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

[revolutionfalcon]

Security can be bad because of the way it's organised or directed, not just because of the people involved.

[He's had encounters with some pretty laughable attempts at security forces in his time.]

[nopixiedust]

Yeah, but the people are still involved. [Sighing, she shakes her head.] You're so bad at people sometimes...

[revolutionfalcon]

I've never said I was good with people. [Quite the contrary, considering he hands off diplomatic roles to whoever might be accompanying him at the time quite often. Doing what he can on his own is one thing, but doing something he knows he's bad at when there's someone very likely to be better at it around is another.]

But that wasn't really the point of it anyway. One way or another, the security needs improving if she wants to prevent something like that temple fire happening again.

[nopixiedust]

She was surrounded by her shinki when I went to meet her.... You don't think that's enough?

[revolutionfalcon]

And she runs away from them every time she gets a chance at major events. Even if she still keeps one with her, that might not be enough if someone gets them alone.

[He's figured her crown is the shinki she mentioned having with her at the party - it would explain the flash of light when Shun showed her his weapon. But that's just one person if she flees her guards again.]

[nopixiedust]

That's their own fault. Everyone is contradictory in what they want her to be. [A scowl crosses Wendy's face, and she starts tapping her foot along the ground in aggravation.] They hole her away like some precious child princess in a tower, never letting her see anyone or even have a phone, but at the same time they apparently expect her to be some wise and powerful ruler of a bunch of overpowered idiots.

[Old and new gods alike, as far as Wendy is concerned.]

No wonder she runs away from them. If they just helped her be out more instead of shoving work onto her all the time, she wouldn't be like that!

[revolutionfalcon]

It would help if they were actually letting her in on what was going on. The old gods would have to know what it is she did to bring down a budding uprising on herself, but she would've forgotten when she died and it doesn't seem like anybody's bothered to remind her. [And if nothing else, knowing the root cause of the rebellion would help her in knowing how to reconcile it. Unless they just want a reason to wipe out dissenters.]

I've heard they keep her in so much for her "own safety", as well, so that's probably why she's so happy to run off when she gets the chance. It's going to backfire on them one of these days.

[nopixiedust]

She definitely needs someone else to trust that isn't her whole- [Wendy waves a frustrated hand.]

...Think she'd take on a nora?

[revolutionfalcon]

Her advisors would probably get offended. [Shun points that out somewhat dryly before going on with a more direct answer.] But you'd have to ask her that yourself.

[nopixiedust]

I guess so.... I'll just have to work towards another meeting with her then. Have anything you want me to ask her?

[revolutionfalcon]

I'll just ask her myself next time I see her. I can't see the guilt-tripping working again for you so soon after the first time.

[At least, not unless Amaterasu's guards are wildly incompetent enough to let the same cheap trick slide twice.]

[nopixiedust]

Hey, I know better than to use that trick twice. [....In a row.] But it's only right if she gets an update on how things are going, right?

[revolutionfalcon]

If she's interested in it, then yes. But there's no telling when any of us are going to be able to contact her again.

[Amaterasu is a bit unpredictable in her accessibility, even to gods, so he can't say when anyone would be able to carry that message.]

[nopixiedust]

Considering she took immediate time to see me the first time... I bet it could be easier a second time around.

[revolutionfalcon]

If that was just because your guilt tripping was making her shinki panic or something, I wouldn't rely on that.

[Shun puts that comment more dryly, since it seems a bit naive to him to assume it's going to be easier rather than harder the second time around.]

[nopixiedust]

Yeah, but now we have a connection from my guilt tripping making her shinki panic, and a project we're both working on!

[In comparison to when she just had the guilt tripping.]

[revolutionfalcon]

The first thing isn't a connection. And relying on the second one means you'll have to convince her you really need her help with it again.

[Since he imagines Amaterasu doesn't just drop everything to help with things like shinki shelters whenever someone comes to her door about it.]

[nopixiedust]

That's fine. I have a few things up my sleeve that I think I can use to my advantage. Besides, the more I talk to her about this, the more I can learn on what to do for next time.

Experience, right?

[revolutionfalcon]

"Experience" is going to take a while considering how infrequently she shows up. [Despite the fact that Shun's talked to her at just about every opportunity, even he's only done so maybe a handful of times.]

[nopixiedust]

It's fine. Better than nothing, don't you think?

[Optimism is the only way to keep pushing forward, sometimes.]

[That, and spite, which she suspects Shun favors a little more.]

[revolutionfalcon]

It depends how long we end up being here for. It might come to nothing if we're only around a few more months.

[Shun wants to think they won't be here for that much longer, since it's coming up to a year...but then, it's different for shinki. They don't necessarily have anything to go back to the way gods do.]

[nopixiedust]

I doubt it. Even if it only happens for a little while, or only happens once, things can still have an effect on everything else.

And we just don't know until then, in my opinion.

[Little things can even change a whole life.]

[revolutionfalcon]

Usually it takes a long time for small things like that to have an effect. And this place doesn't seem prone to change.

[They're dealing with people with a very different sense of time here, who probably think it's prompt to get something cleared up within the year.]

But it's not really my problem if you want to waste your own time.

[nopixiedust]

Or maybe we're all wasting our time because we'll never stick around for it to matter anyway and none of them are our gods.

[She waves her hand through the air.]

Pessimist.

[revolutionfalcon]

We've already been here for a while. It's not really pessimistic to consider we might find a way home one of these days.

[It's not necessarily optimistic, since whenever it comes it will introduce the hard decision between staying and leaving for some gods, and the potential of not seeing new allies and friends again, but he'd still think it somewhere in the middle.]