41 - Cultist Arc Finale

[godsoffortune]

Who: Everyone!
When: June 2nd 2017
Where: Mostly the Near Shore
What: Tracking down cultists to remove them as threats to Heaven, erase as much of their presence from the Near Shore as possible, and consequences of such







With it being made clear that the cult's influence was scattered throughout not just Japan but spread far and wide, the gods of the Far Shore have been asked to assemble in the same place where Conclaves normally happen. Bishamonten is assigned the task of rallying the old gods, while Orihime is given the same duty for the new gods. Essentially, the old gods will be working in Japan and the new gods elsewhere. Both Bishamonten and Orihime have a long list of individuals and their last known locations with vague descriptions, collected by those who went out hunting them on Heavens' behalf when everyone was last gathered. ("A Different Sort of Hunt")

Orihime gathers the new gods at her home along the river. Outside her small abode, there are several soulless shinki pulled from their temple. Ostensibly, they are to help any new gods who don't have a shinki available to create the Cutting ties or Rend effects, but no one is there to stop a shinki from commanding them as well.

Orihime will direct the gods to many places in the Scandinavian countries of Europe, south as far as Italy, west to the United Kingdom, and east as far as Belarus and Ukraine. Meanwhile, another contingent is sent to Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, the Philippines, and the South Pacific / Oceania islands around there. There's even some scattered across the Americas - north in Alaska and the Yukon as far south as Chile and Argentia. Getting to any region requires the permission of a Near Shore god with a local shrine there to teleport, or a much more mundane plane trip.

Since this is all taking place over an extended period of time - roughly 48 hours - new gods are welcome to jump around the regions at their own choosing, not restricted to just one place.

Cutting Ties

Tracking down the cultists won't be easy. Some of their last known locations just confirmed their home addresses, work addresses, school addresses, etc. It's not like there's a GPS on them! However, with the address being specific to a city and country, along with a description of the person involved, it's possible to track down the rank-and-file cultists in these places beyond Japan. Many of them you won't even need to speak to, just find them and use a shinki to cut the string of fate that binds them to their cult activities, spell knowledge, and awareness of Heaven.

It's possible to run into other gods and shinki, though! Especially in major hubs of regular human activity, the cult was able to thus recruit more people to their causes. Maybe you can team up, swap information based on who you're looking for, that sort of thing.

Blight Circles

Where the human cultist recruits favored larger cities, their blight circles are much farther into countrysides - where they were less likely to be disturbed while the cultists crafted them. These circles are fairly simple in their lasting impressions: spellwork in a large circle on the ground, dead or dying flora for double the diameter of such a circle, and powerful ayakashi drawn to their vicinity. Strike down the ayakashi gathering there, purify the area if you can with magic or holy water, and physically break the circle's symbols. Particularly large blight circles might have been crafted near a Vent, increasing the likelihood of powerful ayakashi being there.

The larger and more powerful an ayakashi, the more Rend attacks it will take to bring them down. Maybe you can survive a long battle with one, or maybe you work together as a team with another god / soulless-wield shinki? The choice is up to you!

Cult Hubs

In the true cultural capitals of the world, there is a single Cult Hub - a physical building that was under the governance of a higher cultist official, where spellwork training and other informational sessions took place. Note that these hubs are not always the capitals of their countries, as with New York City or Los Angeles, Toronto or Munich, Sydney or Quezon City. The physical structures where cultists met have a wealth of inventory to look through and either dispose of or use in future efforts for the Heavens. It might not be glamorous work, but it could offer surprising rewards.

Event Bonus:
A thread of 10+ comments earns a character a random item that would have been stored at the cult hub. As with other missions involving "random item" rewards, players can give the mods 3 choices for review and we'll reply with a comment about any choice which might be too powerful / not suitable, or players can ask for the mods to give them 2-3 random items and pick only one as their reward.

Between Scenes / Afterward

As everyone returns to the Far Shore between their major efforts on the Near Shore, recovering from the battles, enlisting backup, or simply looking for another assignment from Orihime, you might still bump into one another, particularly around Orihime's home or down the river in either direction. Feel free to use this as a kind of catchall space or a place to look for healing, food, and sleep with your fellows from the Far Shore.

Alternatively, this could all happen when the last assignments have been handed out and people start to disperse back to their own temples.

Event Bonus: Gift Baskets!

For Gods and Shinki alike, Orihime will provide a gift basket to each and every character, customized as much as possible. This will include, among other things, an article of clothing with a wondrous power unlike any she's made before. Players can request what these items are OOCly, kind of like book requests in the library, but we hope it can to be something you as a player truly feel like is a reward to your character for having come this far.

To claim this reward, simply reply to the Orihime OOC comment below with your desired item and its ability to begin the discussion. Remember: Orihime would avoid granting items that help in battle; rather they're meant to enhance the character's everyday life, make their hobbies easier or more fun, that sort of thing. Example abilities might include: hover-style flight, lite elemental resistance, green-thumb plant growth boost, etc. - they're just tied to the item.

An IC week after the event, gift baskets will be delivered, along with an Epilogue announcement on the BBS.

Event Bonus (all prompts):
A thread of 10+ comments will gain 150 followers / 15 exp per thread.



In Summary:

• Travel the world
• Hunt down the last vestiges of the cult's influences
• Get goodies
• Await the epilogue announcement
• Have fun~

Comments

[letteropener]

Oh, hush.

[Her reply is fond, if genuine. Hibiki is such a shameless flirt, and her a taken mare apparently! Generously, Celestia asssumes her work on the computer has value, even as she nudges at a strange statue thing.]

Do you think these are dangerous at all?

[priforprince]

I’d doubt it. [ Hibiki keeps working, unaware of her status as a taken mare (and taken by a small herd, no less). ] Given the average cultist’s intelligence, any hazard would have been inadvertently activated long before our arrival.

[ And yet. This is the Princess’s safety. ]

But, to assuage your heart....

[ Hah, she’s in. Hibiki double-clicks a folder marked “Inventory”. There is room behind her for Celestia to look too, if so inclined. ]

[letteropener]

Wait. Forgive me, Hibiki, but this is something I do not understand...

They had a secret base here, and yet kept a list of their secret cult equipment on a computer?

[Celestia does not understand the Information Age.]

[priforprince]

Far be it from a genius to comprehend idiots.

[ ....Idiots who didn’t sort their files. Or name them in any sensible fashion. Celestia and Hibiki now have two messes on their hands and hooves: one physical, one digital.

Hibiki twitches. ]

[letteropener]

And yet surely they had cause for doing so.

[Shifting her efforts, Celestia begins sorting objects into different parts of the room -- clear junk in one corner, while papers and notes in another, so forth.]

[priforprince]

[ Nrgh....Hibiki wills herself to smile. If she lets herself be bathed overmuch in the stupidity of cultists, she might drown. ]

May your graciousness not prove misplaced.

[ Just like they’ve misplaced everything el—

NO, SHE MUSTN'T BROOD ABOUT IT

Hibiki begins opening and sorting the files with suspicious intensity. ]

[letteropener]

Some of these look like human clothing. [A strange turn of events, she must say, as she looks through the refuse. Why would they have left these things behind?] I wonder if something happened here that is more dramatic than we know.

[priforprince]

[ That does get Hibiki to look up. Nothing on this computer so far has been... ]

They left garments?

[ But...if something unknown happened.....that would render her brilliant plan to unlock all the cult’s secrets via the computer.... ]

[letteropener]

[Still possibly relevant!] Of course, it may also be that they used this place to disguise themselves and had little care for cleanliness.

[priforprince]

The mysteries deepen...

[ Right. Reassess the plan, then move forward as if the old plan never existed. This is Shikyoin Hibiki’s path to the future! ]

In any case, I’ll investigate here. Anything of possible occult interest will surely be logged.

Please attempt to locate other anomalies.

[ A Princess merits a “please”. ]

[letteropener]

Almost all of this seems anomalous to me. I barely know where to begin. [Breathing out, aaaaalmost a sigh, then back to work.] I never imagined I'd be putting my organizing spells to use this way.

[priforprince]

Any spell you cast can trounce their treachery.

[ Hibiki has faith in you, Celestia! This, itself, is a rare treasure!

....WHY WAS THIS CULT KEEPING A BIRDWATCHING LOG ON THE SECRET CULT COMPUTER

WAS ONE OF THEM A HOBBYIST?! ]

[letteropener]

[WHY HAS SOMEONE ABANDONED UNDERWEAR ON THE FLOOR]

[YIKES]

[Quickly tossing that into the pile, Celestia shivers in a way that makes all her fur and feathers floof up a bit.]

It is funny... the last compound had so many traps, tricks, and troubles, but this one is comparatively benign. Why do you think that is?

[priforprince]

The difference between a home base and a branch office, I expe....

[ ....why did the computer just

start beeping ]

[letteropener]

That may be, but had we discovered this one first, how poorly would it have gone for them? Were they perhaps counting on us discovering that compound of theirs before any other?

[Computers just beep occasionally, right?]

[priforprince]

That one was more valuable. This was clearly staffed by incompete—

[ The beeping isn’t stopping. Arcane symbols flash on screen. Hibiki lifts the computer, feeling it warm up, and realizes there is a charm stuck to the bottom.

Uh-oh. ]

[letteropener]

[That really is all normal, right? Hibiki knows what she's doing, right?]

Even their machinery is annoying, I see. [The beeping is still a pain, after all.]

[priforprince]

This shouldn’t....

[ The computer heats up further. Hibiki drops it, throwing herself in front of Celestia. ]

PRINCESS CELESTIA, STAND ASIDE!!

[letteropener]

Hmm?

[Princess Celestia glances that way, then with a flick of her horn encases the computer in a bubble of light.]

[At this point, Hibiki's dramatics are so persistent even she can no longer treat them as anything serious.]

[priforprince]

[ Well, a stopped clock and a spectacular celebrity can both be right twice a day: the computer explodes within the bubble.

A Princess’s magic is strong enough for no damage to be done, one presumes? But Hibiki shall pose protectively in front of Celestia during the blast, all the same.

It’s probably a compliment. ]

[letteropener]

[Celestia is no master of shields. That's Shining Armor, whose talent is such that the explosion could be the size of the building and they'd feel nothing from it.]

[But, well, she is Princess Celestia. As the shrapnel settles within the sphere, she releases it, letting it tumble back to the floor.]

So it was trapped.

[priforprince]

The seemingly-mundane computer was the lure....

[ Let no one, in this moment, even think the phrase “hook, line, and sinker.” ]

They’ve erased their paper trail, as well. The remainder will require manual processing.

[ ....Insolent. This cult is implying Shikyoin Hibiki should do work. ]

[letteropener]

I see. Were we looking for something other than a list, though? [What could a computer hold? Please enlighten, Hibiki, for Celestia still does not really understand these devices.]

[priforprince]

Explanations of their inventory would have separated the gems from the garbage.

[ Hibiki sighs. ] It cannot be helped. I’ll have to rely on that.

[ You can practically hear the silent maa of maa-nticipation from the spygoats with trash bags who just showed up. ]

[letteropener]

Are your friends here capable of discerning what we need?

[In other words: Hibiki, are you delegating inappropriately in this case to get out of work?]