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

[declamando]

[That's a good start, though Maria grits her teeth a bit as the crow goes for the two shinki instead. She doesn't want them hurt as a result of it not being able to get to her, but it can't seem to turn to her either...

There's one more thing to try, though, now that it's weakening. Setting her jaw, Maria moves to try running up its back so she can slash at the back of its neck.]

[revolutionfalcon]

[Shun's keeping an eye on her when he's not keeping an eye on their surroundings, so he catches the very edge of that fading grin. He's not here to cheer her up, but it seems like she's losing faith in her own plan too.]

How long are you planning to keep this up? [If they keep walking long enough, they'll just end up departing the focus area.]

[revolutionfalcon]

[Shun raises his arm and pulls down his sleeve a bit, revealing the bracelet already there.]

It's good, but it's not that good. It's definitely no substitute for daylight or a proper torch.

[It makes things easier in places like this where there's no access to anything like that, but that's the biggest advantage. Dropping his sleeve, Shun eyes off the area in question.]

You know what the most likely thing to bring the ayakashi in is. [They're very fond of the smell of gods and shinki, after all.]

[revolutionfalcon]

That's as good a reason as any to start a fight. [Shun certainly agrees with the sentiment on not wanting anything to happen to them - they're innocent creatures that just happened to get in the way of this disaster. If it hadn't been for the fact that he knew they were under the influence of something, Shun would've been a lot harder on the attackers.

As it is, Shun adjusts his hold on the box of kittens. The fact that it brings it closer to himself is purely coincidental, probably.]

There's a cat cafe in the area. Used to have a lot of staff from the Heavens until they disappeared. They'll be safer if I take them there.

[They'll need to be kept apart from the other cats for a day or two until they can be checked, but that's still better than leaving them on the street to suffer, and this is a lot of kittens to dump on someone's god unexpectedly. He of course neglects to mention the point of himself still working at that cat cafe, but in his opinion it doesn't really matter anyway.]

[revolutionfalcon]

I suppose it can't hurt. [Worst case scenario, she gets caught up in whatever his next plan is, and she at least seems to have enough of a brain to avoid that outcome.]

Definitely hasn't seen a real battle, she got floored by one of those straw dummies easily. Apparently she's used to running support, though, so she seems like the type to avoid the front lines.

[revolutionfalcon]

It's too early to say that. [This particular strife is one he can help with, and others are helping too. Shun might be willing to say that about strife of a different kind, but this is the kind of thing he's not going to give up on getting solved quickly. No more people need to be affected by this.

Shun sorts a few more bundles as Zelda gives the kids that one, but he observes her as she does. It's definitely more effort than he would've expected someone with her current level of apathy to go to, and he wonders whether she might be starting to recover on some level.

He's not really averse to pointing it out when she comes back, either, still eying her.] That was decent of you.

[Ignoring the fact that he'd deny that to be the case if he did the same thing himself, it was definitely more than the baseline help.]

[revolutionfalcon]

It's a good idea. Even if we deal with what's going on here, there's no guarantee it won't continue to spread on a smaller scale.

[If there's an ayakashi behind it they can get rid of, so much the better, but sicknesses spread plenty well enough without any help from the supernatural.]

[usedperishsong]

Until something works.

[ Darnit. She knows she wants to keep moving - standing still when she feels like this is impossible, but -

Kanade breaks into a run, changing directions. If picking a direction doesn't work, she'll just, she'll -

She'll cover ALL directions! ]

[appealingdame]

Oh, I can manage that. [Kind of boring, but it's fine. Charlotte gently takes Sakura's hand so they can teleport away.]

So, do you think medical supplies will be all we need for this job? What if there's a bunch of ayakashi causing the sickness?

[She doesn't know if that's a real thing but damn she hopes this isn't just a peaceful mission.]

[toremainbehind]

[He glances over at the dogs as they begin gathering again before at his hand.]

I'm fine. It's nothing serious.

[It stung but it's not unbearable in any way.]

[toremainbehind]

[A soft hum of agreement.]

It may be possible ayakashi can be lurking nearby as well. This kind of situation would suit their interest.

[So it could be related. After all, there is enough despair in the air to draw in ayakashi's attention.]

[toremainbehind]

[Izumo only shakes his head, looking over the supplies.]

She may have needed to be. There are four crises, so she may have gathered every little thing she could that would help.

[toremainbehind]

[He shakes his head and makes the girl comfortable before moving onto other patients.]

I MEANT TO DO THIS WAY EARLIER AND FORGOT BECAUSE IT WASN'T IN MY INBOX apologies!!!

[junkyarddog]

[In a weird way, Ken's animalistic movements are almost more natural in his vessel form than they are when he's human; being a dog just suits him so well. Between that and his vessel form being smaller than his human form, dodging the snake's plunge isn't too hard.

He is still at something of a disadvantage, though. It's harder for him to look up, at something considerably above him, than either his god or his partner, especially with how low he is to the ground. And, of course, it's going to be hard for him to catch something that high above him, either.

But from the way he's snarling and darting in from the side at the ayakashi as soon as he's dodged its dive, it's clear he intends to try regardless. He's almost running forward even before Hakkai orders him to. How much damage can a dog do against a serpent, especially considering their respective sizes? Ken is going to find out.]

[toremainbehind]

O-Okay.

I know a place. It's not too far. [He'll lead him there. Bending down, he carefully picks up the other girl and turns to D2.]

[toremainbehind]

We can.

[Izumo looks over at the other children.]

I'm going to go get some more medicine.

[lostinshadows]

[....Lavi pouts.]

I'm fine.

[sweetdeath]

[It doesn't seem that odd to Tsuzuki, but he finds himself stumbling over the fact that he can't say he's seen it before. He hasn't. Is it normal, or is he wrong?

After a moment, he smiles nervously, and shrugs.]

Well, they're big birds, but I think we could still take 'em if we had to.

[hakingitup]

[Looking at the garbage, he notices that a trail is heading off down an alley. He taps Hakkai on the shoulder and points.]

Probably that way.

[reformedsinner]

Some people would say that dying was punishment enough....

[He keeps his tone light, and adds:]

-- And I could probably handle an amputation, so long as you kept the wing and it hadn't been too long. It wouldn't be the worst injury I've dealt with.

[Shizuo's impalement may rank at the top, in fact. Anyone without Shizuo's resilience wouldn't have survived long enough to have that healed.]

[onedrinkwithme]

[Oh so like him prior to this]

To Rend ayakashi it should be. So far it has only been smaller types but I do worry if and more than likely when a larger one will show itself; they usually do from what I have experiemced.

[onedrinkwithme]

[Enjoy the light show because once they show up, he is giving a couple Circles of Scorn and making them focus on him if any managed do so. It's becoming easier to Rend and he's much lighter with Sukomi now.]

Has anyone learned of a source of where they may be coming from?

[hakingitup]

If you're going to get in fights, sounds like something you need to get.

[There's definitely something wrong here, and Hak's not sure what it is. The least he can do is start knocking them away from Rin. He narrows his eyes, knocking away another thug.]

Or maybe find better opponents. They're cheating.

[They have unlimited strength. And that's a problem.]

[sageprincess]

[It's not enough. That scream leaves her ears ringing and near-deaf, but it's not enough. The giant is still standing, still moving, and all she can do is cling helplessly to its hair as it charges forward.

Of course she couldn't do it. Why did she ever think that she could? She's not a Hero, and she never will be.

Her voice is quiet, no longer commanding, as she lifts Archer's blade again and says--]

Return, Emiya.

[Caster's back, so their deal is done. She's not in a position to revoke the name she gave him right now, but she can at least allow him the opportunity to return to the side of the one he actually wants to serve.

... And free up an extra hand to hold onto the giant with. It's getting kind of difficult to do that now that its shoulder is gone.]

[hakingitup]

[Hak raises his own eyebrow back, tilting his head to the side.]

They'll be fine. Better than leaving someone behind.

[He could probably carry another if this guy wants to go ahead and find a hospital that's free. But he doesn't mind. He looks around before starting to head off towards the hospital.]

Any idea where other hospitals are then?

[Just in case.]