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

Cult Hub: London OTA

[dredefulchilde]

It's a typically gray Friday morning in the London Borough of Islington. Though morning commuters are out in force, few seem to notice a small child standing by himself in front of a row of late Victorian townhouses
(which have since been subdivided many times into progressively smaller flats). It's all very familiar, Joscelin thinks as he makes short work of an ice cream cone. But that in itself isn't surprising. He's known for months that London was his hometown while he was still alive. Looking around at familiar facades he's never seen before, the city feels both thrilling and unspectacular at the same time. He's both a tourist and a local and it's all a bit disconcerting.

(This part of Islington, especially, feels eerily comfortable. He tries not to think about what that means.)

Finishing his ice cream, the boy licks his fingers and looks back over his shoulder.

"What say you we finish this quickly? I want to be done in time for lunch."

[disregardeddagger]

"I've no arguments with that."

Searching cult hubs, it seems, is something that shinki can do without the presence of their god. So here she is alone and ready to search through this building.

She hadn't quite expected to be paired with a child, but she had noted already that those in the heavens seemed young. Among those of the new generation she seemed to be in the older quarter at least, she had no idea how old she was to be fair but it was still notable, when compared to what she had seen in the human world whilst travelling these last couple of days.

She pushes herself off the wall she has been leaning against and nods at him. "Is this the place?"

[dredefulchilde]

Ever the fastidious one, Joscelin wipes his hands with his handkerchief and becomes suddenly businesslike. "It matches the address they gave me," he says, waving his phone vaguely in the direction of Nesir's nose. He's not stupid. He knows why Heaven sent him here. This was his hometown once, though what memories he has are hopelessly garbled. Even though he's a pale ten year old seemingly playing truant on a school day, he still stands out less than some of the others that could've ended up here.

But the girl?

"Right, let's see what you can do. How are your lockpicking skills, er..." What had her name been again? "...Nessa?"

[disregardeddagger]

Nesir looks young enough that she would probably be taken for a school child herself though hopefully one who had finished their exams and so had reason to not be in school on this June day. She seems unaware of this, this whole world is strange and unfamiliar and she's doing her best to not stare at the cars like they are creatures likely to turn and attack them. She knows they are not, but it doesn't help, not when they look so threatening.

"I guess we will see." She made her way over to the door, she has no idea what any of her skills are outside of the combat ones she has discovered already. Lacking memories is annoying like that.

She had been handed a bunch of useful things before being sent out and lockpicks were part of that, the heavens weren't likely to send them to break into a place without them. She opened the case and was relieved to find that the concept at least was familiar, even if the actual tools were as weird as everything else that she had found here.

She got to work after glancing around, it helped that being dead she was less noticeable than other humans.

[dredefulchilde]

Joscelin's thumbs fly across the keyboard of his smartphone (and he tries very hard to look utterly disinterested in everything going on around him), but he's watching her closely. Why would Heaven pick this girl to accompany him? What can she do?

"How long have you been around? Can't say I've seen you before. Who is your god?"

(Unless the girl is a god herself, but he somehow doubts that.)

"Or 'gods,' I suppose, if you're a nora."

[disregardeddagger]

"About ten days." She hadn't seen him around either, not at the training. But perhaps it was not mandatory for those who were not new.

She barely glanced at him when she spoke, focusing on the lock.

"Noctis, who is the god Nox. Who is your god?"

She gives the information out freely, it is not like it isn't something he would be able to discover easily.

A click and the door is open.

[dredefulchilde]

"So you're very new," he murmurs. To be fair, he's only been a shinki for about six months, but she doesn't need to know that. Showing off is more fun if she doesn't know.

"Ayumu Yamazaki is my Mistress," he says softly. Almost reverently. "Vesta. Goddess of the hearth." Plus others, but Hakkai's disappearance is still too new, too raw to talk about right now.

The girl is making progress. The lock clicks and the door swings inward. Joscelin stows his phone in a jacket pocket and brings up a knife, should they meet any resistance. The basement flat appears dark and empty, but he can't see much beyond the front room, even with his inhumanly sharp eyesight. Better safe than sorry.

"Be ready."

[disregardeddagger]

Very new, but she's learned a lot in a week. Enough that reverence like that is not common, not among those who serve gods. It's worth noting, as is the name of his goddess.

Lockpicks away, dagger out. She notes the boy has a dagger, good. She assumes it means he can handle one. She doesn't roll her eyes at his command, but instead walks confidently into the dark.

It's quiet, which doesn't mean she lets her guard down. Instead she moves to the shadows, moving through them silently in a way that speaks of a lot of training.

It seems though, that this level at least is unoccupied. She glances to check the boy is keeping up, she expects him to though, she doubts he would be sent here if he weren't capable.]

[dredefulchilde]

Joscelin notes and appreciates the girl's training. It's a little more obvious now why she was chosen to partner with him. The flat is pitch black, except where rays of weak sunlight peek from behind the blinds.

He strides through the flat with confidence, pausing every once and a while to take a cautious sniff of the air. No, it's safe. He smells two shinki, and no humans. The flat is completely unoccupied.

Well, no need to sneak about any longer. He walks to a wall and switches on the lights.

"Right, then. Let's get to ransacking."

[disregardeddagger]

Nesir would have rather left the lights off. The place seemed deserted but better safe than sorry. Still the boy seemed confident enough and Nesir at least knows she can fight, if it comes to that.

"Right."

Ransacking it is, except ordered ransacking. They have specfic things they are looking for. "You got any thing more detailed than 'linking to the far shore'?"

[dredefulchilde]

Joss snorts. "The Powers that Be don't seem to want us to have that information. Or at least they didn't deign to give it to me in my brief. Orihime just said that we needed to clear out anything that might have something to do with Heaven. So I suppose we should take a look."

Without further ado, he drags a very heavy-looking chest out from under a table and begins to work some lockpicking magic of his own.

[disregardeddagger]

It's not the first time she has heard that those who rule this place keep their subjects in the dark. It's not surprising to her really, but it is annoying. Especially if they were to be investigating this cult. Surely the more information they had about what they were looking for would be better.

She notes that the kid can pick a lock and moves to a cabinet, it's filled with papers and she begins taking them out, section by section.

"Can you read kanji?"