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

[priforprince]

[ --- that works. What's more, it pins those appendages, limiting their movement! What a useful turn of events.

The valiant warrior knows a cue when they see one, leaping over those trapped tentacles and drawing an antique fencing foil, with which it stabs down on one of the ayakashi's many eyes. ] I will - protect!

[ There is a screeching noise as the blade hits home. ] Now, I'll have you retreat!

[ Ideally, one supposes, the ayakashi is supposed to retreat without taking the scythe with it. That is not quite being taken into consideration with this heroic monologue. Sorry. ]

[abgrund]

[ that's not really an issue - as the ayakashi slides along the street and away, the scythe embedded in its tentacles dissolves into a black mist. the fog trails back to where ain stands, swirling around his body and reforming into the shape of a weapon.

the scythe is balanced between hollow fingers, held in perfect precision. though — ]

Are you... not following?

[ to press this charge? ]

[priforprince]

My shinki is absent.

[ That statement gets a displeased frown, though the rescuer is staring at the ayakashi and not at Ain. Perhaps looking at Ain makes them queasy. Perhaps they think they look cooler if they stare after the foe. ] To think we'd be separated in the commotion.....

[ A clicking of a perfect tongue against perfect teeth. Given druthers, all ayakashi would be rent on sight. They're incredibly quease-inducing. ]

[abgrund]

... you cannot banish them, then?

[ the ayakashi, he means. his gaze lifts to the darkened sky above, briefly. ]

You should... look for your friend.

[ like how he should look for add, too ]

[priforprince]

Wha...?

[ Oh, their shinki. The stranger calms down from how even the feather in their cap had bristled in surprise at hearing that word deployed so suddenly. Their shinki was meant, of course!

Still, having to take this extra step before the ayakashi can be rent is annoying. They throw an arm out to the side as they turn away, intending to go in search of said shinki. Their cape flips up. Swoosh. SO IMPRESSIVE. ] What an incredibly inconvenient system....

[abgrund]

[ it seems they're going. though: ]

.... who are you?

[ consider his interest piqued by something at last. ]

[priforprince]

A guardian magician.

[ The stranger's head lifts, looking off down the horizon, where they need to head. ] And - the god of the sun.

[ sure there are others BUT

This one can make a faint gold glimmer glance off the trim on their costume when they say that

which makes them the best

yes? ]

[abgrund]

[ does it?


unfortunately he's too new to know this actually. ]

I see... [ NO HE DOESNT ] ...... stay safe.

[priforprince]

Farewell.

[ Feeling like, despite the unorthodox appearance and aura of their new audience, they were able to make a deep and important impression, the amazing god of the sun swings their way off into the....

Well, you can't even see the moon, so they go off to look for their shinki. But. Gracefully. Magnificently! Trailing red lily petals in their wake!

It's the principle of the thing. Now, a god's duty calls! ]