thenearshore | 26 - The Gods' Month

Entry tags:

26 - The Gods' Month

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

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

Rate Your God

might

Heavenly Record Keeping

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~

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Damn.]

[Good thing for the Far Shore cloak of being unnoticeable -- that would have drawn the eyes of every guy and probably a few girls in the place.]

[The Netherworld is an interesting place. A lot of girls there run off the Gothic-lolita sort of imprint. Then you have succubi and catgirls, who are almost comedic in their, uh, feminine proportions. Zetta had historically favored women who were both elegant and curvy, whose strength came from their mana power rather than sheer physical might.]

[So damned if he isn't surprised to find Ginia's mixture of curvy and powerful is really something else.]

[He lets out a low, appreciative whistle at the sight.] Yeah, that added a few adjectives to the pile. Or uh... adverbs? You know, going from 'hot' to 'damn hot'?

[Ginia's fingers give one last teasing trace over the lines of her muscles before she lowers her shirt and sits down. There was a time in her forgotten life when she was leaner, beauty running more toward a specific set of standards controlled by a strict diet and regiment of nanites. But you don't teach a person how to hold a rifle or free climb without building up some muscle, and when a caged tiger is free and has their choice of prey...

Well, Ginia knows she's hot. She knows she's attractive, that her silhouette is just as attractive to some as the lines of her muscles are to others and she knows none of it really matters, not to her. Beauty is just another tool at her disposal to support her already existing regiment of skills and there's no joy in the praise or attention.

And just slightly, Ginia feels a little bit sad.

Also maybe it'd be a bit more flattering if the praise wasn't coming from a talking book.

All the same, she smiles. The server drops off some glasses of water without much fanfare, arriving and departing with a courteous smile. Ginia sips at her glass as she stretches out on her side of the booth.]

Enough about me, I want to know more about you and the whole ruler of the Netherworld thing.

[She's using that tool pretty effectively on Zetta, for what it's worth. Who may be a book, but still has the mind of a red-blooded male who knows what he likes!]

[And hey, eventually he'll have his body back.]

Me, huh? That's one of my favorite topics. I've been an Overlord since I was five hundred years old or so.

[It's an absolute shock Zetta likes to talk about himself. A complete stunner. But she is surprised at the scale of time because... huh.]

Since five hundred? How old are you?

Somewhere around thirty-five thousand.

[He says this so casually, too.]

We demons -- uh, rough guess, a normal demon runs about a hundred years for one human year. So our thousand-year old kids are what a ten year old human kid would be, or so? [The figure is rough and many factors complicated it a great deal more, but there it is.] But past a certain level of strength, you're too strong for Death, so it stops being a concern normally.

[Holy. Shit.]

Looking good for a book your age. No yellowing pages, cover is intact, not a lot of bent pages or cracked spine.

[She jokes if only to deflect. For someone who can't remember she died at twenty-seven, it's hard imagining thousands of years, let alone a hundred. It's fascinating and sobering and there's a slight uptick in respect for him. There's respect to be paid for a long life lived.]

At what point did you become a book?

[He had mentioned it was a temporary setback, though temporary now could included thousands of years.]

[Oh wonderful! Book jokes! The Overlord scowls with his usual meaningless anger.] FIRST of all, this isn't just any book. This is the Sacred Tome! Everything that ever was, is, or will be in the universe is written within it, so you damn well better believe it's in pretty good shape. Second, it's been like two weeks! I had to bind my soul to the damn book to prevent its destruction, and that was when I ended up here, too.

[Okay! Okay! Ginia raises her hands and smiles apologetically. Two weeks was far less time than she thought, so the touchiness is understandable. But wow, an interesting book. To have everything in the universe written in it...

Wait.]

If everything is written in that book, does that mean it knew you were going to bind your soul to the book to prevent its destruction and end up here?

Good question. Someone had clearly tampered with the damn thing, and I didn't read that far!

[Because he'd set it on fire, he doesn't mention.]

[Ginia has a tiny prickle of doubt about his statement, but the thought is put aside as their food arrives. It's hard to go wrong with a generous portion of hot wings and fries and without having eaten much that day, Ginia descends on her basket.

It's delicious food; the fries are thick cut steak fries with a light crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. Her wings are mild, but the sauce still adds a nice tangy flavor to the moist meat. Finger food doesn't lend itself to typing--thank goodness for the stack of napkins and wet wipes--so Ginia doesn't both trying to hold a conversation as she eats. As her basket of wings becomes more a pile of bones, she points at one of his hot wings. Mind letting her have a try?]

[Hey, give him credit: Zetta knew what he was doing when he picked this place.]

[Of course, his own eating is a bit complicated, since he has to basically get fed by his minion -- and how does a book even eat, anyway? The logistics of the situation aside, though, Zetta is absolutely unembarassed by his unusual needs, soldiering through a pile of wings so hot that they assault her nostrils from across the table.]

[If she's still game after smelling that? Go for it! He flicks a corner of his cover at her to give her permission.]

[The nanotechnicians responsible for the tech running through Ginia's body accounted for a lot; pain dampeners, blood filtration, muscle and bone reinforcement, a lot of thought and technology went into keeping an operative running.

However, capsaicin is tricky. While her tech kicks in to reduce the sting in her eyes and nose--can't have an operative go down to a hit of pepper spray after all--the scientists didn't take food into consideration.

The first bite hurts. It's a merciless, unrelenting burn that leaves her eyes watering, nose running, and gasping for air as she forces herself to swallow. There's no relief from drinking water and she suffers through the pain, sucking in air as she furiously wipes her hands off on the wet wipes.

The spicy wings hurt, but they also hurt real good. It's nice While jumping straight into Zetta's basket of wings was a bit much, she's definitely not opposed to stepping up her next basket a few levels.

Once her hands are clean, she uses some napkins to wipe her eyes and blow her nose, mouth still rolling in heat. She sucks in a few more deep breaths as she types up a message.]

That was a bit much, but I think I like spicy food. It's a good kind of pain.

[And just think: Zetta considers these mild. Proper wings are so spicy they distort the air around them.]

[Demons have interesting tastes, and badass Overlords even more so.]

[The reaction said a lot about her own expectations and tolerances; Zetta watches it curiously, learning a few things in the process. Not really consciously -- Zetta tends to run more on instinct and intuition than conducting any logical analysis of a person from their behavior -- but he definitely gets the impression that her spice tolerance is fairly high. She took those like a champ, really.]

Hyaaaha ha ha ha! You understand exactly! Properly spicy food is like winning a war of conquest and attrition!

[Suffering like a champ is all a part of her life. Her mouth is still burning as she flags down a server and orders a basket of spicy wings, but it's reached a tolerable level she can shrug off more easily. She still downs the rest of her water though.]

Are there other spicy foods like this?

[She finishes off the remainder of her basket, the carby goodness of fries providing some relief. The mild wings are still good, but she misses the kick of hot sauce already.]

[Zetta's surprised when she goes back for a second round for all of two seconds, before he remembers that shinki are commonly hungry in perpetuity.]

Oh yeah, next time we'll hit up an Indian place or something like that. Not quite the same spice, but you get a good bowl of vindaloo and it'll knock your socks off.

[Even in life Ginia was a heavy eater; you don't have a rocking body and full set of nanotechnology and not keep it fueled. In death, the present sense of hunger always gnawing at the edges remains a mild annoyance.

It's a good thing Zetta stole a lot of money because Ginia's going to get her money's worth of food.]

Sure. Sounds good.

[The reply comes quick, almost automatic but it's sincere. Free food is free food and she's not going to say no if he keeps offering. She gets to try new things, he gets her company, it's win-win, right?]

Do you go to the Near Shore often to eat?

Eh, eating's kind of on an 'as-desired' basis for me these days. [The Overlord's scowl is less for that specific facet of the situation and more for the fact that he's a damn book to begin with.] Hell, I don't remember the last time I did before now. It was a bit ago. So having a reason is all the nicer.

[Well, Ginia is glad could be helpful in that regard. And with a lot of uncertainties brewing in her life at the moment, it's nice to know someone doesn't mind having her around.

Even if she's just there for eyecandy.

Even if he's an evil, talking book.]

So back to the whole Overlord thing. What does it take to be the most badass freaking Overlord? What kind of powers are we talking about? Get any new ones here?

[Zetta seems totally delighted to have her around! Poor Ginia and her life choices.]

[Her question immediately snaps him out of his sulk, though.]

Nothing more than the strongest mana power ever seen in creation. I've got more power to my credit than Dragon Overlord Babylon in his prime, and he ruled the cosmos for ages!

...Didn't seem to come up with anything here, though. [In actuality, he's simply never had cause to find out what his divine power is.]

What is mana power? You keep throwing that around, but it doesn't mean anything to me. And that's strange if you didn't get any new powers.

I keep forgetting humans don't understand the concept. [Though he shouldn't, he knows. Demons are born not only with greater mana power than most creatures, but a more instinctive understanding and knack with it.] Basically, mana power is the fundamental ability to inflict your will on the cosmos at large. It's why in a Netherworld, you can bring a sword to a gunfight. And, you know, survive a gunfight after getting shot a dozen times.

[The ability to inflict your will on the cosmos at large... doesn't seem to do much good if you're stuck as a book.]

Gotcha. And then being evil comes with the whole Overlord, Netherworld territory? Do you have to be evil?

I'm a demon. That's the territory it comes with. Being an Overlord just means you also have to be an exemplar of demonic vices!

[He sounds so proud, too, having not yet gone through the practically mandatory Disgaea demon character development.]

Just because someone else tells you that, you don't just go believing it.

[Remember those words, Zetta? Ginia gives him a skeptical look as her second basket of food arrives. Sure, he's a demon in the tens of thousands and knows his life better than anyone else, but honestly?

His brand of evil seems a bit more petty than evil-evil.]

Uh. [Zetta pauses in his cheerful arrogance to look at her with one eyebrow arched.] No, really, that's -- that's how it is. I mean, you wouldn't tell an angel to go ahead and be lazy and selfish and wrathful, right?

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