25 - Troubled Waters

[godsoffortune]

Who: Everyone!
What: Alleviating the troubles caused by conflict in Heaven
When: October 10
Where: Orihime's meadows in the Far Shore, as well as various places in Japan, China and Ireland
Summary: Orihime has been tasked by the Heavens with resolving the conflict caused in the mortal world by the new gods' struggles against one another. Several gods have been killed recently, and their violent deaths have led to dangerous corruption being released in the mortal world. Help Orihime expunge the corruption and return the human world to a peaceful existence.







Orihime's Meadows

Before traveling to the Far Shore, gods and shinki can meet and make plans near Orihime's modest home at the edge of the Southeastern District. Her dwelling is too small to accommodate even one team of gods and shinki arranging something as serious as this, let alone several. It is obvious she thought about this fact, and has crafted four cloth tents out in the meadows surrounding her home. The sounds of the milky way river are now joined by rustling fabric in the wind, for each tent has a flag mounted atop it and standing in front of it:

• The blue tent belongs to the team for Ksitigarbha. It has a sigil in black on the flag.
  
• The green tent belongs to the team for Li Tieguai. On its flag, a mortar and pestle in white, but the visible part of the pestle resembles a staff crook.
  
• The red tent belongs to the team for Cu Chulainn, with an impressive reproduction of a two-headed dog celtic knot in shining silver.
  
• The brown tent belongs to the team for Loki. Its flag bears a two-headed snake in gold.
All four tents are spread out in cardinal directions. Near each tent, she has a few stacks of wooden prayer tablets related to each of the problems, as well as maps and supplies for those who might need them.

In the center of all four tents is a simple chair and table where Orihime herself is generally sitting, talking to others nearby, or writing notes based on those conversations. She does a lot of listening when people ask her for new supplies she hadn't thought of previously, but has only been supplied with four shinki runners to get those supplies, one per group. Additionally, she cannot teleport down to the Near Shore herself, nor can anyone use her home to teleport down to where each of the troubles are; that is a problem for each group to solve on their own, with Orihime only able to mediate and provide suggestions.

Child's Play

Kshitigarbha, protector of children and of hell beings, is one of the recent casualties. Without his protection, it seems that babies' fears are giving rise to new and awful ayakashi throughout the city of Xi'an. Shadows on the wall above the crib, oversized stuffed animals, monsters hiding in the closet or rattling the windows at night -- all the fears of earliest childhood are taking real, malicious form. Babies are panicking, parents are exhausted, and all this stress is pulling in even more ayakashi! Someone needs to lure out these nursery nightmares and defeat them before the situation gets worse.

As gods and shinki work to rend the ayakashi tormenting children, they may notice a strange shadow passing by in the street outside, or scratching noises at the nursery window. Something more seems to be waiting outside....

Flu Season

With sky-high living costs and limited space, Tokyo has a large homeless population. Li Tieguai, protector of the poor and patron of medicine, was another recent death: now, winter's coming, and without his protection it seems like everyone's getting sick at once. They're suffering from everything ranging from plain old head colds and 'flu to more serious things like pneumonia or infections. Help pass out tea, soup and blankets, make sure they get the right medications, and get the sickest people to the hospital.

Carrion crows crowd close around the sick and croak, watching the gods and shinki helping them.

Wild Hounds

As if honoring the fall of the Hound of Chulainn, stray dogs have begun to form into large, dangerous packs in rural and suburban areas of Ireland, and even well-trained housepets have started breaking their leashes and joining them. They're starting to chase and bite humans, and it's only a matter of time before someone gets killed. Gods need to defeat the ayakashi possessing the "leaders of the pack," and get the pets back to their worried owners.

The groves of trees where the dogs are lairing seem unusually dark and shadowy, and footsteps seem to echo those of the gods and shinki tracking them down.

Prank War

Teenage pranks are turning unusually cruel and dangerous lately: with Loki gone, a few groups of bored kids have coalesced into more serious gangs in Chiba, and they've been seen setting fires, tormenting animals, vandalizing businesses and intimidating or robbing people walking alone at night. Someone needs to stop them from causing trouble, put them on a better path, or turn them in to the police before someone gets badly hurt.

Even as they're working to stop the teenagers' mischief, something seems to whisper to them and encourage them to join in and cause a little trouble. After all, it's just some fun....

Boss Battles

Those who helped to resolve the problems caused by the gods' deaths have one final enemy to face. Four dangerous ayakashi are behind these conflicts. Each character can participate in one boss battle, but it's fine for characters to form multiple different groups (i.e. multiple threads under one boss's comment.) To ensure that the NPC knows when to respond to your characters, please indicate which characters will be in a thread in your first comment.

Kshitigarbha - Child's Play

Li Tieguai - Flu Season

Cu Chulainn - Wild Hounds

Loki - Prank War

In Summary:

• Check in with Orihime and your new teams
• Save scared children
• Help the sick
• Tame stray dogs
• Stop pranks from going too far
• Watch out~

Comments

[kokuyoyo]

[The noise Chikusa makes is long, drawn out, and low.... the closest he can make right now to an "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeh".]

[That sounds like work to him, sir.]

[mithrarin]

Don't make me give you a 'take care of yourself' speech again. [Though at her reminder, his grip tightens on his sword's hilt.] Although for just today, I'll skip it. Too much is riding on this, and we need to see it through.

[nopixiedust]

Yeah, but the people are still involved. [Sighing, she shakes her head.] You're so bad at people sometimes...

[nopixiedust]

[Whup! And here she is, dusting off her knees.]

Maybe.... Are we just going to leave the flowers like that, then?

[artificialrose]

[He laughs, a little flattered despite himself.]

I'm here to help. I'm Garry, by the way. [Which probably should have come first before the tattoo advice.]

[artificialrose]

Oh, I'm Garry. [He bows his head slightly with a smile.] Have you met Komaeda yet? He's my god.

[blizzardrock]

[Despite his initial hesitation, he doesn't pause in the slightest when it comes to rending it, and he doesn't give the matter a second thought when the ayakashi fades away.]

My lines went down... I don't have another advance warning.

[It'd been a fortunate accident that those lines had been up, anyway.]

[He listens for a moment. If nothing else...it sounds like it's quieted down.]

[replicatedform]

[Finding the bottle, Yamanbagiri take it out and takes it for a moment. Hearing the distinctive water inside, he hands it over towards Tsuzuki.

Blinking, Yamanbagiri looks at himself before he opens his cloak some more to look at his body. There's scratches and some blight around them. Unsurprisingly, since the attacks did get through his cloak... and he's not even transformed.]

... Yeah, I got blighted. [Obviously.] Let's head back.

[The water bottle probably isn't enough for both of them.]

[priforprince]

[ Hibiki waves a hand. She's never cleaned up her own flowers before and today does not sound like the day when she'll start. ] They'll provide a diverting mystery for this neighborhood's bit players.

[purr_ince]

[This is a good step. She's opening up to them which is good. He's listening to her attentively.]

That's very good.

[But hearing that the search for her house has been thus fair unsuccessful. As Zoro says the word luck he's glancing over to Marinette.]

You know this might be a perfect time to give our luck a little nudge, My Lady. Maybe she'd remember something else like if there were numbers, a signing, or obvious kind of landmark?

[He's not sure how well or if it would work in this instance but it would be worth a shot. Then just as suddenly he's looking uncertain and slightly uncomfortable that he's kind of put her on the spot which wasn't cool.]

I mean... Maybe?

[replicatedform]

Got it.

[Yes, this can work. Yamanbagiri starts to walk steadily with Shun and seeing what the pacing is like. This pace can work, so he voices no complaints. Yamanbagiri keep his gaze straight, walking where Shun is leading them to.

And sometimes get a glimpse of what's ahead over the other's shoulder.]

[futhark]

[ Caster traverses the forest, in quick blinks from spot to spot, works better for avoiding some additional splash of the goo- especially now that he already got more blight on himself, than he ever got in all his blighting combined. Fun.

If not for having allies in the field, he would be all about continuing the titan fight, but hey, priorities first, fun can wait. Finally, he appears ]

A princess and her knight in shining armor! [ That's how he breathes in relief seeing them alive - even if hardly unharmed - because nothing is ever serious enough. ]

Let's get out of the forest, the beast is getting too erratic to handle it from here.

[ Bad visibility is one thing, a possibility of having a tree trunk broken and fallen at you is one thing. There is also a possibility of getting stomped upon is another. And several other unpleasant ways to die loom in the air. ]

[redotiertwo]

Come on, dude, one of the perks of being a bird is the wing thing, you're missing out on the best part.

[Then again, flying isn't always work for him considering he has additional levitation powers, but the point stands.]

[declamando]

[It's not that out there a suggestion, considering the number of forms ayakashi can take...still, Maria looks thoughtful, tapping a finger against her leg.]

Are there enough of them to cause such a widespread effect? They've definitely been around a lot, but it's hard to tell what their exact numbers might be with so much else going on.

[declamando]

I'd hope you weren't going to do it in a situation like this anyway. [The concern is one thing, but Maria doesn't suffer hypocrisy lightly these days, so she'd likely be calling him out on it if he tried to make that suggestion while he was continuing to push himself.]

But I certainly agree we need to see it through. Good luck with the rest of your work.

[revolutionfalcon]

[Shun listens closely to the surroundings as well - there's nothing obvious in the ambient noise, but in his experience, that's not a guarantee they're home free.

He starts to head back in the direction they came, planning to circle around the grounds once more.]

One more check over to make sure there's none of them left, and then we can move on.

[revolutionfalcon]

[Shun keeps his focus forward for the most part, besides the occasional glance back to make sure the balance of the stretcher isn't listing to one side and that Yamanbagiri is keeping the pace. It's a little way to the tent, but the paths are mostly being kept clear to facilitate quick movement of the sick and distribution of supplies, so there's no particular incidents on their way over to the tents.

While the attending doctors don't really notice them, one near the front notices the old woman promptly enough, and heads over, beckoning to a couple of the volunteers to help him clear somewhere for her. It seems like a few of the patients here have either worsened or improved, leaving the occasional empty, but messy bed for new patients.]

If it looks like this here, the hospitals are probably running out of space as well.

[revolutionfalcon]

You don't look any older than them. [Neither does he, really, but he's not the one talking about teenybopper conventions.

As they get closer, the talk becomes more audible, as well as the crackle of flames. From the appreciative whoops and the encouragements to throw certain objects in, it sounds like they've started a bonfire and are throwing anything they can get their hands on into it.]

[revolutionfalcon]

I've never said I was good with people. [Quite the contrary, considering he hands off diplomatic roles to whoever might be accompanying him at the time quite often. Doing what he can on his own is one thing, but doing something he knows he's bad at when there's someone very likely to be better at it around is another.]

But that wasn't really the point of it anyway. One way or another, the security needs improving if she wants to prevent something like that temple fire happening again.

[futhark]

[ Alas, as much as muns want to keep their characters interacting, sometimes it doesn't really make sense in the context. Because Caster is indeed going to absolutely move forward in his search for his princess, and for his shinki that Are Somewhere Around Here

But hey, Judar, you might be an asshole, but you appear to be surprisingly dependable one. At least right now. Maybe it's thanks to your god, but still kudos to your group ]

Then I'm off. Gotta tackle the root of this. [ Not waiting to any response he moves forward, with all but a small salute gesture to the braid-mage-dude ]

[futhark]

[ Microchips are... what exactly? Don't mind him, the Grail info dumped him on 2004 year, and then he got two months here to get used to some of the new concepts, but that one is still slightly weird. His face shows his confusion, but he does brush it off ]

Makes sense, dogs can generally take care of themselves, and get back home on their own. [ And even if some of them won't- ] There must be something bigger that's causing this. Once that's taken care of bringing back lost stragglers can become a focus.

[ At least for him. ]

[usedperishsong]

Kanade. Always nice to meet a fellow good-fer-nothin'.

[ Or don't-remember-what-I'm-good-for. Whatever! She is not too concerned. ]

[yasei]

Rabid dogs would need to be put down, anyway.

[ They would appear rabid, to mortals, at least. And Obi doesn't really know anything about keeping pets, but animals are replaceable (just as people). ]

Isn't that how it works?

[usedperishsong]

Ah, yeesh....

[ When she sees what this group is up to, Kanade is torn between being angry and giving up on humanity. ]

They're getting dumber.

[yasei]

Oh yeah, that's true.

[ He snorts and laughs. ]

Maybe. You think it'd be possible to glue the lid on so they don't get out?