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

[nopixiedust]

Well.... We'll see what we can do. It's not like people here are apathetic, after all.

[purr_ince]

[He cares about Marinette dearly- caring and kind, a compassionate heart but now isn't exactly the time.]

That would help solve that problem - well maybe - but we have more immediate problems. I haven't seen anything like this before. Does it happen often?

[revolutionfalcon]

Parents, maybe. [One person seems unlikely to have generated all of them, but both parents is possible.

In any case, he continues down the street, keeping the unicorn in his peripheral vision. It's not charging for them yet, but the slight tension to Shun's motions says he expects that to change at any time.]

Getting it further away from the houses. I'd rather it not make a break for one when we attack it.

[redmare]

[Chinatsu follows his line of sight, nodding.]

Got it.

[She heads for another alley, waiting till the dogs get close enough before cutting between the pack with a borderline. She whistles, gaining the attention of the remainder of the pack.]

Over here!

[redmare]

I didn't say you were.

[Who knew at this point what Hibiki even was.

Chinatsu's grip tightened to steady Hibiki, being more forceful in leading her to a bed.]

But it doesn't take a genius to know you're sick. Now, lie down before I body slam you into the bed.

[Not that she'd do it.]

[revolutionfalcon]

[It's not quite what Shun meant, but it still works, and when Chinatsu splits the pack up, he leaps in to drive them back further with his blessed water and sword. It's not as effective as if he was using a shinki, but he'll take what he can get right now with how badly they're outnumbered.

He glances back towards Chinatsu, making sure she's not about to get overwhelmed by the pack.] If you trap some of them in the alley, we can deal with them first. You won't have to hold as many borderlines.

[The boxing in is more likely to fail if there's four walls that could potentially break at any moment as opposed to just one across the alley mouth.]

[cuddle_battery]

[A hammeraxe! Or... axehammer?

Yumoto is pretty sure it's something like that. Either way, it looks really cool.

Which would be great if he hadn't forgotten the other little tidbit about naming a shinki that he was warned about when he arrived.

Seeing their death.

He is not prepared for the barrage of images and emotions that wash over him. It's just so.... sad. He was so much more worried about his friend than he was about himself. Even though he was in so much pain. Even though she was probably super sad when he died. Yumoto would be devastated to lose a friend like that.

And... 'Gods don't waste time listening to prayers from people like him?' Maybe not, but... they should.

He can feel tears welling in his eyes but... the most important rule is don't say anything. Shinki can never know too much about how they lived or how they died. Yumoto knew that, he just didn't think it would be this hard.

But he's a lot tougher than he looks, so he blinks the tears back and reaches for a smile. He can cry about tragic deaths later. Right now there's ayakashi to deal with.]

It's like two weapons at once!

[He's proud that his voice doesn't waver at all. He tries a practice swing. It's a little lighter than he expected, which is good.]

My brother taught me a little bit about using an axe though, and I've hit monsters with a staff before. I guess this is sort of like a combination.

[priforprince]

[ Hibiki sits, absorbed both in her weariness and in her confusion about many points. And thus it is that when she looks up at Chinatsu, the look on her face is similar to the one she'd worn a few weeks ago, but less afraid and more honest.

She's baffled. ]

Why would you do this for me?

[ She doesn't know. She literally does not know how any of this works. You could be her bestest bud ever and she would have no frame of reference for the concept. ]

[sweetdeath]

[Tsuzuki nods, and summons up a smile.]

Okay. Wash up first, and then let's go find her and make sure she's okay.

[yasei]

[ Being such a good weapon feels great. Being a knife is great too, bit some variation is really great.

Obi doesn't know what has Yumoto go...strange-ish, from what he's gathered about him from this short amount of time that he's known him, but they do have other things to focus on. The ayakashi are more important and he's not good at being close to people instantly like some people could be. ]

Oh? Then that's great! You won't have much trouble using me, then!

[futhark]

[ She's calling him a dog, and un-ironically at that. And he can't even growl back because A) he likes her, B) IT WILL CEMENT THAT IMPRESSION. There is no escape from that, even Heavens think he's somehow responsible for the canines just because he trained some as a kid.

His shoulders sag in an almost voiceless sigh of resignation. And it's followed by a very flat question. ]

...do I want to know the details? [ He doesn't think he's going to change his behavior, so perhaps it's better not to. Maybe the Nuada himself here is a better trail in this conversation ]

I suppose that's a pattern. Our gods weren't as much "patron gods" as in other places. We had a more personal connection with them.

[yasei]

I give you my word, Miss!

[ He may not be a true gentleman (because he thinks acting like a gentleman feels weird so that must be like that) but he can pretend. And he can keep his word. ]

I'll just be a bit!

[ He'll just go and do some breaking and entering without breaking anything, but he'll find some rope somewhere, and he can be quick about it too. ]

[yasei]

Yeah, that's not a hard thing to do. Maybe tie them up or something for when they regain consciousness.

[ He does not suggest "beat them up til they totally break" because murder doesn't seem to be on the table with her. ]

If something is influencing them we'd first have to find out what that is.

[smilingbullet]

[ Of course it is.

Because now he's started to think this is kind of fun. ]

[smilingbullet]

Hmmm... Sometimes I wonder if the original gods would be that or similar if they didn't have shinki. Since apparently the shinki are their consciousness or whatever.

[ He shook his head and rubbed his neck, and dropped his hand back to his side. ]

But that's not really anything to do with today.... I suppose we should try to get some work done.

[priforprince]

Ghhhhrrrrr....

[ Is the surface D2 is poking

getting warmer? ]

[redmare]

[Chinatsu heads into the alley, glad to see a fire escape ladder she could jump and grab onto, just barely missing the snap of one of the dogs' jaws. She climbs on up, and while the dogs are distracted trying to get to her, she draws a line to trap them in.]

Got 'em!

[redmare]

[That face has Chinatsu pulling back slightly, then quickly averting her gaze. Her ponytail swings over her shoulder from the movement, hiding her reddening ear.]

...I can be a bitch, but I'm not that much of a bitch.

[Even if she was mad at Hibiki, it didn't mean she didn't care. She gives her attention back to Hibiki, pushing her down gently to get her under the sheets. She really didn't look too good.. What was she doing out here still?]

[redmare]

[It was partly a joke...but he seemed pretty serious about it.]

Ugh, isn't there some..ayakashi detector or something?

[All she knew was that shinki got nauseous whenever ayakashi were close by. Which was a sucky way to know.

There's a sudden crashing noise in the distance, catching Chinatsu's attention.]

Got any rope? Sounds like we might need a lot of it.

[revolutionfalcon]

[Shun follows her in, since there's no sense getting stuck on the other side of the borderline so they can't reach each other, and leaps up high enough to catch onto the balcony the fire escape ladder is coming off. After pulling himself up, he checks the line and how many followed them in before looking over to Chinatsu.]

Ready to try getting rid of them? [He's never liked changing the form of his shinki without warning, but his warnings aren't always completely direct.]

[priforprince]

I see....

[ No she doesn't. But that makes her...warm? Perhaps it's fever.

Hibiki lays down as indicated, appreciating the cool pillow beneath her head. Now that she's accepted she doesn't feel well, it's all spilling into her consciousness at once. And her heart feels funny, too. What a miserable combination.

And what a strange sentence to have stuck in her head now.

She takes a few deep breaths, trying to calm down, and also further punctuating her Noble Suffering. ] Nnh.....

[ The noble sufferer cannot suppress a sneeze. ]

[nopixiedust]

Considering she took immediate time to see me the first time... I bet it could be easier a second time around.

I'm so sorry, I guess I burned out, looking back on the month

[lookingforhead]

[The angle is all wrong for another ramp this time, and with the thing focused on them now leaping towards it would probably end in disaster.

'Hold on,' echoes in Sharak's mind. It's hard to say if it's a voice or a thought, or if the feminine lilt to it is imaged or not.

In any case, shadows drop down from the helmet, wrapping around the body of it to brace it, and then lash out to snare a nearby tree. The bike is yanked into an assisted turn, sharp enough to hopefully dodge the hand.]

[hakingitup]

[He takes a look around. With everyone knocked out or gone, they don't really have any other leads. He looks back and forth.]

Follow whoever left then?

[lookingforhead]

It does. Saves on gas too.

But he doesn't like wearing a headlight. And I'm not sure if I can get a license plate for him either.