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

[usedperishsong]

Roger that! [ Kanade is already heading over to the tarp by the time he speaks. A woman of action, this. ]

[hakingitup]

[He'd just prefer them both to be quiet because it's a pain in the ass otherwise.

Following behind him, he nods, adjusting everyone again.] Whatever you say, boss.

[hakingitup]

Works for me.

[He can improvise and he's good at it. He slams an elbow into someone else's stomach, knocking them down and out. It's going to be a struggle, they're definitely not acting like normal humans.]

So what after we finish improvising?

[futhark]

So there's good news there. She's still alive here.

[ Might be ironic to be happy about it, since she has a place to return to- but last time Caster saw her she almost died. He's not certain if dying here means a safe return home- usually, it doesn't, why to assume that's how it works here?

Useful intel is useful... Ah, right, Archer. ]

...Archer. So he's still around?

[ It probably makes him a shitty "boyfriend" to not show any concern about him, oops. But hey, that guy can take care of himself, and last time he saw him, he wasn't in any immediate danger of dying.

He also drags them to the Near Shore via teleporting just after he finishes asking the question ]

[revolutionfalcon]

[Shun goes for the side opposite to where Kanade's grabbing it - it's going to be useless if they can't smother the fire, so they'll need to spread it out. It'd help more if they had a decent amount of water to shrink the flame beforehand - his blessed water might put a bit of a dent in it, but they'll have to hope that's enough for this to work properly.]

[revolutionfalcon]

[Shun doesn't respond to the remark other than a slight grimace at the "boss", since he's had more than enough people try to call him things like that seriously. In any case, he's quite happy to stay quiet for the next little while until he has to point something out again.]

Down here. It's a shortcut. [He indicates a little alley that cuts across part of a block and onto a perpendicular street.]

[usedperishsong]

[ Kanade is not hibiki, either hibiki doesn't carry holy water on her either, unfortunately. She's even out of sports drink. But she'll help Shun spread the tarp out and begin trying to walk it briskly over. ]

Let's aim to get it in one shot....

[reformedsinner]

[Normal, aggressive, dumb teenagers can act exactly this stupid, in Hakkai's experience, especially when they're facing two men who don't look very intimidating.

He wonders how long it will take them to give it up and try running instead, absently, as he strikes down another with a knife-hand blow to the back of the neck.]

Well, at some point, we should find out what's causing this.

[irishfriskey]

Yes, she is still alive. ...Or if she's gone, she's not permanently gone.

[He wouldn't blame anyone for being happy that someone is still here. He wonders if he should have been happier if Caster didn't return.]

Ah. Yes.

[Before he continues, he waits until they're teleported.]

He was worried about you.

[starfestival]

[She asked him mainly because she already had an existing rapport with him due to his aiding her at the festival, but she nods when he politely declines.]

Very well. I shall focus on the task at hand and consider these additional matters when I have more time to dedicate to this new information. Perhaps the gods of fortune will see fit to follow up based on the results of today as well.

[She gestures back to the table.]

I eagerly await providing documentation that these matters are now in hand. Please be safe in your journey today.

[futhark]

[ And that is a good point, not everyone in the pack is possessed- only the leader is really. These can be a wild dog or a pet equally. ]

True indeed. It could be entirely opposite- [ wild animals being easier to possess maybe, or maybe the ayakashi skulk in woods and have better access to them ] -it doesn't sit well with me, our enemy keeps changing their ways and what they can do.

But there must be some kind of limit or difficulties, otherwise, they would go the simplest and most efficient way and just possess humans. [ Which hasn't happened so far, the cat frenzy had ayakashi in objects, and while the objects become the source of the disaster it wasn't a direct possession ]

[revolutionfalcon]

I was planning to. [Holding the tarp with one hand, he fishes at his belt for his canteen, still mostly full courtesy of him not having encountered the ayakashi responsible for this yet, and regularly refilling it throughout the day. Once they get close enough to the fire, he splashes the water broadly out over it, shrinking it to more the size of a small campfire.]

Now. [Before it gets larger again, Shun brings his side of the tarp over it.]

[declamando]

I don't like it either, though I can't say I'm not used to it. [Maria says that somewhat gravely. It's happened both here and back home - new forms of enemies showing up with abilities beyond anything they were seen to have before, and needing new counters. It's nothing she hasn't dealt with previously, but that doesn't make it any more enjoyable.]

Maybe there has to be some kind of association between the object and ayakashi. Most ayakashi seem to take the form of animals, so there's probably a reason for that beyond blending in. [Maybe it indicates what they once were, or some kind of affinity.]

[redotiertwo]

Maybe. I mean, if gods dying causes this sort of shit, then they should be looking into who the ones doing it are. [He's not sure what the hell happened with any of the murders, new or old, honestly, except that he'd have to guess at least one or two probably had something to do with that fucked-up spacetime accident the other week.

Since it seems like Orihime's got plenty enough to get on with, though, Davesprite takes the hint and glides back a bit, raising a hand.]

Sure. If you need any help with anything or whatever the fuck else, you can call me. Or something. I don't know how the old guard usually do it.

[usedperishsong]

Take that!

[ Down goes Kanade's side, too. She holds it down to try and keep the fire from getting any more air.

That'll show this thing! ]

[blizzardrock]

[...Amusement creeps back into his voice.] Have you always been this literal? [He didn’t ask two questions, but they weren’t separate, unrelated statements. But this suits him just fine. Concern for others...makes someone easy to control.]

[Not that it’s viable to use himself as a hostage. But it’s an amusing position nonetheless. ...Heh.]

We attract their attention just by existing, don't you remember? Think you can teleport to me fast enough?

[...He pointedly doesn't mention what might happen if he has to be turned into vessel form on such short, possibly miniscule, notice.]

[hakingitup]

[And normally Hak, as an aggressive teenager, would agree, but this is even more than what he would do.

He knees another one down and trips another who is trying to attack Hakkai from the back.]

When should we start? Think now might be a good time.

[hakingitup]

[He doesn't know if he should trust that, but he has no reason not to follow along. With a nod, he starts moving down the alley.]

Any others I should look out for? [Might as well, keep going.]

[reformedsinner]

Always worry about the threat that's going to punch you in the nose before the abstract threat behind it!

[Is this a good policy? Well -- maybe. It's at least a policy, and Hakkai's sweeping the feet out from under a boy who's trying to do just that to Hak.

A few of the boys at the edge of the group, sense finally overcoming aggression, are indeed turning to run as the ranks of their friends thin.]

[doodlebuginette]

[Marinette certainly knew how it was to feel so strongly about something, so she had to admire Wendy's passion. Still...]

He's right. For right now, I think the best thing to do is focus on keeping all these people safe and taking care of the lurking ayakashi. After that, we can work together to try and come up with a way to show them how foolish they're being.

[She had no idea how they were going to do that, or even the full extent of what was going on, but she was confident that the three of them could come up with something brilliant if they took the time to think it through.]

[doodlebuginette]

I'm sure you won't. Don't worry!

[Alright, so she couldn't really be so certain of that but she'd rather keep up a positive attitude.]

Are you helping out with the people fighting the flu? Because if that's the case, you can try to find one of those paper face masks to minimize the chance of breathing anything in. And um... wash your hands a lot. Or hand sanitizer works too!

[She's finally pausing to take a breath, and nodding.]

Well, that's good advice in general, but even more important if you know you might be around someone who's already ill.

[revolutionfalcon]

[Shun holds his side down and waits - there's a telltale sputtering sound as soon as they both get it to ground, but the crackling continues for a little bit longer.

Then it starts to fade a little bit, and the slight light coming from under the tarp shrinks. It's gradual, but it's happening.]

We might as well just stamp it out when it gets small enough.

[revolutionfalcon]

If you wanted an answer to something other than the question you asked, then ask a different question. [To Shun, it's not so much a matter of being literal as that being a question which didn't really lend itself to a non-literal answer.

As for the second question, he shrugs slightly.] If we stay in a similar area - either side of the same street or something - then it wouldn't be hard. Especially considering you've been doing fine with borderlines today.

[Until now, at least, though he knows that could change at the drop of a hat.] It's up to you, anyway.

[revolutionfalcon]

Just this one. It's not far enough for many of them, but this avoids having to go all the way around. [And every second counts when they're dealing with something like this.

Sure enough, the alley opens out into another street after a short while, and there's a large, stark building on the next block that Shun indicates.] That's it.

[toremainbehind]

Nothing about this is easy, and I'd rather avoid burning the dogs if I can.

[Even as he says that, his Aura does start to rise.]

How good are you with borderlines?