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

[bakusatsuo]

"So what all did he tell you about his religion's beef with the old gods?" Bakugou studies her. "Or what kind of new gods they want? Is it as simple as them wanting to make themselves the new gods? 'Cause that's usually how that shit goes."

[unlucky7]

While Ginia knows Bakugou understands sign language, to keep everyone in the loop, she remains on her phone.

"Of Ryou personally, I never got the impression he wanted to be a god personally. I don't know if that's the same for Takeru or any of the higher members. I always felt he was a salaryman that felt like he wasn't getting what was due to him. Not enough respect in work, not enough attention in his personal life, not enough money from his job. Instead of any personal fault, it must be the fault of an uncaring god.

"I imagine that sense of disillusionment is common among some of the lower cult members. In Ryou's case, he was also dabbling in magic experiments and the cult promised to train him and teach him how to protect himself from things like ayakashi."

It's maybe how a lot of people were lured in or even scouted out. Seek those with some magic potential, use them for the cult's gain. Are there some blaming ayakashi or uncaring gods for the way their life turned out instead of making personal changes? Sure, probably, and that makes it all the easier for the higher-members to exploit.

[bakusatsuo]

Bakugou doesn't question her decision; he understands what she's doing.

"I'd guess it's not too far a stretch from wanting to have a god's ear for your problems, and wanting to be a god yourself. It all comes from thinking gods can and should magically fix every damn thing in your life that isn't perfect." Bakugou snorts quietly, looking away. "But yeah, whether or not he might want to, it might not be something the cult's promising anybody. Either they might not be able to do it anyhow, or they might be saving that particular honor for people higher up on the food chain than Mr. Discontent Japanese Salaryman."

[unlucky7]

"I cannot speak to whether he did receive the training promised to him. I do believe he might have had some magic potential as he remembered who I was when most normal humans would have forgotten."

Might have even given him quite the shock if she'd run him down with Shun during the festival. Ginia frowns slightly, phone coming to rest against her chin. She wouldn't say she's any more favorable to him, but he has proven to be a little more pitiable than she'd allowed him earlier.

"It is clear the cult consists of people with magic potential given the array of traps found here. Some like Imai Takeru certainly have their vision for the world too. My question is then what? Suppose they do overthrow Heaven and all of us up here, put in new gods. What is the next step for everyone on the Near Shore? Who really gets to rule? Who's going to be the damn bastard from Heaven that steps out of the shadows and was running things all along?"

[bakusatsuo]

"I want to know who's training them," Bakugou growls. "I get the feeling that the kind of magic they're doing, the kind of rituals they're performing - that's not just something you find in a book at your local library. One of the best arguments for why there's probably a traitor in the heavens somewhere is just asking how the cult got their hands on the knowledge they'd need to pull the shit they've been pulling. Especially their shiny new trick for making new gods - you can't tell me that didn't come to them straight on a pipeline from the Far Shore itself. I wanna know who's turning the valve."

Bakugou surveys the ruins briefly, nostrils flaring. "As for what their ultimate plan is, who the fuck knows. I bet most of them don't even know. I'm betting the top of the cult's chain of command doesn't tell those below them any more than they need to know...or, if they do, who knows if it's true. When you've got an insane scheme to overthrow the gods in heaven, it's usually not 'cause you want to install a fair democracy of the common people. That's just what you tell the common people to get them to go to war for you, so you can climb a mountain of their bodies to your throne."

[unlucky7]

"The knowledge of how to make new gods isn't necessarily leaked from Heaven. The concept of creating gods, or kami is deeply rooted into Shinto beliefs. A god that inhabits a stream or river and keeps it pure, a god that inhabits a pair of sewing scissors passed down from generation to generation, these are ideas already rooted in Japanese culture. I remember seeing books on Shinto in households of the cultists so some were doing their research. As for controlling a god..."

As her phone finishes playing her message, Ginia gives a small waggle of her hand. There are rituals for for keeping a god happy, how to give offerings, how to build a shrine and stay in their favor, all things easily researched. But it's not quite controlling a god in the same way Votelli and Sotero seem to be.

"Magic or spiritual sensitivity aren't even unnecessarily impossible, but the level and power strikes me as unusual. I believe a mole from Heaven might have helped there, especially with all the traps designed to snare and drain energy from us. However, magic isn't my specialty so I'll leave any theorizing there to the experts.

"Whoever is really running things, I think we need to prepare for something big once the cult is taken care of or they realize they aren't getting the results they want through the cult."

[bakusatsuo]

Bakugou tries not to roll his eyes, because to be fair to Ginia, she has no way of having known this already...but it's still tedious to listen to her explaining this to him. "I am Japanese," he says impatiently, once her phone finishes. (Not like there'd have been a point interrupting it.) "But you missed two important points there, right?" He ticks them off on his fingers. "One, if these new gods are kami in the Shinto style, it should be easy enough to create them. Humans do that shit all the time. We ought to be overrun with them at this point, if all the cult has to do is focus belief to create a god. Two, you forgot that Shinto beliefs say that humans become kami when they die...which isn't how shit works in the Far Shore. The spirits that get tapped to become shinki are dead humans, right? They sure as hell aren't kami. So I'd say that how things work here in this world and how things work under Shinto beliefs don't exactly match up. Maybe some rules apply and some rules don't, but clearly which ones do or don't is arbitrary, so I dunno what we're supposed to get from that. We obviously can't just go by how Shinto says things work."

He folds his arms, scowling at the ground. "If the cult gets taken out...then yeah, maybe there'll be some fireworks in the heavens. How long do you think that cult took to set up? To get to a point that they're a legit threat to the heavens? This fucker's been playing a long game. They've probably got some fallback plan already in place...maybe more than one."

[unlucky7]

Ginia winces at her gaff. She didn't know, but still, oof. She waits for him to finish before beginning with a signed, "Sorry. That was rude of me."

"I wonder if there are rules that determine whether a human becomes a kami, a shinki, or something else when they die." It's the most dangerous point for a shinki to think on of the things Bakugou brought up, but it's one Ginia can't help but consider. If every single person who died became a shinki, there'd be far more shinki around. In fact, there'd be a lot more elderly shinki overall. It's also questionable where shinki go after dying (the afterlife? Nothingness?), but it's generally accepted there is an afterlife humans go to. So what is the determining factor? What happens on death to determine where one goes? If shinki are commonly brought into form as wandering souls, what sends the souls adrift?

Ginia forcibly pulls away from that train of thought, the lingering question of how she died the next one at the station. It's not a question she can ask her gods, not with any other shinki around, it's not even a question she's sure she wants an answer to. Her hand presses against her mouth as she forces herself to think back on the problem of the cult.

"There are plenty of loose ends that would be worth connecting and looking into again. The demon, the department store. There are still too many questions around those."

[bakusatsuo]

Bakugou shrugs. "You didn't know." Even for Bakugou, not everything is worth getting pissed off about. Besides, he knows he doesn't exactly look like a stereotypical Japanese teenager, and that he acts like the furthest thing from it. It'd be impressive if Ginia had pinned him.

"We don't know enough," Bakugou reiterates, rather irritably. He doesn't like that this is the case, but it's even more frustrating to build theories based on shaky or nonexistent foundations that won't hold up. Better to accept that the foundation needs more work, and go put in that work, than to invest too much in something hopelessly flimsy. "We don't even know if how the cult are creating gods has anything to do with Shinto practices, or if it's more magical ritual bullshit like we've already seen them do for other things. So until we confirm there's any connection at all, there's no point speculating about it. None of the other stunts the cult have pulled, and none of the magic they've used, exactly ties into Shinto practices, either."

He folds his arms, eyes fixed on the ground for a moment as he thinks. "The department store was before my time. I thought I heard it burned down or something. Is there anything even left to investigate?"

[unlucky7]

If there are too many things they don't know about and can only theorize around, it's best to focus on what few facts they have.

"It was before my time too, but I've talked to people who were around when it happened. Found evidence some of the cultists were a part of that too. But there's a company involved that's a little suspicious. Fujisaki. They were responsible for poisoned chocolates and connected to flyers declaring 'Down with Heaven.' Then a department store they're supposed to open a grocery store in burns down. Except the people at Fujisaki company say they were never involved and someone falsely used their name.

"So what is so important about that company or name? Why use that name instead of using another name or something fake?"