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

[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. ]

[replicatedform]

If it's one of them, maybe. That many of them?

[One is a weirdo. A group of them would be delinquents on a mission.

Seems like they're heading for the residential shopping district, where specialty shops and local practitioners of various fields can help the residents.]

They're going there?

[usedperishsong]

Yeesh. They're led astray and stupid.

[ Kanade winces. Those kids look ready to do graffiti, to her. Picking a highly populated area.... ]

You gonna jump 'em yet?

[ If you aren't, she might. ]

[replicatedform]

Yeah. In this type of area, someone's bound to notice them.

[Whether they can do anything about it is another... Plus, Yamanbagiri's worried about possible spread of infection.

He looks over at her.]

Yeah, soon. [His hand grips his sword's handle.]

[usedperishsong]

Soon isn't soon enough!

[ Sorry, she's bad at waiting. Kanade runs ahead. ]

[replicatedform]

O-Oi!

[At least tell him first! Cursing under his breath, he runs after Kanade.

Meanwhile, the teenagers seems to have pick out their target among all the shops and stop to the side of it. Away from being seen by any possible people inside via the door's glass windows.]

[usedperishsong]

[ Kanade keeps running till she's on the same strip of street as the teenagers, at which point she slows down to an approachable saunter and comes up behind them, all smiles. ]

Kinda a nice day for some impromptu art, don'cha think?

[ Surprising people in the act tends to work best when one is more. Noticeable. Than Kanade, however. Does she manage to get anybody's attention? ]

[replicatedform]

[The boy nearest to her seems to look around for a moment, looking a bit confused. Their friends notice and asks him what's up. Nothing, he thought he heard something...

Being bigger and a trained swordsman, Yamanbagiri easily caught up to her. Until he's walking beside her, looking at the teenagers.

... They didn't notice her? Yet?]

Try being louder. Or more... [Obnoxious.] Obvious?

[Fine, he'll follow her lead for now and see how it goes.]

[usedperishsong]

More of a pain in the ass, right?

[ His delicacy was clearly appreciated. ] Sure.

OI!

[ And she tries to give two of the kids a flick with her index fingers in the backs of the head simultaneously.

Pain in the ass she can definitely do. ]

[replicatedform]

[Ah, she's that kind of person? Which means he can be more blunter with her in the future, probably.

Anyway, that definitely got their attention. The two kids who got flicked definitely got startled, and they quickly turn around to see who did it. One of them about to speak, as if suspecting one of their friends was responsible. Only to pause mid-sentence, and really look at Kanade and Yamanbagiri.

"Huh?"
"What?"

The rest of their friends stopped and turn to look. Hey, what's the hold up—who are these two?

"Did you did just do that?"]

[usedperishsong]

Only way to get the attention of two aspiring artists like yourselves.

[ Kanade is all smiles. ]

What was it gonna be? Dirty words? Dirty pictures? You guys don't have tough-guy aliases for yourselves or anything, do ya....?

[ Teasing is clearly the best method of crime prevention. ]