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

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...

[replicatedform]

[He only think about it for a brief moment. Yamanbagiri did have a rough idea of a plan in mind.]

Before they do anything... like they're going to paint the outside of a building.

[That "vandalism" thing. If they approach them at that point, it's obvious what they're doing isn't anything innocent.]

[letteropener]

[Celestia nods, then takes to the air with no more noise than a passing breeze. The sight is ridiculous, as she falls into position behind them and matches speed; here is an elegant alicorn simply and blatantly trailing this group down the street. But the Far Shore is so hard to notice from the Near that the kids don't so much as blink.]

[replicatedform]

[It is a ridiculous sight, if Yamanbagiri's not focused on the task at hand. Maybe when he tell the others how his day went later...

The teenagers are heading towards the far end of the street, until they come to a fairly old but well kept building. They stop and seems to be talking to each other and nodding.]

[letteropener]

[Celestia drops behind them, leaning her head in to listen. One hoof lifts off the ground slightly, already prepared to wave. As soon as she hears them propose some tagging, she quickly lifts it. Time to intervene!]

[replicatedform]

[Seeing the signal, he quickly runs up towards them until he's standing behind them. And then he raises his voice.]

Oi, stop what you're doing!

[Startled, they quickly turns around and see Yamanbagiri. They gape for a moment, wondering where on earth did he come from. Before one of them yells back at him. "What's with you, you... cosplayer!"

Which is fair enough, since he does stand out compared to the unruly teenagers. (Being called a cosplayer is new, admittedly.)

But for a moment, Yamanbagiri did successfully get their attention for a moment.]

[letteropener]

[Oh, he might need help. Hm.]

[Well, while the kids are all looking at him, Celestia drops to the ground on the other side of their group, cocooning herself in light as she does so. The sudden flash catches their attention, but by the time they turn, it's only to face the tall human form of the Princess as she regards them with a powerful, gentle disappointment.]

[replicatedform]

[Yamanbagiri briefly glance over and blinks when he sees her. Which... okay, it makes sense to have a human form in order to interact with people.

He place his hand on his hips, watching them with a frown on his face. They're all staring at Celestia with surprise on their faces, before one of them manage to snap out of it.

"Where... where did you come from!?"]

[letteropener]

[Well, it can help. But if they need to be terrorized, she could be a bear. That could help in very different ways?]

[Celestia, who has been doing this for a very long time, arches an eyebrow to the exact angle necessary to communicate perfect, crushing disappointment.] You all are so eager to slap paint all over this wall, you've barely noticed what's around you.