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

[kokuyoyo]

Ah, the corpse parade... That brings back some memories. So many months have passed by since then. Still, Chikusa pauses and tilts his chin down towards his chest. Carefully, he shifts through his memories.

"...I wasn't paying as much attention as I should have been..." It was only his first day, after all, and he'd been paying attention to something else entirely. It was the unknown history of his god that had gotten his attention, wondering just who he would have to protect Axel from and what kind of threats those would be. It hadn't really occurred to him to consider things such as, you know... A parade of corpses.

"However... I can't recall anything being out of the ordinary, in the lead up. There was no string of bad luck... Everything was normal. It was only when the parade proper started up that there were problems..." Chikusa picked up on the strangeness of the corpses immediately, before they'd busted loose, but that too had only been during the parade. "There only other incident I can think of involved a string of suicides... But those were caused by a strange variant of ayakashi. It wasn't like this." His chin tilts up again.

"The only thing I can think of that involved bad luck... was with the department store, and during New Years."

[unlucky7]

No one can be faulted for not paying attention to everything on the first day. Gods have their sudden godliness to deal with, shinki have everything to consider as a whole, it's all understandable. Nothing happened on her first day and Ginia knows she was a mess.

The department store and New Years. It's the two events everyone's been able to connect most solidly to the cult's actions and held consistent with each other.

"If the problem isn't ayakashi or charms, what's left?"

[kokuyoyo]

"Something we haven't noticed."

Because there has to be something. Corpses were missing from morgues and cemeteries, stored in a warehouse. Charms were left behind in various hidden crannies in a store. That mess during the Gods Meeting had ayakashi flocking to it.

There has to be something. Chikusa knows that for a fact. What he doesn't know is everything else. If only he could learn more about the kind of magic that the cult employs...

Well, there's no helping it. His head tilts towards her. "Where have you looked?"

[unlucky7]

Time to buck down and prepare for the unknown and add yet another possible thing to look for at all future festivals. Joy. Honestly, it's so much easier when all you have to do was fight ayakashi and burn charms.

Ginia stands up and points at the two stands adjacent to the one she's searching as well as the trucks parked nearby.

"I was going to work down the rest of the row. I've also looked around some of the waiting areas for the groups. Nothing at any of them."

[kokuyoyo]

A lot of things would be so much easier than this. Unfortunately, Chikusa has to grudgingly admit that they're dealing with someone that's highly intelligent. More intelligent than what Heaven truly warrants... but perhaps they're the ones throwing a kink into the gears.

Following her gesture, Chikusa nods. "Then I'll start going through things behind you... Just in case." There's no harm in giving everything a second go over when they're not finding shit to start with, and a fresh set of eyes might help. "It has to be somewhere nearby... Considering how localized everything is."

[unlucky7]

A second pair of eyes is welcome. Maybe there's even something else she overlooked that he'd recognize from his time here. Ginia moves onto the next stand, checking the cardboard boxes stacked up. Sauces, cooking oil... she works in silence, looking through every box, checking the inside and outside of the stands and tents, looking under tables. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

After the fifth total stand with nothing to show, Ginia sits back again.

"Another thought. What if the cult cast a circle of bad luck similar to the blighted circle in that suburb? That could affect a large area but leave nothing behind, right?"

[kokuyoyo]

Chikusa is just as quiet, with the two of them truly befitting a pair of ghosts flitting from stall to stall, digging through all they can and peering at whatever spots are possible to reach. Still, Chikusa has to agree to her when they finally reconvene, his eyes a little darker than usual.

"Maybe," he agrees quietly. "But you would think there would still be traces of it..." Lips thinning, he tilts his head to the side and digs through all he knows of magic. "...When the Meeting Hall was having us clean it one day in preparation for a feast... One of the things they made us do was check on runes that were carved around the building. I think, together, they made a sort of spell circle, and a damaged one would be a weak point. Maybe there's something similar here, if we're not finding anything... We need to figure out the exact radius of bad luck. It's the only other idea I have..."

[unlucky7]

"If the marks are more permanent, we need to search the ground or buildings." The scattered nature of setup means anchoring anything to a stand would be unpredictable. It makes more sense if someone (or someones) came through and carved things into the ground or buildings before the festival went into full swing.

"On the other hand, when the cult created that blighted area, they formed a large circle and chanted something. I didn't see any runes on the footage I could find. Maybe we should look for security cameras anyway."

[kokuyoyo]

"The blighted area in the forest, right...?" There's been at least a few different ones, now, in even the relatively short amount of time that Chikusa has been around. It doesn't hurt to ask for specifics.

"Even then, they were using those paper charms..." His eyes narrow a little. "And I wonder how much that god contributed to it..." Was her power able to help with keeping people trapped? With providing the perfect grounds for a ritual? They won't be able to know anytime soon, which is the frustrating thing.

"We'll have to find what security cameras are even around here that would get a good look. In a place like this... I think the things you'd most likely find are those for stores and at traffic stops. Even then... If they're halfway decent, things like that would be easy to stay out of sight of..."

[unlucky7]

All things considered, whatever field there was in the forest would count as a blighted area too. Huh, there have been a few different ones. Damn cultists.

"I meant the suburb on October 31st. The one that interrupted the meeting. I found footage of the cultists well after the fact, but it's proof. It's the only itemless event, to my present knowledge." Granted, draining energy from every living thing is not the same as minor but consistent bad luck, but anything is viable.

"We might not have the time to pull footage and scrub through everything. I'd rather not go too far from this area too." Perhaps if nothing else changes, sure, she'll take time to break into cameras again. Right now, eyes on the area seem more beneficial.

"Refocus on looking for magic sigils and stuff then along with charms?"

[kokuyoyo]

As she watches, Ginia will be privy to the way Chikusa's gaze slowly drains further of what little energy gives life to it, as though he is even more of a corpse than he already is, and what can only be described as 'death rattle' fumbles out from between his lips. Give him a second. He knows they're probably on a time limit. Just. Give him a second.

"We... need to start naming these incidents." It's a waste of time to get confused, and, frankly, a waste of energy to describe them like this.

Anyway. Back on track. Chikusa glances over at the street once more, lips drawing together thinly. "That might be even more difficult... Those could be hiding in anything, couldn't they? Almost worse than the charms..."

[unlucky7]

At least there aren't too many incidents to ultimately name, to her knowledge. The department stores, forest, blight in the suburb, shrines around New Year's, maybe Hinamatsuri, maybe this. A hell of a lot to keep track of over the last few months.

"No worse than the charms. I imagine they'd have to be more fixed in position to create an area of affect? Somewhere people wouldn't notice or be disturbed by people setting up."

[kokuyoyo]

"So things like on walls, or on the floor..." Chikusa looks over how much area all the stalls are covering, and his gaze gets a little more dead.

They'd need to tear up the whole street. Even discounting how it's an active festival zone, the thought alone is exhausting.

[unlucky7]

Walls and floor indeed... though perhaps less on the floor as anywhere with too much movement could disrupt things. Anything on eye level is too visible, too high might be more effort than the cultists want.

"Let's begin with walls and search low. People rarely look down and it'd be easy to hide behind a box or something."

[kokuyoyo]

"When I find them, I'm going to slit their throats..." It's a mild grumble coming from Chikusa, although unfortunately rather sincere. These cultists have caused him nothing but trouble, from the day he first arrived and never stopping. One of these days, he'll figure out a way to stop all of this...

But for now, he just shuffles away from Ginia, ready for another bothersome round of searching.