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

[kokuyoyo]

....I'm pretty sure there's scientific semantics involved there....

[That feels true, anyway, but he's a chemist poison expert, not a physicist.]

[letteropener]

Scientifically we can define magic simply as either the creation of 'something' from 'nothing', or the amplification of an existing force. The two are essentially identical and both inadequate to the description, since you cannot have literally nothing to begin with, and amplifying something requires the creation of additional amounts of that something to add on to it.

[Celestia may be a magic pony princess, but she is also a teacher and a magical scientist.]

[kokuyoyo]

.....It still sounds dumb.

[Chikusa "still actually a teenager underneath it all" Kakimoto.]

[letteropener]

You remind me of my student, Twilight Sparkle. She was amazing at every form of magic I could teach her in a classroom, but utterly unaware of the magic of friendship.

[kokuyoyo]

...Probably because it doesn't sound reliable...

[letteropener]

Just because you cannot control something does not mean you cannot rely on it. The sun here continues to rise and set each day, even though nopony raises or lowers it.

[kokuyoyo]

So I have to wait for friendship to do anything valuable whatsoever.

[Nevermind that he can wait for hours and probably days.]

[letteropener]

I didn't say that at all. I only said that it was the greatest magic. But I certainly didn't need friendship to create that second cookie -- that was just mental energy transformed into magical energy through my horn.

[kokuyoyo]

[The sulking is, quite frankly, getting out of control here.]

So what is its use?

[letteropener]

The same as any magic. It creates out of nothing. So when you need something, or when you need more of something...

[kokuyoyo]

[A sigh heaves out of him, and he reaches over to try and take another cookie.]

That doesn't make any sense....

[letteropener]

What doesn't make sense about it? [She can do this all night. She has a lot of cookies.]

[kokuyoyo]

Let's.... assume that sort of "making something from nothing" is good enough. Then what's it even making anyway...

[Sulk nibble, initiated.]

[letteropener]

'Good enough'? Can you never think of a situation where you needed more strength to carry on, more faith that you can succeed, more hope, more patience, more luck, more -- anything, really?

[kokuyoyo]

[The sulky silence is a reluctant answer all its own.]

What does that have to do with it?

[letteropener]

When Twilight Sparkle was all alone, confronting Nightmare Moon when that villain had kidnapped me and plunged Equestria into eternal darkness, her strength was sapped, her hope diminished. For a moment, she contemplated giving up... until she heard the voices of ponies who she realized in that moment were her friends. Who cared for her and worried about her and would support her no matter what.

In that moment of realization, Nightmare Moon lost. Everything that occurred after that would never have happened, if not for that one spark of magic.

[kokuyoyo]

....I can't understand that at all...

[How that could make anyone lose anything, how that could help anything... It sounds too bizarre to him.]

[letteropener]

You can't understand how crucial it was that Twilight gained the strength she needed to keep going, right when she needed it most? Because had she not gained it, she would have lost. She would have given up or been defeated. That strength, at that moment, was crucial.

[kokuyoyo]

....You can't do that on your own?

[letteropener]

At that moment, where would her strength have come from? [The question is simple and matter-of-fact, not prejudicial in the slightest.]

[kokuyoyo]

....Herself?

[Isn't that how it works? That you find your own willpower and force yourself to keep doing things?]

[letteropener]

Her strength had reached its limit. She had nothing left to give. She was one pony, faced against the strength of an alicorn in her darkest glory, one that had overcome even me. [Not that Celestia had fought hard....] She had endured much and more to get that far, more than most ponies could.

We all have limits.

[kokuyoyo]

...People who end up in that kind of situation.... usually don't end up lasting anymore.

[letteropener]

That's often true, yes.

[Does she have to spell out exactly how this all fits together?]

[kokuyoyo]

[Please stop judging him with your horse eyes, Celestia.]

....I can't imagine that kind of thing. Getting strength from other people like that. [He shoves the rest of his cookie into his mouth, shoulders still hunched. It's uncomfortable to think about.]