26 - The Gods' Month

[godsoffortune]

Who: Everyone!
What: Helping the Heavens prepare for the yearly Meeting of the Gods
When: October 20 - 21
Where: Around the Heavens (and maybe some mortal shopping trips, too!)
Summary: Amaterasu has been told that the newly arrived residents of the Heavens want to take a bigger part in security and administration, so she's convinced her shinki to let them help with preparations for the big yearly gala. It's also time for shinki to rate their gods and gods to find out what their shinki really think of them....







Security Precautions

The white-robed shinki guards are working hard to secure the Meeting Hall for the arrival of all the gods of Japan. Hard-working shinki are scurrying everywhere! Despite Amaterasu's orders, they're still a little unsure of and standoffish towards the strangers who they're supposed to work with, but there's a lot of work to do, so they're happy to hand out jobs to small groups of newcomers before returning to their own duties.


• Help clear out any small spirits who might have sneaked back into the Meeting Hall after the spring cleaning, from sootsprites to nekomata, animal spirits from the park or well-camouflaged plant spirits.


• Check the magical writing worked into art or inlaid in wood all over the building to protect the Meeting Hall from attack, and make sure none of it is scuffed or damaged.


• Join in on the patrols around the building or spend some time guarding one of the gates. It's boring, but the shinki appreciate the help.


• Test the integrity and extent of the magical protections with glass balls that turn purple outside the protections on the Meeting Hall and clear inside them. But don't drop your glass ball! They're fragile.

Event Preparation

It's not just security that the shinki are asking newcomers to help with. They also have plenty of work to do getting ready for the festivities! The Meeting Hall floors need to be swept and scrubbed, the gardens need to be trimmed and tidied, artwork needs to be dusted, flower arrangements arranged, damaged furniture repaired and rafters cleared of cobwebs. Anyone with particularly good handwriting can help write out invitations and name cards, too.

Besides cleaning and calligraphy, there's lots of food and beverages to purchase! Grab a shopping list, a wad of cash, and head to the Near Shore to pick up the necessities. (Don't forget to keep the receipts.)

Rate Your God

Shinki have the opportunity to submit surveys on their life with their new gods before the big event, and even request a transfer if they want one. Early in the morning, every new shinki will be visited by a small white dove carrying a scroll that, when unrolled, reveals the following questionnaire:


What is your name?

What is your god's name?

How do you see your duties as a shinki?

What is your favorite part of life with your god?

What is your least favorite part of life with your god?

What advice would you like to give your god?

Do you wish to be assigned to a different god? []Y []N


Fill it out, discuss it with your fellow shinki, forget about it until you find it under a pile of junk mail in two months: the choice is yours! Gods will receive a copy of the answer that their shinki submit to "What advice would you like to give your god?" -- there's no name attached, but they might be able to guess.

Heavenly Record Keeping

Gods don't get to skip the paperwork entirely! Although the Heavens aren't asking them to rate their shinki, new gods don't have all of their vital statistics on file quite yet, so they get a questionnaire too. The same white doves will drop their scrolls by in the morning, with the following set of questions:


What is your name?

How many shinki do you currently have?

What are your areas of divine responsibility?

How do you see your duties as a god?

What traits do you most want in a shinki?

Do you wish new shinki to be assigned to you? []Y []N


Unlike the doves attending on the shinki, the doves who drop off the gods' scrolls will remain close by and chirp loudly until they finish and submit their questionnaires. If a god is particularly lazy about it, they might even start pecking.

In Summary:

• Help protect the Meeting Hall
• Lend a hand cleaning and shopping
• Rate your gods
• Help Heaven keep its records up to date
• Have fun~

Comments

[revolutionfalcon]

[Shun's already starting to regret the suggestion as soon as her face lights up. He didn't come here to do the animal chasing, he came here to patrol, but it seems like there's plenty of people who are having trouble just getting animal spirits out of a hall.

He sighs in annoyance.] It's one cat. [One magical spirit cat, but one cat nonetheless. He doesn't see why she needs two people to do it, but clearly she's not making any progress on her own.]

We should just be able to funnel it through the door if I wait there to intercept it. [Presumably the merry run she's been going on at least passes the door.]

[yoshinocherry]

[Instant regret... Yuna is undeterred by Shun's general Shun-ness, and considering he relented pretty quickly on his own, has no regrets of her own in looking to him for some extra help.]

Great! That should do the trick, I'll try and herd it over that way, then.

[revolutionfalcon]

Make it quick. [Since he's not completely sure how the wards might affect teleporting within the Meeting Hall, he simply turns on his heel and strides off in the other direction, towards the most straightforward door outside he remembers seeing. The less distance they have to funnel it through, the better, so he'll take the obvious option where that's concerned.]

[yoshinocherry]

[At least she's a young teen with plenty of energy to spend on being nice and speedy, and once she takes note of where Shun's moved off toward, she goes back to pursuing her target.

The nekomata, for its own part, seems a little wary of what might follow that short break in their game of chase. Ears flicking about, as if trying to assess the new (new??) situation, it bolts as soon as Yuna gets too close again. Luckily, it's following a path that's close enough to the one it was taking before, making herding it over toward where Shun headed a super simple task...!

Hopefully it won't get too startled by the sudden, second presence and turn tail, or anything like that.]

[revolutionfalcon]

[One useful thing about the cleaning going on is that there's some useful bits and pieces around to help in the task of cat-funneling. Rather than Shun looming when the cat reaches the door, it's a bamboo folding screen that blocks off the path just beyond the door they need the cat to get to.

There's no telling how the cat might react to that, though, so at the very least, Shun's still behind it just in case the nekomata decides trying to climb it might be a better idea, or comes back the other way. He's not completely confident in Yuna's ability to actually catch the thing even given this much assistance, but then, he's never very confident in anyone's ability to do anything until he sees it for himself.]