.

That seemed like a good argument, so the frog agreed, but, when they had gotten only halfway across the river, he felt a sting on his back.

"Why did you do that, now we'll both drown--"

The scorpion said, "It's my nature."

... So! I'm only being figurative.

[And, admittedly, obscure. He should probably have told the story first. He doesn't mind having the chance to be didactic, though; he's smiling quite cheerfully.]

[onehandsomeslickninja]

...So long story short, there are some people here you can't trust, no matter what they say. [The whole parable thing is a pretty ridiculous way to communicate that, but eh. Some people, what can you do?]

Sounds like the frog's problem was he couldn't handle a sting.

[reformedsinner]

Exactly! Or, at least, take the time to learn what you can expect of someone before you trust them at your back.

[He chuckles.]

Put that way, I suppose it's very basic advice, isn't it? Some people here have unusually potent, ah, "stings," as well. I've seen quite a range of powers.

[onehandsomeslickninja]

Now if you'd said this place was a serpent's den, I'd have gotten you. [Tch. How disgusting.] I appreciate the warning, unpleasant as it is.