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

Parade

[fortunesmiles]

[The ayakashi lashing out at people is bad enough; when Komaeda sees someone punching it, though, it becomes even more alarming. Obviously they're a denizen of the Far Shore, to be fighting it at all, but that means it's entirely unsafe for them to be having direct contact with an ayakashi. If the man gets blighted enough, there will be two ayakashi to deal with.

Reflexively, he reaches out with his powers as Averruncus; if anything falls under the heading of 'averting disaster', this does. And so a flailing tentacle of the ayakashi's suddenly knocks over a large stall, which falls conveniently between the ayakashi and Saber. This gives Komaeda time to run up to the man and grab his arm.]

Stop! If you keep hitting it like that, you'll turn into an ayakashi as well!

[fauxcalibur]

Hm? Is that so?

[Guess who stopped paying attention about halfway through the meeting when he first got here.]

No wonder my hands hurt a bit!

[He doesn't seem too worried about it.]

[fortunesmiles]

Are you a god or a shinki? If you're a god, you should return to your temple and get your blight cleansed immediately...if you're a shinki, I suppose it's not as simple as teleporting, but if you contact your god I'm sure they'll help you.

But either way, you should never fight ayakashi directly like this! [Komaeda tugs at his upper arm, trying to draw him away while the ayakashi's blocked from lashing out in their direction. It can probably smash that stall at any moment.] That's why shinki use borderlines, and gods use shinki...didn't anyone tell you?

[fauxcalibur]

I suppose they did at some point, but I wasn't paying a great deal of attention!

[At least he admits it.]

I do forget sometimes that things happen here as if I have a regular physical body as well! I suppose it could be worse, though. After all, a little cleansing will take care of it, right?

[This is a dangerous line of thought..]

[fortunesmiles]

Maybe so, but if you're a god, you're putting your shinki at risk by blighting yourself like this...and if you're a shinki, then your blight will hurt your god as well. Even if your own well-being is of no great concern to you - [And doesn't Komaeda understand that feeling.] - you still need to take care of yourself for those who rely on you!

[fauxcalibur]

I've never been particularly good at that! Just ask Pierre.

[Saber, Pierre isn't here. You couldn't bring him and he died over 800 years ago.]

Though you're right that I should make an effort not to inconvenience Edge and Suzaku. Edge in particular will be rather cross with me, I'm sure.