The Lock and the Key
2nd of October 2006 A.D.
"Thank you," you speak up hastily before the plot bear fruit, the hook can catch its mark. "Dragon lines... I know how to deal with people messing with the dragon lines."
Hopefully, you add mentally. This is unlikely to be as bad as what you dealt with under lake Erie, but if Lady Eiko means to deal with a Warden of the White Council and a Knight of the Cross, neverming how she might be judging your own power, well it's unlikely to be pretty.
Jack raises a finely trimmed eyebrow as if to ask 'why did you go and ruin the plan' while the other two shen seem in far better spirits that someone else would be taking the risks and that they would not have to expose their mortal confederates to the claws of the Wan Kuei. The rest of the meeting is spent establishing where the dragon lines are in Chinatown between the Chicago river to the west, Lake Michigan to the east and the concrete and steel look of the I55 to the south all of the main feeder lines that Lady Eikoare coming from the north and if you are to follow the line of the I90 going that way... well it does not take the slightly rumbled map that Língguāng produces to find they lead right past the History Museum, conveniently still closed after the Red Room Murders.
"I mean if they just want to kill you there is a lot of death aspected power there still " Lydia shakes her head. "But that seems a waste."
The various Shen are still obviously dubious on the notion that servants of the Yama Kings would be into killing for killing's sake.
***
Porter squints at the map on the floor of the tunnel, struggling with all the squiggly lines and newfangled symbols, or maybe just confused at how large the city above his head had grown, such that you end up carving a larger map of Chinatown directly into the concrete, complete with the locations of the Dragon Lines that the three shen had marked and even the water features filled in with ten inches of water for scale.
"Hmm... and you say the next major node crossing upstream is the museum where the necromancers have had their game? They
certainly are not going to use that, too wild and unpredictable, this is an artist of death or perhaps a craftsman would be better said, aesthetics are secondary...hmm.... hmm... hurrr" The last words sound more like the whir of stone against stone than any words in English. "Shadows by the waterside. Shadows from below?" A shake of his great head sends dust flying everywhere, especially as luck would have it all over dad whose previously spotless white cloak now looks chalky grey.
The sight seems to awaken something in the stone dragon. "That is it? The akuma are trying to make a loop of their own power to
weigh down on all essence flowing through the neighborhood. This would make it mildly harder for all powers and principalities not them to invoke their power within but the principal reason would be to slow down the flight of the power, the Crown you bear once you are dead in order to trap it."
"That is really not going to work long term," you say with as dark a smile as you have ever worn. "It has been bound once, it will not be bound again. Not..." you glance towards dad and Brother Divisimar. "That I am planning to die you understand, but even if I did that plan would not work. Another would be Chosen."
Another... "Oh no. Would the Wuan Kuei be the sort to try to hit two birds with one stone?" you ask the shih master. At his nod you continue: "If they had a shaman, one with the Divine Bones, but who has not walked the path ready and in the place of snarled lines when I die the power might just take the path of lest resistance and invest them."
"So you mean the Akuma have been killing shamans to snarl up the dragon lines, but also offering their victims a chance to work with them as the new vessel of your power with every murder?" Lydia only half asks. "If that's the case either they don't have their vessel yet or one of their victims did turn which would mean that of the Recluse Murders... one isn't a murder."
Looking through the information Detective Murphy had given you there are no missing people and working your way through the list the shen had provided again there were only deaths, including a handful the police did not recognize as foul play.
Thankfully you cat cheat.
"Of the people mentioned in the Recluse Murders which are alive and working with the akuma?"
You had expected the question to return a nul answer, instead a image of a trendy looking young man floats to the surface of your mind and a single letter writ in green flame:
J
Bùshì Tùzǐ can't know about this, her emotions were too raw, her pain ran too deep... and yet for all those reasons would it not be kinder not to tell her that her partner faked his own death?
What do you do?
[] Tell Bùshì Tùzǐ about J's survival and what the akuma are likely planning for him
[] Track down the shaman and the akuma
-[] Write in
[] Write in
OOC: The trail is getting hotter. 
