Week 4 Summary / Week 5 Planning!

[powersthatbe]

As the tax convoys roll out and one more investigator decides only Liminal Space is safe, tensions among the provinces are ratcheting even higher. Is all hope for a peaceful resolution lost?

In Nakumatou: Chiyo has a visit from Ren, his fiancee, and the remaining Sentai brothers to talk rebellion. She also gets a chance to examine Raito’s ‘dragon’ tattoo, and is very puzzled by it - but not nearly as confused as she is by Kotei’s. Saya arrives from Higura, hoping to find a welcoming home at last. Jeina decides to stay home, on the grounds that her brothers apparently can’t be left unsupervised. Istas and Mari come looking for Ren, leaving carnage in their wake (of course).

In Koroshima: Mifeng, having been offered alliances from pretty much every possible side, isn’t sure what to do - though she settles against throwing the Rifles’ lot in with the Akuryu.. Sora feels trapped no matter where she is (including when she heads off to the summit), since her father’s more than likely catching up to her. Souji goes to see if there’s anything of note in the burned village from week 2. Byerly attempts to spy on the Akuryu; it does not go well, and then Masshuu steps in. Upon… revival (?????), By reports his current state to the network, also providing an opportunity for investigators to update each other on their status where they have anything new to report. Konchu sets out to make amends for the damage he had to do to the shrine to free Ambrose and Usagi… who might be planning to leave.

In Nakamiyo: Naoki and Kanji try to see if they can pick up a trail from Higura Village and track down the attackers. The good news is that the luck boost Jules gave Naoki for healing his leg seems to have paid off; the… less-good news is that it did so in the form of the attackers forgetting to pick up horse poop, but hey, a trail’s a trail. Kanji passes this discovery on to his CO. Feliciano prays for guidance before heading north.

On the road to the Shogun’s place: Hajime isn’t exactly looking forward to the Shogun’s summit. Ridou isn’t either, if more because he’s half expecting to be tossed in jail after the tax is handed over - but Naoki does pass on his tidbit about the horse excrement. Masshuu catches up with Sora, and once gets to the palace, asks the dragons what it is they keep trying to tell her. (Well, he tries to, anyway.) Arashi discusses the findings from Higura with Ridou. Raidou tags along with the Sun Guard delegation, and sneaks off to Liminal Space to see how Sabetha’s holding up after her overlay’s untimely demise. Jules does the one thing he’s unquestionably good at and plays statue.

Week 5 Plotting
As the Shogun finally grants audiences at the beginning of the week, a contingent of sixty shogunate troops enters the mountains of Koroshima without warning, setting up roadblocks. A second contingent of sixty marches south, and camps beside Mibu. And the Sentinels of the Wall - one hundred and twenty of them - march towards the Sun Guard Temple.

The forces in Koroshima and Nakamiyo assure residents they are only peacekeeping forces, and their blockades are temporary. The forces in Nakumatou answer no questions, and shoot on sight.

Comments

Body Count

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Shrine Encounters

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[dalectable]

Don't know if she'll get a response, but Ritsuki is attempting one last prayer before the Sentinels descend on the temple?

Questions or Comments!

[powersthatare]

[professorwolf]

Will the delegations know about the attack forces/peacekeeping forces/roadblocks before the audience, or no?

[dalectable]

If Ritsuki were to water surf to Nakumatou, how long would it take, especially if she were pushing herself to near-collapsing point?

Barring that, does the Shogun keep horses at his fortress and how feasible is it for Ritsuki to break into the stables to steal a horse and race home?

Re: Questions or Comments!

[wholeheaded]

Would there be anything of note to report if someone flies over the forces gathering outside the Sun Temple? Secret doomsday weapons or other stuff of note?

[leftbehindagain]

Given the current state of things (i.e.: pretty much everyone who can be there to help is in some capacity, including laying traps of various sorts, and Istas and Feli's pre-emptive strikes), about how long is the attack on the Sun Temple likely to last? For that matter, when does it begin? As soon as the soldiers are in bowshot (assuming any archers survive the early strikes)? Dawn the next day? ???

Raidou's going to swoop in on a dragon at some point, and this will determine whether he hangs around long enough to pick up the rest of the Sun Guard delegation or not.

[truerevelation]

So elementalism team-ups have started to become a thing: so far the ones I've heard mentioned are-

Wind + water = ice
Water + fire = steam and mist
Water + metal = blood a la Avatar
Fire + metal = lightning? Or is that fire + air?

Are these accurate so far, and are there any other notable ones going around? (I'm especially curious about wood combinations due to their being relevant to Kanji's interests.)

Plotting

[powersthatbe]

[leftbehindagain]

...oh yeah fuck those guys. Though it looks like we can thank Jeina's idiot brothers for getting themselves kidnapped and therefore keeping the temple on alert????

Chiyo, as the last bastion of responsibility in the temple, will be organising the resistance effort. You have angered the badger, soldiers, and christfuck she's pissed. INVESTIGATOR ASSISTANCE WILL BE MORE THAN WELCOME, if anyone can portal it into being - she won't even ask too many questions about it.

I'm not sure if Naoki will actually be in the palace or not, but he'll be sticking close enough to come in, if Ridou needs witness testimony about horse crap.

Re: Plotting

[bypartisan]

SO SHIT IS GETTING REAL IT LOOKS LIKE.

Byerly is following Masshuu around like a useful ghost spy and HAS BEEN ABLE TO EAVESDROP ON MASSHUU TALKING TO THE DRAGONS/TRUMPS. He will supply info to everyone about that as soon as the thread gets longer.

Mari(a) is at the Monastery and THANK GOODNESS because lbr the Sun Guard is gonna need all the help it can get to defend their home. Expect her to do her stabbing whenever possible. She. Uh. Might try to see if she can get some ghost-talking lessons in return for her help defending.

[comebewe]

Masshuu/Masshuu will be Killing Hajime With Fire after the talks finish. After that, I'm not sure exactly what he'll be doing - he has a vested interest in getting back to Nakumatou and also setting fire to anyone attacking the Sun Guard, but he also doesn't want to lose track of Sora. So I'm probably going to be playing this one a lot by ear here.

Istas is in Nakumatou. Which means that there is going to be a Ghost Wolf-Bear appearing out of nowhere to do some carnage to the Sentinels, yup. In fact since she's a goddamn wolf-bear, she won't have any apparent connection to the Sun Guard and can attack without being considered at attack from the Sun Guard. SO YES. Basically, Istas will be killing All The Things.

[capital_asset]

I am not sure what Cassandra is doing this week. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure where she went after Jules headed to the castle; she'd worry about compromising his mission. If anyone wants her anywhere in particular, I can probably handwave something.

Raidou is still at the castle as of the beginning of the week, but he also has a very large, very fast dragon who can comfortably take passengers and knows some very nasty ice and lightning spells, so he can get pretty much anywhere he's needed even without portalling. They will likely be heading to Nakumatou, assuming they survive the audience with the shogun.

[willyousee]

Okay. Well. Alcuin is attempting to coordinate a defense of the temple via psychic network and will be assisting in the fighting itself, primarily from the walls.

This will involve Siren Song and likely Yellow Magic as well as some dagger work. He will be dying in the futile defense of an old temple master from a covert infiltration group of sentinels. Among other things, this will cause his spells to fail.

He won't reappear in liminal space for at least a few hours.

Re: Plotting

[chalicejoker]

Hajime is going to be speaking with the Shogun and probably making things worse and then getting killed by Masshuu. When he's back to being himself, he'll probably try to go back to Koroshima to apologize to people and try to fix things as his own bastard son. He might also try to get some of the troops to shove off as a ~scary bug oni~.

Zed/Kotei remains with Ren and his siblings at the Sun Guard monastery, and he's ready to start burninating some things.

Jules continues to remain at the fortress and play statue spy; he'll be reporting back to the network at some point. If there's anything of particular note he would have seen, let me know!

[professorwolf]

Okay, so, Ridou DID put some various protection methods in place on the Sun Temple before he left a few weeks ago, though most of them are aimed against sneak attacks rather than full-on assault.... The walls are protected by glass shards here and there, and there's hot oil waiting for anyone trying to climb (or in this case, batter down) the gates. There are elementalists standing guard on the wall, as well as spirits patrolling the area and a summoner on duty all the time to hear their report. So at least they'll have some advance warning of what's coming, and that they aren't friendly.

Ridou is stuck at the fortress trying (and obviously failing, it seems) to present everything he's found to the shogun about how the empire is duplicitous and horrible and doesn't deserve their support at all, but if they MUST, they should be working together not fighting amongst themselves. Oh, and that everyone knows about Aikawa's secret bargain with him now, just so he's aware.

I'm not sure how quickly people at the fortress will find out about the attack on the Sun Temple? But as soon as he hears, he will be super upset and guilty for leaving all the people there without anybody "in charge", and really just. Not a happy camper. Not sure if the shogun will let him go (or, y'know, let him walk out of his audience to anywhere but a jail cell) but he'll want to.

At the Suzuki village, Zoe will see the "peacekeeping force" and be packing up shop to flee to the shoreline and wait for her ship there, with her baby and I think the midwife-slash-Trump?

Neeshka is I think still at the Sun Temple. So. That could be fun. She's not that great a soldier or a plantbender, but since people she cares about will be watching, she's prolly gonna at least try to help instead of hiding somewhere? After all, it's not like she can stay dead, right?

[callyourname]

Mikasa aka Ren's fiancee is at the temple with Ren and the Sentai brothers. She just got herself a finesse-boosting tattoo for her waterpowers from Chiyo last week, so clearly this is a good time to test it! She'll be fighting for sure, doing her best to help defend the temple and people on the same side as her (though she has her obvious priority #1 ~). If anyone wants to team up with waterpowers for anything, she won't say no, though girl is as merciless at killing as her canon self!

[venetianprince]

Feliciano has made it to Nakumatou, where he will be fighting imperial soldiers to try rescuing civilians- or at least buy them more time to escape/hide. He'll be glad for fellow fighters! If possible, he'll be tagging along with any portal jumpers/teleporters to help fight imperial soldiers in other areas as well- now that he's sure what's going on, he's pretty angry. He hates war, especially wars where civilian lives are being brutally ended without restraint.

Re: Plotting

[forcechanic]

Jeina will be helping defend the Sun Temple any way she can. Which will definitely involve a bunch of aggressive spirits. It may also involve a daring plan she didn't entirely think through because OMG this just happened in canon at her canonpoint and that's what happened.

Wash will be freaking out, mostly. And offering any supplies he can liminal manip up and portal on to where they're needed.

[truerevelation]

While Kanji is currently camped out near Mibu and grumbling about the dumbasses stomping around what he's starting to think of his turf, he's ready to kick any asses that require kicking there or at the temple...

[satonthewall]

Hibine/Elliot is a part of Ren's Teenage Rebellion Squad and thus at the Sun Temple with all the rest. As a result it's time to help defend the temple!

And also keep an eye on his brothers, Ren, and Mikasa, because guess who is kind of overprotective of his family and friends after losing two siblings, oops.

[lunchleader]

Raito/Right is at the Sun Temple with his brothers, Ren, and the latter's fiancee. He will gladly use his wind powers and awesome fighting skills to defend the place from attackers.

Who wants him to help create fire/water tornadoes??

[wholeheaded]

Ambrose is actually throwing himself into action! He's discovered he can get his Lightning Age flying gear into hammerspace and is going to be taking to the skies for aerial recon. And trasnporting folks from place to place as needed (one at a time, maybe, if Matt says it would work
). And maybe taking pot shots at imperial troops. And maybe getting shot or freaked out at because flying man! Let me know if you want/need him to drop in anywhere.

Also: every six hours or so he'll be able to open a remote portal to liminal space, again to help get folks/supplies where they need to go. He's in full support mode, basically.

[awitchdidit]

Beatrice/Yuki has officially joined the conspiracy/revolution/peace compact/whatever, and after witnessing the Shogun's shenanigans and obvious total commitment to the Empire, she's pretty sure he needs to die. (Also given the Trumps on this Jaunt I'm OOC pretty sure that's the win condition, or a win condition).

Anyone want to help kill the boss?