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

[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?"