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

[sageprincess]

[She waits anxiously until she gets confirmation that he's received her message, then breathes a sigh of relief when the man Samus had gotten a reading on is quickly retrieved. He'll be fine, Caster can move quickly enough that he'll be out of the zone of blight before his life is in any more danger.

No more messages appear on his phone - she doesn't want to risk distracting him again while he's pulling someone out of the blight - but she does lift her hand up and a familiar golden light flashes once, twice, to reveal her location. ... And hopefully not getting the attention of any of those rampaging ayakashi down below as she does.]

[futhark]

[ They work separately for a while, always someone somewhere to pick up- or an ayakashi to chase off should they appear. But Caster keeps an eye for the golden flashes, and at some point, he uses that to find her ]

Hey- [ a simple greeting, but without usual cheer ] There are some people in a building few streets from here, but I'm unable to locate them.

[ The longer this lasts, the more it drains the people inside the area, and that makes them harder and harder to find. He can tell there are few in the building, but searching them room by room, floor by floor would take a lot of time. Time, they don't have. ]

[sageprincess]

[There are several things Zelda should not think about while her shinki has a certain amount of access to her thoughts, and right now Caster is about five of them. But she has plenty of practice repressing those kinds of things, and there's something important to focus on, besides.]

It would have been easier to direct you if you had stayed on the ground.

[For several reasons, some more emotional than others, but oh well. No time to argue about it. Zelda strides over to the edge of the roof closest to the building he indicated and stares at it for a few moments. As she does, the visor over her eyes flashes with numerous kinds of readings, and she frowns, stepping back.]

It's too far away. We will need to get a bit closer to get an accurate reading.

[And so she picks up her skirts, and with a running leap, she jumps off the roof and utilizes floaty god bullshit to send her flying to the next house over. Yes, this is entirely necessary.]

[futhark]

[ If not for a dire situation this could have been a good occasion to "innocently" suggest helping with the mobility. Caster can jump as well with or without carrying a princess- but the time is really an issue right now and she is just as capable of building hopping as he is. ]

I sensed few at the top floors, but then nothing- [ He points at the department store building. Yeah, plenty of places people can just fall unconscious and not be found for a while there. Then he finishes with additional information, succinct and efficient ]

Ayakashi seems to be busy elsewhere for now.

[ Which makes their rescue work easier. If the contract thing worked out- ha ha IF only - she could give him directions through the mind link, and everything would be so much easier. ]

[sageprincess]

[That would have also been a good opportunity to get smacked, because there is a time and place for nonsense like that, but fortunately Caster proves he's aware of that. She follows the direction he points to and stops on a rooftop across the street from the department store that stands there. Samus' power is incredibly useful, but it does make her have to stand still in order for it to work effectively.]

Good, I would rather not have to attempt headbutt something to rend it.

[The other limitation of Samus' vessel form. With Oscar gone, she doesn't have many options available to her. But her shinki pulls through for her in the ways that matter, several red flashing dots appearing on the glass of her visor.]

There. Two upstairs, on the left hand side, and two more down and towards the back.

[Of course there wouldn't be a lot of people shopping this late at night-- they're probably employees unlucky enough to get the graveyard shift.]

[futhark]

[ There are times when you can play carry the princess, and times when you don't-- alas ]

On it.

[ Evacuating an apartment building is tedious, but in a way easier. Just barge into every one of the apartments and grab everyone there. Repeat until everything is empty. But that kind of build building with just security- yeah, a lot of time to waste looking around.

So bless you Samus for this skill. Thanks to those pointers he can quickly at the top floor and collect two guards, from a post, partially hidden in the staff area, and then drop down with them to get other two who fell whilst on patrol among the winter coat racks. If he didn't know that's where to look they could easily be missed by rescue attempts.

Caster doesn't move back to the entrance, instead just uses a nearby window to get back on the street. He looks up to get a grasp of his location- or to just check if Zelda is overseeing him still. Can't really use the stupid phone now, being loaded with four unconscious bodies, but he does believe she would direct him to the closest edge of the soul-draining barrier / healing point. Because at least one of those people might be in a dire need of that. ]

[sageprincess]

[Oh. Well. She was going to help, but apparently that isn't necessary. What are Servants she just doesn't know...

She is still overseeing him, quickly hopping over to the side of the building he exited from (people make doors for reasons, Caster) and pointing out towards the closest edge of the blight. She expects him in turn to take off immediately, which he should, but she doesn't follow. There's no need for her to, if he can carry everyone; she'll do better to keep scouting around.

His phone will have beeped with another text message by the time he's left the victims to the healing teams.]

this area seems clear. heading north.

[If he wants to follow her, well. That's fine, she supposes.]

sumanai for the slowness

[futhark]

[ "If he wants to follow her" like that is even a question.

He finds and joins her eventually. Biting his tongue to not say some cheesy shit like "I am at your command" because they're not like that technically. Even if technicalities aside, they totally are, at least from his point of view ]

Direct me as you see fit, princess. [ Yep, less cheesy... nope. That's how well his biting the tongue works. It goes from bad to worse ] Your eyes see farther than mine.

[ Well hers and Samus, but that's a shortcut ]

never be sumanai

[sageprincess]

[If Zelda is affected by the cheesy lines, she's not really showing it. Her brow is furrowed, but her shoulders are slack. She's not tense like a coiled spring, ready to bound into action as she has been all night.]

There are... no other life signs that we can see. Everyone still alive has been evacuated.

[And those that aren't... haven't.]

Ayakashi are all that is left here now.

then can I be at least gomen?

[futhark]

[ That bit of cheese is not leaving her life anytime soon. Hope you're not lactose intolerant, princess ]

That's just for this block, yes? [ He's got no idea if she covered the other ] We could do the check on the other one.

[ Or they could join the effort of dispatching ayakashi, should the princess has a need for some headbutting. But there's a lot of gods here and they are doing a good job in battling the creatures. ]