39 - Where Do We Stand?

[godsoffortune]

Who: Everyone!
What: Help the Heavens investigate what remains of the cult and their compound
When: May 2
Where: A converted farm on the rural edge of the Tokyo metro area
Summary: Characters can discuss what they know about the cult, choose how much or how little they tell the Heavens' representative Suijin, and help make decisions about where to go from here.






This place was once a farm, then rebuilt into a compound with a big central building, heavy concrete walls and plenty of outdoor spaces for ritual magic. Now, the rooftop has caved in, and the main floor has collapsed as well, leaving a basement open to the skies above. All around, police tape from a local Near Shore department has quarantined off the area. Amaterasu's shinki, in cooperation with those from Suijin, Fuujin, and Raijin have managed to take shifts warning miscreants and the police away from the area, but left the tape to help with those efforts. Just beyond the tape, they've now put up Borderlines to safely guard against ayakashi for the duration of this meeting, but they're pretty far out of earshot and very focused.

Letter of Invitation

Everyone should have seen the digital letter that Amaterasu sent out, but just in case, later that day each temple receives a single letter, with a wax seal on it with Amaterasu's chrysanthemum as the emblem. It is a reproduction of the same digital letter that Amaterasu crafted the day before; it's not printed out, but rather handwritten with painstaking accuracy. The shinki could be from Amaterasu, Suijin, Raijin, or Fuujin, and they will not force anyone to take the letter, in particular if they're told that the god/dess already saw the message on their phone earlier.

Early Arrival

There's a set time that Suijin will arrive - Noon - but as everyone is encouraged to come early, it is possible you are one of the first or last to arrive among the "early" crowd. How did you get there? Was it by stealth or impossible to miss, even by any Near Shore people in the area?

Topics of Discussion

Now is your chance to discuss with your fellows what you know, don't know, wish you knew, etc. about the cult or their compound. Do your characters think they are still being spied on by Heavens and want to hold back, or are they reasonably confident speaking out with the protecting shinki so far away? At the very least, none of the shinki are making very obvious attempts to return to the compound itself. For the very paranoid, there are little alcoves out of visual range or a small room that still has a door on it, albeit not a ceiling.

Suijin's Arrival

Suijin arrives at the appointed time, stepping onto the compound's front drive and under the police tape at precisely Noon. She comes in the capacity of official counselor for Amaterasu. OOCly, this thread will be free-form individual threading.

After her arrival, we will have mirrored top-level comments with Suijin supplying a piece of information as a jumping off point for discussions about each topic. From that point, it will be individual threading, or multi-character threads if you would like. All of these threads will still be addressed to the group at large, loud enough for them to hear and jump in if players would like.

Redacted April 7th via OOC post: We will run this similar to how we ran the Compound's Second Fight: there will be an opportunity for Suijin and/or her shinki to speak, then characters will be given free reign to respond to her and amongst themselves for a period of time. Then, another "round" will begin with Suijin and/or her shinki's responses to the characters. This structure allows for characters to still react with late comments or reactions to anything being said, or jump in whenever they feel comfortable speaking up.

In Summary:

• Talk amongst yourselves before Suijin arrives
• Check out the damage inflicted on the Compound
• Discuss next steps with Suijin, if you would like
• Have fun~

Comments

[badassfreakingoverlord]

Or one of us. It would explain a hell of a lot. I wouldn't put it past one of the new arrivals to decide that the old gods were screwing everything up and they wanted to throw in on that side.

[swordofzero]

[He's seen Zetta around, enough to not be startled by the talking book. But that might be because he's not in a mood to feel much of anything, right now.]

You think there might be a traitor in the newer gods or shinki? They may feel they have motive but would they have enough information?

[How would they know who was here? To the detail needed to create the dolls? He doesn't doubt someone would betray them but he wonders at how useful a traitor from the newer gods or shinki would be.]

[badassfreakingoverlord]

Ha! What information would they need? It'd be easy enough to get used by that group, thinking they were doing the 'right thing' or whatever. [After all, the Heavens were messed up enough that a couple would-be heroes could easily convince themselves that opposing the old gods was the right thing.]

[swordofzero]

Information on us. Who we are, when we arrived. Who has left. Unless the cult is behind all of that to start with.

[He doesn't know. But a traitor does seem likely. It is clear that the cultists are against everyone in the heavens but would someone be foolish enough to throw their lot in with them?]

[fortunesmiles]

I suppose that's one theory...but at the same time, it doesn't seem to explain enough, does it? As I understand, the cult has been active for quite some time...if one assumes they have any connection to why we began arriving here in the first place, which seems to be a logical conclusion since the heavens claim ignorance and there's no other acting parties that we know of, then the cult likely needed quite a bit of information on the heavens before any new god or shinki had even arrived.

I'd also argue that we, the newer arrivals, have far less freedom and security with which to manage something so dangerous and underhanded as colluding with the cult. We've been under suspicion and close supervision all along, haven't we? But the old gods and their shinki haven't. While I wouldn't put it past any of us in terms of morals or motives, I wonder if any of us could have successfully pulled it off.

[swordofzero]

[Suzaku turned to the new comer and nodded, that was... Very much what he had been trying to say. He doesn't doubt the motivation of... Some of the more zelous in the heavens but more the skill.]

It's still worth being wary of though, even if they have not been a huge part of the cult they might have still been passing on information. People go down to the Near Shore enough, on prayers and such.

[boneofsword]

Have you noticed that all those dolls around the crystal were of those currently residing on Far Shore? I wouldn't rule out the possibility it's how they know who is here and who vanished. [Archer shrugs.]

Someone still must have been passing information about the Heaven itself. Given that most of us are ignorant of the ins and outs of the whole system it's easy to consider that whoever does it - or did it - is an old resident of Heaven.

[fortunesmiles]

And of course we can't forget there were dolls of those who'd left the Far Shore, too. You all remember when we found them on the boats, right? And those dolls had all been mangled in some way...

Is it possible that the cult has been using the dolls against us all along, and that they're directly to blame for the disappearances of those gods and shinki? In which case we can't take the presence of the dolls for people who are still here as some kind of missed opportunity...it's more like they simply haven't gotten around to using those against us yet. Maybe it's not easy to use them against us - it might take a ritual of some kind - or maybe they're deliberately picking us off piecemeal. But if we assume the destroyed dolls and the disappearances as linked pieces of successful exterminations...then the dolls are a lot more than either evidence for their knowledge or sources of it. They're an active threat, wouldn't you say?

Anyway, if we take that as a working hypothesis...then it's even more likely that any traitor in the heavens is from the ranks of the old gods, or their shinki. After all, only the new gods and shinki have been targeted by the cult for these disappearances. So either the enmity of the cult is oddly specific, and aimed primarily at the people one assumes they're responsible for bringing to the heavens in the first place...or perhaps they're working with someone from the heavens who is dictating their targets. Someone who'd rather they not target the old gods or their shinki, but who isn't particularly concerned with what happens to any of us.

That describes the old guard pretty well, doesn't it?