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

[replicatedform]

► Flu Season
[So many sick people, it's getting to him. For a moment, he briefly appreciate having a place to stay in Konohanasakuya's Temple. But he didn't dwell on that thought for long, before he start to get down to work.

Whether he's with Sakura, fellow shinkis or anyone who joined in handling these problems, Yamanbagiri is doing his part to help out.

In one shelter, he's handing out various items to the sick people. As he pick up some soup, he listens to the shelter's helper, who was pouring them into bowls, with a frown.]

Running low?

[She nods, before she lower her voice. They're doing their best to stretch it out, but their ingredients is going to run out at this rate. Yamanbagiri nods in understanding, before glancing over when he notice someone's approaching. Ah, someone from the Far Shore as well.]

Hey.

[He wonders if they overhear?]

► Prank War
[Why did he come here? Something about the request calls to him.

The good thing about being a Far Shore resident is that people never really notice him. Unless they're spiritually sensitive. But a bunch of hooligan teens on the loose may or may not even have that sensitivity.

Anyway, he's now trailing a group of teenagers, who look all too suspicious with the bucket of crates and inks they're carrying. He haven't try attracting their attention yet. Yamanbagiri need to see if they're going to cause a mess or vandalise property first.

With a fluttering sound of his cloak, he gesture to whoever's with him before following the group. They seem to be heading towards a building in the general, specialised shopping district.]

Flu Season

[sweetdeath]

Hey, Yamanbagiri.

[Tsuzuki'd been looking around at the other shelter occupants -- so many of them are sick. Can they really make that much of a difference? Blankets and soup help a little, but it's a big job, and there just aren't that many gods and shinki here.

He's distracted from worrying by his fellow shinki's voice, and he offers him a quick, uncertain smile.]

I heard we were running out of soup...?

[replicatedform]

[The number of people, gods and shinkis willing to do this is a problem. Do they have enough people to do everything?

After glancing around, he looks back at Tsuzuki and nods. The sick people would be too sick to notice, regardless of how sensitive they are to seeing Far Shore residents.]

Yeah. Their supplies are getting low. I don't know how long until we're out.

[He need to see their actual supplies, but it's probably worrying enough at this point.]

[sweetdeath]

I can check, and go buy more if we're getting too low. [He rubs the back of his neck, straightening up until his back creaks. He's been carrying a lot of crates so far today.]

How fast have we been going through the cans we've got?

[Maybe they can get some miso and instant dashi and make a big pot instead of relying on the canned food... it'd sure be easier to bring the supplies that way.]

Prank War

[letteropener]

Would you like some help with the espionage?

[The one following him happens to be equine, and thus keeping pace without any particular trouble -- even without using her wings.]

[replicatedform]

[... After seeing an actual, large talking dragon in the past, a... winged horse? Is surprising in a smaller scale. But that's not important here right now. He gives her a nod.]

Yeah. It'd be better if there's more eyes watching them.

[letteropener]

[There are dragons that do not talk? That must be very sad for them...]

[Celestia nods, her wings already unfurling.] When should I notify you, then? Ideally, they would cause no trouble, but we can also attempt to offer them a chance to cause trouble...

prank war

[kokuyoyo]

[Accompanying the sound of a fluttering cloak is the sound of fluttering wings. What's tagging along with him right now isn't a person, exactly, or at least he's not human, but rather a large Sarus crane that's now taken to the skies. It'll be easier to get a better view when he's up in the air, after all.]

[Considering that the bird is wearing a black beanie attached to his head, it can be safely assured that he's a resident of the Far Shore.]

[replicatedform]

[He hear the sounds of wings and looks over, and then upward to see the crane. Fortunately,
he see the beanie, so he guess it's an ally. And not a crane shaped ayakashi. Yamanbagiri looks back at the teenagers he's trailing, hiding behind poles and corners if he can.

They're heading towards one of the courts. Hm, where he can spy specialty stores from this distance.]

[kokuyoyo]

[Unlike Yamanagiri, Chikuas sees no reason to particularly hide. He's a shinki, so, ideally, he should be invisible... unless ayakashi are lurking around. In which case, that's an entirely different problem.]

[Certainly they don't seem up to any good, and the crane's neck stretches to get a good look, making sure no one splits apart from the group. A group, at least, is easier to handle.]

flu season

[redotiertwo]

[The person approaching is not exactly a person, but some unholy neon orange combination of a bird, a human, and what looks like some kind of ghost. There's also a sword through his stomach, though he's very subtly holding a blanket over one end of it, because that definitely helps with the wings and the ghost tail and the general weirdness of his appearance.]

Yeah, soup crisis, I heard. Are they getting their ingredients from somewhere in particular or are they just straight running out of everything.

[Davesprite could manage an expedited ingredient delivery, but finding a new source entirely is going to be a problem.]

[replicatedform]

[He's not sure what's surprising, the appearance or how orange he looks. And he's not going to dwell on that thing through his stomach. Right, right, that's pretty weird.]

The latter. They're trying to feed more people than they're expected to.

[A few people getting sick? Sure. All of these people at once? Yeah, that's gotta be a drain.]

I haven't ask about where they get their ingredients from, yet.

[redotiertwo]

Well, that's fucking useful, would've been nice if the Heavens deigned to intervene about that part. [Then again, considering the paltry amount of runners given to her, Davesprite imagines Orihime's having enough trouble just getting what's absolutely vital to the operation.]

Ask them. If it's just the supplies here that are getting low and they're waiting on more, we can probably rush some through. Not having a source at all is gonna be harder.

[Since he doubts just a run to the grocery store is going to cater for all these people.]

prank war

[usedperishsong]

There's no legit reason to have that stuff. Why not just jump 'em now?

[ Kanade will, at least, voice her objections before moving on her own. ]

[replicatedform]

[He heard it and responds back.]

That's what I planned to at first. But I decided to see if they're about to do anything first before confronting them.

[It seems like the teenagers are going to a certain part of the city. The shops? Or residential...]

[usedperishsong]

They're just takin' it out for a stroll...?

[ Still, she supposes it might scare them more to be caught in the act. So she'll go with stealth mode for now. ]

Flu Season

[moonlitknight]

[ Zero stops, looking momentary surprised that someone can see him. He looks over, changing directions as he walks up to them. ]

How can I help.

[replicatedform]

[Ah, someone he... doesn't really know. Well, that doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.]

We're going to have food shortage after a while. Are you free right now?

[moonlitknight]

[ He doesn't know him either, but in the end, it doesn't matter. ]

I'm free.

Prank War

[redmare]

[It really was a good think he was invisible to regular people, because he stood out when he walked around like a runaway bedsheet.]

Shouldn't we be stopping them before they get to wherever they're trying to go?

[replicatedform]

[Their lack of presence to the living means Yamanbagiri can be as dramatic as he accidentally can do. Or make it easier to do reconnaissance.]

I thought about that. It's either that, or stop them when they're definitely about to do something. It'd be harder for them to defend themselves with whatever excuses they have.

[redmare]

Do excuses matter? We already know they're up to something. As long as we take their materials, they can't do squat.

[She continues following him, watching them as they look for a good spot to work on.]

flu season

[smilingbullet]

[ D2 was coming over with some more blankets and coats, after he did a round of bringing medicine, and he had been intending to see if anything else was needed after he had passed these things out, and he looks over at Yamanbagiri, in the middle of tucking in a person with a blanket. ]

Oh, hey, hi, what's up?

[replicatedform]

[Ah, he remember this guy. After that brief moment of recognition, Yamanbagiri went back to business.]

We're going to run low on supplies. If you're free, can you go on a supply run with me?

[Although he say that, he did notice D2 is in the middle of tucking someone in.]

[smilingbullet]

As soon as I'm done with this I'll be free, so sure thing, I can do that.

[ He just has a couple more blankets and coats left, it'll only take a few minutes. ]