36 - Dragon Dance

[godsoffortune]

Who: Everyone!
What: Help the Heavens cover for a missing goddess at her temple festival.
When: March 18
Where: Near the Sensou-ji temple in Asakusa
Summary: After Kannon's disappearance last year, the Heavens are concerned that things might go wrong at her temple's March 18 omikoshi festival. They've asked new gods and shinki to attend the festival and keep an eye out for trouble. Meanwhile, trusted newcomers and older gods and shinki alike are watching over the cultists that have been identified.






The Festival

Shrine-carriers, musicians and dancers congregate early in the morning in their matching outfits to get organized into their parade. Luckily, all of the parade participants this time are alive and well. There aren't even any troublesome ayakashi hanging around... so why is everyone having such bad luck?! Laces are breaking, costumes tearing, small children are getting sick from nerves, and even the drums seem to have gone out of tune. It looks like this parade is going to need a whole lot of help to prevent disaster.

For those who aren't busy with the parade preparations, food and souvenir booths throng the area in front of the temple. There's traveling games, too, and plenty of people showing up early with their families to find a good spot to watch the parade. This is one of Tokyo's most popular temples, so it's quite a crowd!

The Stakeouts

Any gods or shinki who were told about the cult problem by Amaterasu -- or anyone who might have heard from friends and allies about the plans -- can help Amaterasu's shinki keep a tight watch on all of the known cult members. Her shinki are looking for any sign of the young gods who she believes are behind all of this trouble, but are there other clues that might be found by a keen observer? Join in on staking out a cult member, and see what you can see.

Current cult members that the shinki are watching include:

• Mitsui Ryou - lives alone in a medium-sized apartment, appears to work a 9 - 5 schedule with occasional late nights.
• Imai Takeru - lives in a small two-story house by himself, has an unpredictable schedule.
• Shimoda Tsuki - lives alone in a small apartment with a lot of plants, works retail with varying shifts.
• Oota Saburo- lives in a medium-sized apartment with his wife and two young children, works a 9 - 5 schedule with frequent work trips.
• Maeda Shinnosuke - lives alone in a small, messy apartment, works construction (early mornings, long days.)
If your character is taking part in the surveillance of any of these people, please feel free to comment to the Cult Clues thread below with the name of the character they're watching, and the times that they're watching that character, in order to learn what they might see. (Note: surveillance doesn't have to take place only on the 18th. Characters can take part in watching the cult members at any time after Amaterasu's announcement on March 8.)

The Parade

At noon, the parade begins. Misfortune is still dogging the participants and the crowds around them, but it looks as though everything will go all right up until the final turn as the heavy, gilded shrine turns back towards the main temple building, tips, and slowly falls over sideways, straight for the crowd.

What's worse, when the shrine hits the ground, it cracks open -- and a huge, jellyfish-like ayakashi wearing a giant white mask with a single black eye inscribed on it heaves its way out and begins lashing its tentacles in every direction. People stung by the tentacles are driven into a furious frenzy, and fights are breaking out everywhere. Stop the humans from fighting, take care of the injured, and destroy the ayakashi before the situation gets any worse.

The Pursuit

In the middle of the fighting crowd, two white-robed shinki are chasing after a very average-looking salaryman in a tan coat. He doesn't seem to know that the shinki are chasing him, but he is moving fast, and they're in danger of losing track of him. They're calling out to any Far Shore denizen close enough to hear, shinki or god:

"Don't let that guy get away! He knows what happened!"

Anyone who has met or spent time staking out Mitsui Ryou will recognize him as the escaping salaryman. If your character takes part in the pursuit, please comment to the Cult Clues thread with a link to your thread - the character who successfully catches Mitsui will be determined by RNG on January 6, 2019.

In Summary:

• Attend the Sensou-ji festival
• Enjoy food and games
• Help Amaterasu's shinki stake out the cult
• Fight a masked ayakashi
• Have fun~

Comments

C

[redmare]

[ Chinatsu isn't too far away, not in this type of situation when Shun may need her. When he bolts, she chases right after him, making sure to keep up. ]

Who is that? A cultist?

[revolutionfalcon]

[Shun inclines his head a little at that, focusing on the man so he doesn't get the chance to slip into the crowd.] His name's Mitsui Ryou. Ginia and I searched his house not long ago, and I tried staking out his place about a week ago, but he wasn't home.

[This gives a pretty strong theory for where he might've been in that time.]

[redmare]

[ So he's done this with her before then. Chinatsu's eyes narrow slightly, but she watches her emotions. There's no one to blame here. ]

So chances are he isn't just here to enjoy the festivities, huh?

[revolutionfalcon]

[Shun's focus is ahead for the moment, so he misses the narrowing of the eyes. He's trying to make sure the confusion and chaos doesn't make them lose him, especially since the man looks so unassuming, but that could be difficult in a crowd like this.]

Definitely not, especially since he's running like he expects a pursuit even though I don't think he noticed the shinki chasing him.

[redmare]

[ Chinatsu weaves through the crowd, keeping close to Shun while keeping her eye on the cultist. ]

Anything I need to look out for with him? How dangerous is he?

[revolutionfalcon]

He's not one of the more dangerous ones. He didn't have any kind of protections on his home, so I'd say he's not familiar with magic apart from what the cult's been doing as a group.

[Shun definitely doesn't look like he's enjoying having to navigate a crowd like this, but at the same time, he's doing it with a finesse that says he's had to do it plenty of times before. Nonetheless, the guy they're following isn't that easy to distinguish out of anyone else in the crowd, and Shun's eyes narrow slightly as he gets to a thinner area of crowd and starts to pull away.]

At this rate, though, we're going to lose him before we need to find that out.

[redmare]

Let's not let that happen then.

[ Positioning her fingers, she draws two lines between the crowd, creating a path for Shun. They'll feel a sudden push, but nothing too violent. ]

[revolutionfalcon]

[While the line does help move the crowd a little bit, it also makes the lines where they've been pushed apart much more dense with people. It's the kind of thing that offers an easy opportunity to slip away, and Shun starts forward that little bit faster knowing that this could either work in their favour or very much not.]

Careful. If the crowd gets spooked more or tightens up, it'll give him more of an opportunity to disappear.

[redmare]

Tsk. [ Right, she didn't consider that. ]

Man he moves fast--do you think he knows?

[revolutionfalcon]

I think he knows he was going to be pursued, even if he can't see us. [He's looking over the crowd rapidly - even that slight increase in chaos has caused enough confusion that it's starting to get harder to see their individual everyman target among all the others in the crowd.] If he was trusted with something like this, he must at least know what the cult is up against.

[redmare]

Can't you teleport and cut him off? I can block with more lines. Or are we just trying to track him?

[ Because at this rate, they were going to lose him. ]

[revolutionfalcon]

If I teleport in a crowd this dense, I have a good chance of teleporting into someone. And that's a lot more literal than bumping "into" someone. [Shun is unfortunately well aware that teleporting inside objects is a possibility if he's not strongly familiar with the locations involved, and he really doesn't want to risk it in a large, moving crowd in a relatively unfamiliar area.]

Even with borderlines, completely clearing the path of that risk would be just about impossible.

[redmare]

[ Were they not in the middle of a chase, she would have stopped in her tracks. She had no idea teleporting into things or..people..was a thing. For the first time, she was glad she couldn't do that. ]

Tsk--Where'd he go? [ Had he made a turn? Chinatsu pushes against some people trying to keep her head above the crowd. ]

You see him?!

[revolutionfalcon]

[Things are getting more confused among the crowd the further they go out, and the various heads are starting to blend together. Shun can still barely identify the correct one in the crowd, but that's not going to last long, and the guy's heading for one of the nearby buildings.

Shun lets out a hiss of annoyance, surging forward a little faster as if it might help, but not getting far before he loses sight.] He's gone. Behind that building-- [He points out one of the shrine buildings.] --but by the time we catch up we're definitely not going to be able to pick him out of this mess.

[redmare]

[ Chinatsu wasn't going to give up just yet, speeding up as well.

Sure enough, even when she made it around the corner of the shrine, he was no where in sight. ]

Damn it! [ She clicks her tongue in frustration. ]

[revolutionfalcon]

[It's definitely irritating, and Shun doesn't look pleased with the outcome himself, but he lets out a lengthy breath to try and calm it before he turns his head back the way he came.]

We'd better go help deal with that ayakashi, then. Hopefully someone else catches that guy before he makes it out completely.

[redmare]

[ Chinatsu let's out another sigh, but he has a point. People were in more danger with that ayakashi. ]

Got it. Let's do it.

[ Doesn't make it any less frustrating though. ]

[revolutionfalcon]

[Shun starts heading back in that direction, weaving through the people who are coming this way from the direction of the attack.] For now it's probably better to focus on protecting humans, so for that I'd say we should split up and defend until most of them get out of the area, and then regroup and see what we can do about getting rid of it.

[If someone else gets there first, then more power to them, but Shun doesn't want any more innocents caught up in this than there already have been.]