32 - Blow Your Top

[godsoffortune]

Who: Everyone!
What: A volcano eruption threatens the Western District
When: Jan 14 - 16
Where: The Western District of the Heavens
Summary: The Western District volcano is erupting again, endangering nearby temples and sending ash sprinkling down across the Heavens. Is it natural, or another attack? Those who dare climb the volcano can find out.






Earthquake Warning

On the morning of the 14th, an earthquake rattles windows throughout the Heavens. It's not strong enough to knock down buildings -- unless they're about to fall down anyway, like some of the older abandoned temples -- but it's strong enough to knock things off shelves and startle any late sleepers out of bed.

After the earthquake, strange sights abound around the Heavens. The poetic koi are swimming in organized schools in all of the canals, heading upstream towards the east. Springs of pure water burst out in some areas, and in others, normal springs or fountains have gone temporarily dry. Blue and green lights bob and weave across the landscape.

Falling Rock

The volcano begins erupting with a roar and a bright scarlet glow on the horizon. Ash and bits of rock fall across the Western district, and may even reach into the Southwest, Northwest and southern Central districts. Volcanic glass fibers that look like golden hair collect on trees, fences and buildings.

Trails and fountains of lava are also erupting from freshly opened fissures and wending down the sides of the volcano. Gods and shinki who live in the Western District are going to need some help clearing ash and glass from their roofs, trying to re-route lava flows (the good news is, if you cool one side down enough, you can turn them! the bad news is, that takes a lot of work) or just offering them a spare room to stay until things calm down.

Swamp Gas

It's not just lava and springwater erupting from mysterious new crevasses -- and it's not just mundane volcanic gases, either. Divine volcanic vents are blowing mind-altering fumes all over the Heavens. Anywhere across the Far Shore, but especially as characters get closer to the volcano, they may experience one or more of the following effects:

• Confusion
• Intense emotions
• Anger and irritability
• Impulsive behavior, loss of emotional control
• Hallucinations
• Unusually clear insight into other people and situations
• Coughing, eye and throat irritation, difficulty breathing
• Irresistible impulses to speak in poetry

Most symptoms will clear up after a few hours in fresh air, and all of them will be gone within 48 hours of the last volcano gas exposure.

Mountain Climbing

Natural disasters don't just happen like this in the Heavens... do they? Amaterasu's white-robed shinki are convinced that something is wrong, and they're organizing into search parties to go up the mountain and seek out the cause of this eruption. New and old gods and shinki are welcome to join them, or form their own groups. All of the hazards -- tremors, lava, ash, and volcanic gas -- will get worse as characters ascend the volcano. Strange little spirit flames, in shades of red and blue, dance on the rocks, dazzling, confusing and threatening to singe interlopers.

And there's someone up here, too. A mysterious figure with glowing red eyes is keeping watch on the intruders and vanishing behind boulders whenever someone turns his way. He won't let anyone traveling with one of the white-robed shinki get too close, but solitary gods or shinki might manage to lure him into conversation, if they try....

OOC: Please comment to the 'NPC REQUEST' thread below in order to talk to the mysterious figure on the volcano.

Those climbing the volcano will have a chance to battle the mysterious figure should their characters choose to do so. If you're interested in a fight, please comment to the 'NPC FIGHT' thread below before the top-level is posted. A top-level for the fight will go up on IC Jan 16/OOC Sept 4.

In Summary:

• Don't get rattled
• Help out the Western District with their volcano problem
• Watch out for volcanic gases
• Find out who's behind the eruption
• Have fun~

Comments

[sageprincess]

And if you come to a situation where no one will be hurt by your actions regardless, but what you might want and what you should do are equally exclusive things?

[It's not quite as much of a change in topic as Shun thinks it is, and Zelda's eyes soften a bit as she glances back up to him.]

For instance, perhaps I do not necessarily want to talk about the boy I saw on the mountain, but I have been advised time and time again by people who have nothing to gain by deceiving me that holding my secrets so close to my chest is not doing anyone any favors - myself the least of all. Has no one ever told you the same?

[Shun knows more people than she does, so she doubts that he hasn't. The real question is if he's ever honestly considered such advice to be valid.]

[revolutionfalcon]

[Shun doesn't look particularly pleased with the subject being circled back to him, and he gives a somewhat dismissive sound at the question.]

I've heard it plenty of times. But the ones I'd actually trust to speak to are the ones I know well enough not to want to burden them with problems I can deal with myself.

[He only told Ren because it was an exchange of information, really, and he's the only other one who knows in full what Shun's history is. Everyone else...they have their own troubles and things to worry about. He has one person who's agreed to take the burden already, and Shun would almost consider that one too many.]

If they can say I don't know what's best for myself, then I can say they don't know what's best for them either.

[sageprincess]

... If I were to speak of the boy I envisioned, would you consider that a burden?

[It's not entirely rhetorical. With so many lectures about opening up, allowing herself to want things completely unrelated to her duties, and feeling like she deserves the things that make her happy, it's sometimes difficult to know where the line is. At what point does revealing those jagged, broken pieces of yourself become a burden to those you're revealing them to? How much is too much?

Things are much simpler when you keep everything tightly locked away within yourself, knowing that you are the only one who needs to carry the weight of your secrets. More painful, perhaps, and definitely more lonely, but simpler.]

[revolutionfalcon]

Nothing anyone else tells me can be a worse burden than what I already have, so no.

[That's actually his logic here - that he's already burdened beyond most anyone here, and thus an exception to the idea that those sorts of memories are a burden. Granted, he'd be even more of a hypocrite if the question had been worded differently, but it's probably already obvious enough as is.]

I'm not going to make you talk about it if you don't want to, but if you're thinking that you should, then you might as well get it over with. Dragging it out hurts more.

[As does having it sprung up with no notice, but in this case, they've already been discussing it for a little while already.]