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

[kokuyoyo]

[One would think that, in a moment such as this, it wouldn't be the time to go after anyone else.]

[One would be underestimating Chikusa's pettiness as he smacks his wing towards Shun, although at least it's while he's in the process of flapping straight into another poor unsuspecting teenager. Plausible deniability?]

[He's busy pecking a hole through this guy's shirt and into his shoulder, either way.]

[revolutionfalcon]

[Thankfully, Shun is wary enough of anyone getting that close to him in a fight that he's pretty well clear of Chikusa's wing by the time he flaps it at him. Chikusa seems to have that guy pretty well in hand, but Shun sighs a little as he flips himself onto the shoulders of some poor guy behind him and flip-throws him into a pile of bins.]

Try not to do any permanent damage.

[kokuyoyo]

[The bit of advice is heard, at least, as Chikusa flaps off of the guy... only to start kicking him in the head with his spindly crane legs.]

[That should have no complaints, right?]

[Besides from the guy trying to stumble away from him and who is due to hit a wall with how much he's not looking where he's going.]

[revolutionfalcon]

[Well, it's not going to drill a hole in the guy's shoulder bone, so it's probably fine. Shun glances over to the guy about to stumble into a wall, but elects not to intervene as he runs into it hard enough to daze himself. It's one less person to deal with.]

I'm guessing you haven't seen any sign of where that voice is coming from.

[kokuyoyo]

[Walls are so handy for more than architecture.]

[Flapping off of the newly dazed thug, Chikusa lands on the ground, flaring out his wings to make himself look bigger. It's certainly making more than a couple of the teens reconsider fighting a "wild" bird. With a bit of breathing space, Chikusa looks back to Shun and shakes his head.]

[He's been looking but no dice.]

[revolutionfalcon]

[At that response from Chikusa, Shun lets out a faint hiss of annoyance.] It's doing a damn good job of hiding itself.

[Even the voice doesn't seem to be coming from any particular direction, since he's already tried following it. As it is, he's just dealing with the gangs along the way, and he uses the distraction of Chikusa's flaring wings to scythe the legs out from under a couple of the gang members and knock them out on the way down.]

[kokuyoyo]

[The second someone goes crashing down onto the ground, Chikusa leaps onto them. His rapidly flapping wings don't really hurt much as they go flapping into people, although they don't not hurt, but they certainly daze people.]

[It's not just for fun that he's here, either. While he has the guy down. Chikua ducks his head down to fish out a wallet, and then a phone.]

[He's keeping both. Hopefully Shun has no issues here with that.]

[revolutionfalcon]

[Shun is definitely side-eying Chikusa a little as he steals the phone and wallet, though he mostly just sighs as he turns his attention back to the next teenager trying to charge him, who gets flipped into the ground.]

How are you expecting to carry those and fight properly? [Stealing one random person's possessions seems a bit weird, but Chikusa can't exactly carry a hell of a lot.] Besides, I already told you how bad an idea it is stealing from people who might pray about it.

[If these ones believed in Loki, which they may well have considering the impact of this, there's no saying they wouldn't have believed in other gods.]

[kokuyoyo]

[Oh, it's not just one random person's. With phone and wallet clumsily held in his mouth, he flies up to nearby rooftops to deposit them. The higher point then allows him to divebomb another poor teenager, who's going to get some scratches for his trouble and a whole lot of yelling.]

[His phone and wallet will also be taken, once Chikusa batters him to the floor enough. Where are they going? You guessed it: to the rooftop.]

[Time to see how many times he can get away with it before they realize this asshole bird has a purpose.]

[revolutionfalcon]

[That mostly just seems petty to Shun, though he's not going to actively stop Chikusa from doing it. He's more just to the point of rolling his eyes a bit and carrying on. He doubts the humans are going to notice in the midst of a fight like this, especially since Shun keeps dropping them at a rate of knots.]

It's a little pathetic to prey on people just because they happen to be there. [Shun would be taking more objection if they were innocents and he was doing lasting damage, but it still seems unnecessary.]

[kokuyoyo]

[Flying down from the quickly growing nest, Chikusa pauses in bringing out another phone and starts to peck at it. He's using the text option and, once done, picks it up awkwardly inbetween his feet.]

[Watch out for above, Shun. There's a phone being dropped down onto your head.]

[revolutionfalcon]

[Shun glances up as Chikusa takes off with the phone, and after kicking someone out of the way, grabs the falling phone out of the air with a rather pointed eying towards Chikusa.]

I'll be surprised if you have a decent answer to that. [Considering Chikusa's general attitude when it comes to this sort of thing. Still, he glances towards the phone to see what the message is.]

[kokuyoyo]

[At least Shun has the phone, leaving Chikusa free to abruptly land on another teenager's shoulder. Enjoy the yelling.]

[Meanwhile, the text on the phone reads simply- ]

pathetic to fight only

[revolutionfalcon]

[Shun only looks at the message long enough to read it before giving a faint, derisive snort and throwing the phone over his shoulder so he can kick someone else in the teeth.]

If you think adding petty theft to it makes you less pathetic, you've got another thing coming.

[Shun couldn't really care less if Chikusa thinks he's pathetic, but the point is that using this as a chance to steal is even more so.]

[kokuyoyo]

[That's fine if he disregards that phone. Chikusa is already mugging another teenager for yet another to abscond with, ignoring the alarmed shots that follow his wings.]

[Which of course means another phone is getting dropped at Shun's head.]

consequences

[revolutionfalcon]

[And that phone gets tossed aside fairly quickly as well, with Shun giving another dismissive noise.] What consequences? You think any of them are going to remember getting mugged by a crane five minutes from now, or be able to do anything about it? And I certainly have better things to do than break your fingers and see if you take the hint.

[Like knock out a couple more of these kids, for example, and ideally hunt down whatever the hell the source of all this is.]

[kokuyoyo]

[Another phone, flung with a little more force.]

[There's nothing written on it.]

[revolutionfalcon]

[Shun gets the impression that's just a phone being thrown for the sake of being thrown rather than actually having a message, so he slip dodges to one side. It both lets him avoid the phone and punch out another of the teenagers.

The flying phone does bean another one of the kids right between the eyes, though.]

[kokuyoyo]

[Whups. Well, it all works out in his favor anyway. Chikusa swoops down for his new target, the poor dazed teenager who's clutching his forehead and swearing. Down another goes! Angry birds can manage that kind of thing.]

[Once the teenager is curled up, trying to avoid an aggravated beak, Chikusa perches on top of him and straightens up to his full height. How many of these nuisances are there anyway?]

[revolutionfalcon]

[Since Chikusa's got that one covered, Shun takes a moment to survey the area. There's only about a handful of the gang members left by this point, and Shun figures they might as well get rid of them quickly and get this over with.

One of them charging at him makes that decision very easy, as he stuns the guy in the face and then grabs him to throw him at two of the others. It's hard enough to send all three flying into a nearby wall.]

[kokuyoyo]

[There's one last downwards kick to the youth below him before Chikusa flaps upwards again, driving back one of the other remaining teenagers who still doesn't know how to deal with a large bird. That means less time to look where he's going and more time tripping backwards... which makes him excellent prey for a crane to leap onto.]

[It takes a lot of flapping and kicking, but it sure does the job well enough.]

[revolutionfalcon]

[Since Chikusa's handling the second last one, Shun figures he might as well deal with the last one while Chikusa is busy kicking the hell out of that other guy. It's a lot more straightforward on his end - the kid charges, Shun charges back, a second later the kid is collapsing into unconsciousness and Shun's on the other side, straightening up and dusting off his sleeve slightly.

A couple of the kids are strewn a little too close to the middle of the alley, so Shun drags them out to the edges, briefly checking over them to make sure their injuries are only temporary.]

Still no sign of the thing causing all this.

[kokuyoyo]

[Picking through for a phone he hasn't already stolen, Chikusa tosses it, skittering, onto the alley ground and away from the teenagers before hopping over. Peck peck peck. With that done, he picks it up with his beak to fling at Shun.]

no reason to

[revolutionfalcon]

[Shun catches the phone out of the air, glancing over the message.] It's an ayakashi. Whether it gets pissed off about us ruining its chaos or just likes the smell, it'll come out eventually one way or another.

[Just not right now, evidently. Shun slides the phone back along the ground to Chikusa in case he wants to write something else.]

[kokuyoyo]

[Well... That's true enough. In the end, it's just a waiting game.]

[And if it's a waiting game, that means there's not much reason to hang around here... besides picking through more people's pockets.]

[He's pretty sure Shun won't bother to stop him.]