27 - The Gods' Meeting

[godsoffortune]

Who: Everyone!
What: The Meeting of the Gods is here at last.
When: October 30
Where: Heaven's Meeting Hall
Summary:







Pre-Meeting

Guards at the front door are carefully checking each god who enters off on their list of attendees, and taking the names of each of their shinki attendants.

Once the participants are past the doors, they are guided down the hallway to a huge meeting room by one of the guards, who will announce them by divine title, and each of their shinki by whatever name they gave. It's an open question as to who's actually listening, though, because the room is swiftly filling up with gods and shinki. As well as the newcomers, old gods are here, some in human form attended by their uniformed shinki, others in stranger shapes -- giant bears, round-bellied tanuki, turtles, dragons, and more. There's even one tricolored tabby cat in a small blue cap, seated majestically in the arms of a uniformed shinki and chatting with another god.

Buffet tables bearing every kind of food and drink imaginable are set up at one end of the room, and a dais with a podium is at the other, draped in bright gold and white bunting and emblazoned with a chrysanthemum emblem.

Early Announcements

Finally, the socialization comes to an end, and the meeting itself begins as Ookuninushi grabs the microphone and steps up to the podium. The year's most popular gods are named first: Hotei, one of the Seven Gods of Fortune, is in third place, Tenjin in second and Ebisu in first place. Each steps up to bow and accept their accolades in turn: Hotei is a big man with a wide smile, Tenjin a tall, ascetic man wearing old robes and concealing his smug expression behind a fan, and a tired-looking younger man in a business suit announces himself as representing Ebisu, who is watching over the Near Shore during the event.

Next, the most popular new god is announced: Ookuninushi has to stop and wrinkle his nose at the name for several seconds before he pronounces it-- Nekhbet, a new arrival in the Heavens.

He moves on to call for a moment of silence recognizing the difficulties of the last year. Many gods have faced reincarnation and returned wearing unfamiliar faces! The Heavens can't yet explain the cause of these changes, but Amaterasu herself urges them to welcome their friends' new incarnations as brothers and sisters in the Heavens.

His final announcement is that, after the successful resolution of the trouble associated with some recent deaths, Orihime has been restored to her place among the eight million gods.

Fortune Weaving

Announcements finished, the main activity of the evening begins. The white-robed shinki bring in huge baskets filled with wooden prayer plaques, setting them down all around the room, and the gods begin to form into circles around each basket. The older gods will gladly explain to any confused newcomers that they're weaving fortunate connections between mortal lives as they spread the plaques out and tie strings off together with great care. All the plaques have names written on them; some are filled out with prayers, some just with notes, and others adorned with pictures of flowers, animals or favorite characters.

Gods and shinki are given blank plaques to inscribe with their own names, too, in order to give them the chance to make fortunate connections as well. (Not necessarily romantic, the other gods will assure them! There are many different kinds of fated connection.)

Help out, take the opportunity to chat, and make some fortunate matches for yourself as well as these hard-working petitioners.

Midnight Disaster

Just shy of midnight, while the gods are still matching up plaques, finishing the last of the banquet, and getting into drunken arguments over who to connect to whom, a shinki in a dark suit torn at the shoulder comes dashing into the Meeting Hall.

"Calamity!" he cries-- and tells the assembled Heavens that a mysterious blight has fallen across a sleepy residential community in the Tokyo suburbs. The blight, a huge circle covering about two blocks, is sucking the life out of everything inside it: plants are wilting, and people and animals have fallen into deathly slumber. As if that weren't bad enough, it's also attracting big, dangerous ayakashi. Ebisu and his shinki are there now, but there aren't enough of them to fight the ayakashi and move the people trapped inside the blighted circle to a safer place before they die.

Volunteers will need to fight ayakashi and rescue the mortals trapped in the blight -- once they're outside its edge, they'll begin to wake up and recover on their own.

In Summary:

• Enjoy the banquet before the announcements
• Hear about the most popular gods
• Help make fortunate connections for the living
• Respond to a disaster
• Have fun~

Comments

[revolutionfalcon]

[Shun is already about to head off as soon as the people are taken off his hands, though he pauses at Mikoto's statement, looking slightly confused. He can feel that he's blighted, even if the spots of pain are relatively dull considering his tolerance for it nowadays, but he doesn't consider it that important in the grand scheme of things.]

Why?

[Kotori, who's clean of blight marks in part due to her thick clothing and part due to her caution over Shun, seems more cognizant of the possible reason, and she points from Shun to herself.]

Just him, or both of us?

[revolutionfalcon]

[Shun raises the hammer over his shoulder, which casts the crack down its length into the light.] If you've got something to weaken it more before I take it down, it'd be better. It's a big one for a fragile weapon.

[Kotori huffs a bit in his head, though it's more in the tone of someone reluctantly allowing themselves to be helped. Being a cracked vessel presents its own risks, and neither she or Shun want to exacerbate them.

Nonetheless, when Caster lands the first hit, Shun starts to head in, aiming around the ayakashi's legs instead. The sword in his hand shines faintly with some kind of unnatural coating, and when he slashes it across the back of the ayakashi's leg, it screeches and jerks away, not dissimilarly to how one might react to blessed water.]

[revolutionfalcon]

It's not about being an idiot. Even an intelligent kid couldn't pull off the kind of planning that would be needed to make all of these attacks happen without getting caught.

[The temple fire in particular would've required very careful planning, if they're assuming this is probably coming from the same source.]

[revolutionfalcon]

[When Ginia makes that indicative motion, Shun follows her gaze before pressing his hands a bit more tightly against her flank and focusing. It's hard to land on the roof directly without knowing what it looks like, so he pictures the air just above it, what he can see from here.

They disappear from the ground, and reappear about two feet above the office roof. It's not much of a drop, considering, though Shun still holds on to make sure he doesn't bounce off or something when she lands.]

[revolutionfalcon]

I'm already used to it. Doesn't get any less annoying. [With a god like Fuujin, Shun can't imagine Kaede isn't very used to the sentiment, though, so he leaves that aside to focus on more important things. Fuujin might piss him off, but Kaede, at least, is more reasonable.

He listens to her description of the vents, keeping his eyes and ears out otherwise for movements of ayakashi or sounds of anything living. The name she mentions distracts him, though, because he's not sure he remembers hearing it before.]

Who's Kofuku? [If she wasn't to some degree well-regarded, he doubts Kaede would be calling her "Lady", but the ability to force a vent open seems like an extremely dangerous power to have.]

[sageprincess]

Perhaps such is the case in your world. [Zelda answers with just a touch of bitterness.] But the same cannot be said for mine. The connections forged by the gods are something no mortal soul can hope to break.

[The fingers on her right hand twitch slightly in her agitation.]

Neither of us can be certain which rules this world abides by, and so I will err on the side of caution.

[revolutionfalcon]

Considering the got punished as severely as she did for a tiny thing, are you surprised? [The Heavens' point had probably been to strip her of perceived arrogance, and it had worked on her very effectively. Leaving the rest of them to remain arrogant and empowered.]

If she gets reinstated, that might be useful to us to have a more reasonable old god.

[kagenonadeshiko]

[Hearing him say that doesn't really surprise her much. In her experience, Shun seems to have a good head on his shoulders which is more than she can say about a distressing proportion of the men in her life. What he lacks in charm, he makes up for in other ways. That he'd rise to some degree of prominence isn't much of a shock either.]

I believe we have a few friends in common. I'm glad to know that you're thinking of how they fit into this, too.

[Of course, she's concerned for Shun's safety, too, but she suspects he wouldn't take her expressing such sentiments too well. And she doesn't hold any doubts that he's fully capable of taking care of himself if he has to. Worries about Lavi suffering yet another loss and Chinatsu getting caught in the middle of a conflict between faction are easier to discuss.]

If I hear anything of interest, I'll pass it along.

[kagenonadeshiko]

Maybe I'll go over and pay them a visit later.

[She turns to Ken with a warm smile, rising up onto her tiptoes and reaching up to pet his hair affectionately. Everybody likes pets, right? And it's been a bit since she's had the opportunity. It'd been lovely having him around during her recovery.]

[boneofsword]

[Archer can understand his wariness, even if he doesn't feel the same. He has his suspicions about Heavens, but diesn't considers them as adversaries.]

Who knows, it may even be genuine.

[lionhearrt]

Just him.

[ Suoh answers without looking up, his focus on the victims on the ground. His cleansing fire spreads from one to the other until he's burning them all at once, burning away the blight and any other malady that afflicted them. It ate away at his stamina but he's been using the fire more and more these days. He's grown used to the onset of symptoms that typically heralded the exhaustion that hit him after using it. Right now, there's barely a sweat building up which means, he can go for a while longer before he passes out. ]

[letteropener]

[Celestia just holds her radiant smile on him.]

When you were learning to fight, I am certain at some point you learned the value of finding your center. The strength that comes from being grounded and focused. Well, Trunks, you are a strong, intelligent, kind, and decent stallion. You can handle yourself physically, you have a goddess you work well with and who you are devoted to, and you have friends who value and appreciate you. If anypony else has a problem with anything you say, or do, or what your name is? That is their problem. You have nothing to be nervous about.

Find that as your center, and these social gatherings will be no problem at all for you.

[letteropener]

Oh, forgive me. Perhaps I should demonstrate more than explain. You see, when I came here, I found I was given the power to change my shape.

[A cocoon of light erupts around Celestia, then an arc seems to cut it in two -- leaving behind the mare in her proper form.]

[letteropener]

[Celestia has those questions too, which is why her hope is so very open-ended and broad.]

You can write a prayer, I'm certain. At the very least, I think it can't hurt.

[letteropener]

[Celestia lifts one hand, palm up, in a gesture that faintly hints at being a shrug.]

I think the gods might be able to forge stronger connections if they wished... but consider that this ceremony is not rare or treated as anything special. If the powers that went into were so hopelessly binding as you fear, we would see its effects in the Near Shore, with numerous people bound inextricably together by its effects. I have seen enough of the humans here that I am confident that is not the case -- since I have Equestria to compare it to, where we have no gods at all, and in which ponykind lives life in ways that are at heart identical to humans here.

[mithrarin]

See? You really sure you want to tempt it like that?

Though maybe you'd get a friend who's less mean to you than I am. [Because 'mean' definitely describes Dust's attitude towards her. Though some people might wonder, just from overhearing some of their conversations, if they're friends at all...]

[futhark]

[ Fake it till you make it, the first time he had to wear it after getting this suit was pretty uncomfortable. But oh well, he got used to it. Too bad he's a terrible show off at heart, so seeing his entrance worked, he ups the game by giving his best smile ]

I bet that's exactly why they're so secretive about their arts. Explaining to people that it's just bunch of gods having fun on the party would probably affect the divine popularity ratings.

[ Destiny and fate are usually associated with more careful planning, those affected by it usually play a Big Role for a reason. The total randomness of this would crack that belief a lot. But then a mischievous thought hits him and so he adds ]

I wonder what the party hosts would say about being weaved in the web too. [ There was a CAT god around, wasn't it? So, you're working with animals Obi, right? ]

[futhark]

[ Caster is taking his work seriously, but probably with a lot less seriousness than the situation deserves. But if his job is to get those people alive from here, that's what he is going to do ]

Ahh, did I just make a mistake? [ Implying that you might not be as capable as he took you to be, big green man. That's his assholish side in the works, especially since he says that with such a peaceable smile as if he didn't mean it that way. ]

Locating the victims is the biggest problem, but I can sense them through walls. [ Once they're out on the streets, carrying them to safety can be done by anyone. ] See what I'm getting at?

[ He does withhold the information that the weaker the victims get, the harder they will be to find. That's why it's a race against time. ]

[revolutionfalcon]

[With a rather amused smile, Kotori gives Shun a pointed glance and turns to head back into the afflicted area.]

You'll know where to find me. [The amusement comes through even stronger in her voice, to the point Shun gives her a bit of a side-eye as she walks off, hand at the ready to borderline.

Once she's gone, though, he turns his attention back to Mikoto, pressing the back of one of his hands against his cheek where there are a couple of faint scratch lines. At least he's careful enough to angle his hand so it's only next to one of the blight patches on his face. He doesn't really have the blessed water to spare right now to waste on his own blight situation.]

This had better be something important.

[lionhearrt]

[ White flames begin to spill on the floor. They gain momentum and quickly make a run for the god attacking without a word or even a look from the wielder whose back remains to the god of death. ]

Fortune Weaving

[replicatedform]

Yamanbagiri looks over to see Suijin, before he turns around to fully face her. He's still holding the blank plaque he's been given for his own use.

"... It's interesting, I suppose. But I don't know if it's okay for me to make these connections."

Pre-Meeting

[replicatedform]

[Between all the gods and their accompanying shinki in attendance, Yamanbagiri immediately spot Celestia. She just seems to stand out to him. Maybe because he previously know her?

Or because she's standing there and causing traffic. He could make out the confused, and maybe annoyed expressions from the people behind her, before they try to walk around her. Feeling concerned, he walks over towards her.]

Hey. Are you alright?

[boneofsword]

[Archer just floats after them. Moving in vessel form feels even weirder than the form itself; he can feel the movement while staying in place. No, the correct word would be drifting - not entirely conscious, relying much more on the bond than force of will.]

Hn. I like the way you're thinking. Both of you. [he corrects. Ginia is a formidable ally, cunning and dangerous.] Should I provide a distraction from another direction?

D

[replicatedform]

[Fortunately, Yamanbagiri wears a suit for the occasion. Of course, he didn't expect it to get dirty like this. But on the other hand, it's almost to be expected? And at least he can move around.

He's about to head out and see what he can do, probably escort people to safety, when he heard someone. He looks over and see Garry, and immediately see his problem.]

Coming!

[He quickly comes over and glances it over. Fast way, or ... you know what, they have no time. He start to draw out his sword, giving Garry a moment to realise what's happening.]

You're not against cutting, right?

[badassfreakingoverlord]

[If he were in the Netherworld proper, he'd just check the status screens. Or observe whether or not this creature moved on an enemy turn or a neutral party turn. But nooo, the Far Shore just can't be easy about these things, can it?]

[If anything, the fact that the leopard doesn't look like some hideous abomination is what stops him from turning his minions on it. From everything he's seen, the ayakashi don't look regal or pretty.]