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

[yasei]

Sure seems like it.

[ Hello, fellow not-interested-in-doing-anything person apparently fond of high places. ]

Want some meat?

[ He's got some karaage, shiro koro harumon, and grilled chicken skin. Oh. And beer. He's clearly not in for the fight right now. But it's partially because of his god too. ]

[vaporlike]

[Lin Xue Ya frowns and lowers his pipe for a moment. He's not in the mood for food, really, but alcohol wouldn't be unwelcome. It might improve the day a little.]

The beer, perhaps.

[yasei]

[ No food? Even though it's good. Well, his loss is Obi's gain. ]

Alright~

[ Obi gets two cans out, and hands one to the stranger. In the poor light the countless tiny scars on it are only visible to those with a particularly keen eyes, though some a little bigger ones might be more easily spotted on his hand. He plops down uninvited on the roof with his morsels placed beside him. ]

You don't look like you particularly enjoy the view, Mister.

[vaporlike]

Hmmmm...

[It's a mostly non-committal noise as he takes the can of beer and turns it from side to side to examine it. What barbarians thought this sort of thing would be a good idea?]

There isn't much about it that's terribly enjoyable.

[When he pouts, he pouts with everything he has.]

[yasei]

[ He wouldn't know! But they are easier to open than the bottles if you don't want to break the neck. The taste of the alcohol is pretty decent though, despite the suspicious packaging.

Obi opens his own can, and peers over at the other man. (He doesn't look bad with a pout. Makes him wonder what he'd look like with other expressions. Probably good, since he's so pretty.) ]

Do you not like festivals?

[vaporlike]

Under better circumstances, I could enjoy just about anything. Even a wasteland filled with zombies could be quite entertaining if the conditions were right...

[He continues scrutinizing the beer can, this time reading the ingredients.]

This, however, is miserable.

[yasei]

Hmmm... It is one of the more dismal festivals. They hid the ayakashi well this time though.

[ The ingredients are what they are, he can't really do anything about those. ]

[vaporlike]

"They?"

[This, at least, is interesting.]

I thought most ayakashi do quite well hiding themselves.

[yasei]

Generally, yeah, they do. [ He takes a sip of beer and pokes around at his food to decide what to start with. ] But that particular hiding spot seems a bit peculiar for that. Unless they're more sentient and smarter than the old Gods claim them to be.

[ He sure has seen some interesting signs that don't entirely line up with what the Heavens spout, regarding a few different things. ]

[vaporlike]

Is that so?

[Suddenly, this has gone from a mild diversion to something worthy of his attention.]

So you believe they may not be quite as informed as they should be, or...

[His bet would be on "or," to be quite honest.]

[yasei]

The old gods think we're meddling and bothersome, because we don't conform to their ideals and traditions. If they do know things that we don't, they're sure not keen on letting us know about it. They're really hung up on their order and non-compromises.

[ And Obi... Obi is not keen to conforming to other people just because they are supposedly a "higher power" or whatever. ]