March Training

[godsoffortune]

Who: Everyone
What: Information and Training
When: October 25th
Where: Outside the Meeting Hall, the Far Shore
Summary: Training and informational sessions for newly arrived gods and shinki



Gods and shinki arriving at heaven's meeting hall are, should they allow it, guided to the Meeting Hall, where a traditionally styled dojo and training ground have been made available for the day. The gods and shinki are free to take their time during this day to learn about the details of their new life from Amaterasu's shinki or from the many veteran new god and shinki volunteers.




God Training

Newly arrived gods are escorted into what looks like an old, large warehouse behind the Meeting Hall for an informational meeting covering the basics of proper god behavior. Several chairs have been moved in, but they're squeezed together between packed shelves and boxes of old ritual clothing, scrolls and rusty or chipped household goods. A minor deity is giving the speech, and none of the white-robed shinki enter. They are encouraged to discuss the information with each other and ask questions of more experienced gods, as well as instructed to guide their new shinki appropriately.

Shinki Training

Various shinki in the white-and-gold of Amaterasu's hosuehold are stationed around the dojo, passing out helpful informational pamphlets. They will be happy to instruct the newcomers in the use of the borderline as well as offering an explanation of what is expected of a shinki and the importance of teamwork with other shinki and with gods. Shinki are encouraged to work together to practice what they've learned and discuss their perspectives.

Back copies of the "From Ama" magazine, including puff pieces about new or rising gods or successful shinki, advice columns for resolving problems between gods and shinki, temple photographs and other articles of interest to gods and shinki, have been brought out in boxes and piled up next to a table holding a few remaining copies of the shinki questionnaire for any new shinki who want to keep one around until they can answer the included questions.


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

Physical Training

The dojo is stocked with a wide variety of practice weapons, traditional and modern, to offer some practice opportunity to gods who, for example, find themselves with a sword shinki but are at risk of cutting off their own toes. It's also useful for veteran new gods wishing to train with their current partner shinki. Several magically animated straw-stuffed training dummies, many of which have been carefully mended and patched with neat black stitching, are set up on the lawn with a white-robed shinki hovering nearby to watch over them. They make good training partners, although anyone who comes too close risks being targeted for a sparring match whether they wanted one or not.

The white-robed shinki are still busy cleaning and preparing the Meeting Hall for the big annual meeting of the gods. They'll recruit anyone who looks as though they're not too busy in order to help scrub floors, weed, sweep paths and walkways, and shoo away any unwelcome little spirits that are hiding away in dark corners of the hall. Heavy lifting is good exercise... right?

Rest and Refreshments

There are casks of fresh, cold water near the dojo to make sure no one gets dehydrated, but for those who've finished working, hot tea and enough seasonal treats are available to make it look as though the Heavens bought out an entire sweet shop. They're being distributed by a few shinki in indigo-blue and plain brown robes with the sleeves tied back, who aren't above teasing the newcomers a bit.

Young shinki are playing in the nicely manicured garden, trying to catch crayfish at the lake edge, dashing around playing tag and hide-and-seek. Just be careful you don't get caught in the middle of a game of "Kagome"! If you do, you'll really be stuck until you guess someone's name.

In Summary:

• Get all the information you can handle
• Veteran new gods and shinki are welcome to volunteer showing the ropes
• Get in some training
• Enjoy a traditional tea
• Spectate if you want
• Have fun~

Comments

i.

[sweetdeath]

Oh hey, you missed one!

[Or maybe it's actually "hadn't gotten to it yet," but either way, Tsuzuki's reaching past Ryoma to pluck a dandelion out of its position between the roots of an azalea. He sits back on his heels, grins, and picks the yellow flower off before tossing the leaves and roots into the weed pile.

The flower goes behind his own ear. What? It's a cheerful color.]

I haven't seen you around before. Are you new here?

[lightninglobster]

... that was a weed?

[Flowers are complicated. Ryoma looks mildly dumbfounded, surreptitiously glancing back over the trail of destruction he'd wrought on the patch of garden he'd been voluntold into, grimacing at the number of little yellow blooms that were now mocking him as they hid in plain sight. What made some flowers good flowers and some flowers bad flowers anyway?

He bit back a sigh, dusting the dirt off of his hands as best he could so that he could push his hair out of his face. He was not giving Tsuzuki a hangdog expression; it was more of a... dignified sense of long-suffering poise.]

I am. Apparently weeding doesn't come very naturally to me.

[sweetdeath]

It sure was. [Tsuzuki follows his gaze, and...

... oh, has he already weeded all of that? Whoops. Laughing, Tsuzuki scoots around to start working on the dandelions.]

So I guess you're not really used to gardening, huh?

[lightninglobster]

I'm afraid most flowers look the same to me. How can you tell what's a weed and what's been purposefully planted?

[Look, Ryoma tried, and because of that, no one should criticize him. Ever. He does seem to be in good humor about the mistake, however.]

I suppose not. I'm a defter hand with a blade, I fear.

[sweetdeath]

You've got to learn to recognize them. These're dandelions, and nobody plants them on purpose, because they take over and they get all-- [He waves a hand vaguely.] Leggy, spiky and the flower stems look bad after they bloom.

[Still smiling, but a bit more rueful, he adds:] I know flowers. I'm no good in a fight, though, which is probably more useful. -- Tsuzuki Asato. Nice to meet you!

[lightninglobster]

That seems somewhat complicated. Perhaps I don't have a bright future in garden maintenance.

[There's a wry half-grin on Ryoma's lips because he has jokes but they are subtle, fleeting things, just barely there because Ryoma is so serious and dry in the way he delivers them.]

If you keep the flowers, I can keep on fighting. I'm Ryoma--and it's a pleasure to meet you as well. Thank you for all the help.

[sweetdeath]

[Tsuzuki laughs. This guy's pretty funny, deadpan tone or no.]

I'll point out the weeds if you let me hide behind you if anyone comes at us with a hoe!

It's no problem. So -- shinki or god? If you don't mind me asking, anyway.

[lightninglobster]

[Ryoma tries... every now and then, when the moon aligns properly with the planets and all the celestial bodies form the arcane sign that enables him to relax for ten goddamn minutes.]

It's a deal. Together, we'll overcome gardening's challenges in all their mysterious forms.

[Whether it was not knowing the difference between crab grass and regular grass, or the inexplicable cabal of garden-tool wielding assassins that wanted to see weeds take over the gardens.]

I'm a shinki, to my knowledge. Yourself?

[sweetdeath]

Same. Sakura's my goddess -- um, that's Konohanasakuya-hime. About yeah tall, pink hair!

[He makes a vague gesture a little shorter than his shoulder, which would probably be more helpful if he were standing up instead of on his knees weeding. He bends to root out a couple of weeds that are lurking subtly along the flowerbed edging.]

I've been here a few months now.

[lightninglobster]

[... what a small woman. Ryoma cocked his head, a momentary look of confusion on his face--and then he accepts it for what it is with a shrug, continuing on his quest to weed the things he was certain were weeds while Tsuzuki took out the double agents.]

Is there anything you think a newcomer should know that's not in the... helpful pamphlet?

[what was a google. answer him, dark technology wizards.]

[sweetdeath]

The pamphlet covers most of the useful stuff, I'd say. Besides that...

[He trails off, considering the question.]

How are you doing with the phone so far? Some people don't know how to use those when they show up.

[He still doesn't think he's mastered all the extra functions.]

[lightninglobster]

[The pamphlet covers all sorts of things... but that's not helpful for someone who was alive in a world that uses magic and 'it works because it does' style technology. Ryoma and the pamphlet will have several long nights together, brow furrowed and pages well-folded and smug with their treasure trove of information.

Tsuzuki, in the moment, presents a much more interesting conundrum.]

... what is a phone?

[sweetdeath]

[Well, that sure answers that question. Tsuzuki sits back on his heels, brushes the dirt off his hands and pulls his phone out of his pocket, displaying it.]

This thing. They've made them really small! You can call other people -- uh, I mean, it lets you talk to anybody else who has one, as long as you know their phone number, and you can use it to write and read what other people write, too.

[Explaining the Internet is also really hard.]

[lightninglobster]

[In Ryoma's country, they would've burn Tsuzuki for a witch dark mage. Ryoma dusts his own hands off and comes to kneel at Tsuzuki's side, watching him fuss with the strange little brick--phone--with all the suspicious puzzlement one would usually reserve for the broken pieces of an enemy's trap, or a long forgotten artifact.]

I see.

[Only in a very literal sense, of course. Figuratively, he's blind and in the next room over, swearing at a lamp.]

How do you find these... numbers and writings?

[Reluctantly, he'll produce his own 'phone' out of a pouch hidden somewhere within the lobstery folds of his default getup, holding the thing between his gauntlet-clad fingers as if he expected it to explode, start biting, or both.]

[sweetdeath]

[And that's without his even getting into the actual dark magic he casts.

He turns the phone so that Ryoma can see its screen, tapping slowly through to his contact list and scrolling up and down.]

Yours ought to have all these numbers in it too! If you tap on one it'll let you talk to whoever's number it is.

You can try calling me if you want.

[lightninglobster]

[Great. Tsuzuki is a double witch, which means he'll need double the burning to make sure he doesn't poison the well, enthrall the people, and make them write 'Hoshido sux' in public spaces with hard to remove paint.

... in less tangentially related news because Ryoma doesn't remember anything anyway, he watches Tsuzuki dutifully, tapping at his own magic brick and frowning when it fails to respond because he's still, for all intents and purposes, wearing metal gloves, which is the least like flesh a glove can be.]

Mine appears to be broken.

[sweetdeath]

Can I see? [He reaches over to snag Ryoma's phone and prod at it for a moment. Nope, it's responding fine.]

Huh. Maybe...

[tap tap tap]

... have you tried taking your gloves off?

[lightninglobster]

Should I have?

[What kind of magic brick needed flesh to work? Ryoma was eyeing it with a hint of feudal suspicion once more, still wholly uncertain as to what the true price of using these odd devices was. Maybe this shinki and his goddess were in league with whatever dark powers controlled the magic phone bricks...

Or maybe Ryoma was just old fashioned. Either way, he removed his gauntlets with a minimum of grumbling, offering a now bare hand out to the mercy of the brick.]

Are you certain these 'phones' are harmless?

[sweetdeath]

Yeah, they're fancy, but they're just machines. They'll break if you step on them or get them wet.

[Not just harmless, but kind of fragile. Tsuzuki hands the phone back for Ryoma to practice.]

They work better if you touch them with your bare skin. I don't actually know how they tell...

[lightninglobster]

[Machines are for people who weren't born in ye olde Fantasy Japan-analog. Mechanists are the closest thing Ryoma might kind of remember if he squinted, and they used fancy but terrifying puppets on strings to do their bidding. It's a good thing phones are fragile--Ryoma prefers to have the ultimate option to break things when stuff starts going awry.

He takes the phone back, letting it rest flat on his palm as he proceeds to poke at it like someone's eighty year old grandfather. He's very proud of himself for not jumping when the screen flickers to life.

Dark magic is afoot here.]

That is incredibly strange and specific.

[... but Ryoma doesn't know enough about phones to really dispute it with Tsuzuki.]

So I touch which part of the screen to find the numbers, again? And then I... 'call' you?

[Somewhere a million voices went silent, as if a million beleaguered teenagers being forced to explain modern technology to their hard-of-hearing elders were suddenly wiped out. They cried for Tsuzuki, for his plight. Run, run far away before he gets to the stage where he understands wi-fi as a word but not a concept.]

[sweetdeath]

That part, down there. See, where it says "Contacts"? With a head silhouette?

[He points, sympathetically. The idea of a touch screen had confused him for a while too. Not to mention how tiny the cell phones were. For some reason, he'd expected them to be more shoe-sized.]

Touch the head, then it'll show you the whole list. You'll spot my name about a quarter of the way down.

[lightninglobster]

[Ryoma follows directions in bewildered silence, balancing the phone on his palm as if he expected it to snap at him if he were to grip it with any sort of pressure. He tapped on the 'contacts' button--and jerked back a little as eh screen jumped, an entire list of unfamiliar names sprouting up before him.]

How fascinating.

[He murmured, wonder actually touching his voice for the first time in this whole situation that seemed primed and intended to irritate people who were born back in the good old days... or worlds that still resembled the good old days. You know! Good old days! Cholera and war and feudalism!]

How do you get the list to change?

[He poked at the screen, experimentally--and then jumped a little again as it shifted, because Ryoma had just initiated a call to someone completely unrelated. It's like a buttdial, but done with the fingers of the technologically incompetent instead of the sweet, sweet glutes of happenstance.]

Is it supposed to do this?

[sweetdeath]

[The old days, before air-conditioning and microwave dinners! Terrible time.]

If you push your finger up or down on the list it'll show you more at the top or the bottom, like you're unrolling a scroll....

[He leans over for a better upside-down look at Ryoma's screen, and pauses.]

Uh, did you mean to call... who is that?

[lightninglobster]

[Listen here, doublewitch, whatever dark magic you're weaving with your microwaves is not welcome in our good Christian vaguely Shintoistic household.]

How do I get back to the scroll? How do I make it not do... this? Who is this person, anyway?

[Ryoma rarely expressed frustration because bottling was a much healthier method of coping, thank you kindly, but... the flesh-technology was doing something, and it needed to not. Please. Help?]

[sweetdeath]

Um, I don't know them, but maybe if you hit that button there? Stop the call?

[He points out a red phone icon. That should work! He hopes! Then maybe Ryoma can go back and find the other spot and...

Somebody who's better with cell phones should probably be giving this advice. Tsuzuki is no good under pressure.]