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

[trustheart]

... Fine then, but just know that if I die you'll have a bunch of people coming after you!

[Chris rushes forward to get in range, snarling. Might as well get this over with...]

[subconmodo]

[...well shit. He was going to let her go along with whatever crazy scheme she'd decided on, but she has a point there. And, given his past, he has a feeling it's going to be hard to shed the blame.]

[Too bad there's not enough time to write up a contract about all this.]

[He follows alongside her a ways.]

Enter it at the same time as the Ayakashi! I'll follow and hold the thing's attention on the while you attack!

[He narrows his eyes]

You better not hit me in there, girl!

[Snatcher zips ahead to wait on the other side of the trap just as the Ayakashi starts to close in]

[trustheart]

[Chris's eyes widen. She... honestly didn't expect that at all, but nevertheless, she nods to him.]

Here we fucking go, I guess!

[And she's going to take a flying leap into the trap at the same moment the beast makes contact with it.]

[subconmodo]

[The thorns snap up and then the light shifts as the trap activates, a thick purple mist swirling around Chris and the Ayakashi, sending the rest outside into an eerily shifting, shadowy blur. It's like stepping into another dimension entirely, outside sounds muffled, the ground beneath a solid black that could easily be mistaken for a bottomless, gaping maw.]

[As the monster tries to reorient itself, it's struck by--of all things--a large, glowing red fruit... which promptly explodes.]

Hey, loser! Eyes on me.

[Snatcher, taking the form of the most annoying creature imaginable (read: Hat Kid), makes a face at the Ayakashi near the border of the trap.]

[trustheart]

[The first moments in the trap are disorienting, but Chris is able to adjust. Gritting her teeth, she studies her "new surroundings".

Okay, so Snatcher is upholding her part of the bargain. Chris can't help but reciprocate that. So while he keeps the Ayakashi busy, Chris modifies her Armed Gear into triple barreled crossbows, from which she lets loose a volley of crystalline spikes. The spikes fly upwards, before breaking into innumerable shards, as Chris takes aim with Luger.]

HEY PUMPKINFACE! Don't stand anywhere near that thing!

[With that final command, the spikes begin to rain down on the ayakashi, like a rain of arrows, as Chris unloads a full volley of gunfire from Luger at the same time.]

[subconmodo]

WHO ARE YOU CALLING--oh heck.

[He dives down into the darkness to avoid both gunfire and spikes knowing well enough to keep away from the decidingly painful-looking salvo heading the Ayakashi's way.]

[Really should have made this trap a little bigger.]

[trustheart]

[There's definitely not enough breathing room here. Chris has to flatten herself against the boundary of the trap as her Giga Zeppelin rains down, impaling the ayakashi and causing it to shriek in pain.

It's also not even close to being taken down, and it roars violently as it throws itself against the edges of Snatcher's trap, driven mad by the agony of the spikes impaling it.]

[subconmodo]

[And the trap is most certainly feeling it. It's not used to having anything resist it, much less anything capable of doing real, considerable damage.]

[There's the sound of something cracking, and the swirling fog on the western wall begins to thin.]

Already?

Hey! Use your shinki already! It's starting to break through!

[trustheart]

[Chris meant what she said about only being able to do moderate damage. But damage was damage. She takes aim, sticking out her tongue and closing one eye, firing off a full round...

... she only ends up blasting off a large chunk of the ayakashi's body. But that includes one of its legs at least?!]

[subconmodo]

[It's a start, and it helps keep the trap up for a few moments longer than it would have.]

[Even so, it's not enough time for Snatcher to funnel more magic into it as fortification. One of the Ayakashi's many legs slams into the already weakened spot of the barrier, flying right by Snatcher's head, and busts through, the limb wiggling about and widening the hole until the whole thing comes crashing down around them.]

[Snatcher glares at it, somehow managing to keep all the curses he wants to sling its way safely tucked inside his head as he backs up to put some space between him and it. It's powerful. And dangerous. And treats his magic like something slightly thicker than tissue paper.]

[This sucks.]

[He tries to pursue, to at least slow its escape, but one of those long, powerful tentacles comes flying his way, forcing him to dodge back]

[trustheart]

[Okay, this is as far as they can go together. Chris moves, quickly, firing the boosters in her skirt armor to get out of harms way as the trap comes crashing down around them.

Then she sees something, and... her body moves on its own. As Snatcher is moving to dodge a group of tentacles, a part shorn from the body is slithering to tackle him from behind. Chris ends up coming up behind him, pulling him out of its reach, and firing off a shot from her shinki to rend the tentacle.

... Once that's done, she realizes what she just did, and releases him.]

You alright?

[subconmodo]

[He doesn't answer at first, staring at her blankly, trying to process what just happened.]

[Did she have his back just now?]

[She did know he was already dead, right? Though supposedly that didn't matter when it came to blight.]

[Did she even know who he was? What he'd done? How many lives he had literally devoured?]

[Was this some kind of trick?]

Sure. Fine. I'm fine.

...Ishtar, right?

[trustheart]

[That's the thing when your body reacts on its own. It doesn't really discriminate in terms of who you save.

And you're not the only one with blood on your hands, Snatcher.]

... Yeah. That's right.

And you're Mephistopheles?

[subconmodo]

[It doesn't take him long to recover, soon slipping back into his usual smug attitude.]

Or just Snatcher, depending on who you ask.

Just wanted to make sure I got the name down. Who knows? You might acctually be worth doing business with.

[it might be the closest to a thanks he gets]

[trustheart]

... I don't know if I'd care for your business. [Because again. You're Mephistopheles.]

But we need all the gods we can get. If you wanna make it up to me, don't spy on me or any of my friends anymore. Or toss me in the damn river.

[subconmodo]

"Make it up to you?"

[she made it sound like he'd done something wrong.]

[He manages to keep from laughing]

I hate to make promises I can't keep... but that bit about the river seems easy enough. All right then, no more impromptu wake-up calls.

[trustheart]

... I'll have to satisfied with that.

[And with that, she looked at where the Ayakashi had gone.]

I'm going to try and catch up with it. You do whatever you need to do.