Kindred of The East - Age of Sorrow

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The Jade Hand, unsure of where to go next, chose instead to go in many directions.
First Minsheo traveled back to her native South Korea on a dragon line to the Green Court. There had been problems with her finances that demanded her personal attention and on this subject the Crane was diligent indeed. Seshwayo, a Dragon born and then reborn in the North, had never seen the South of his country and so traveled with her to see the neon-lit wealth of Seol with his own eyes.

Pongreet, having found and freed his mortal brother with the help of the Wu, now had to deal with the fact that he had been turned by the Kin-Jin* and so sought the best advice that the Golden Courts possessed on the matter - a distant bodhisattva hidden among the islands of the Philippines. After informing his companions of the plan he set of with his brother via plane and boat on a journey into the sea of a thousand islands. On his journey however they were watched by a Kin-Jin with three eyes, indeed she followed them all the way to Tikbalang's island far from civilization. Once there he found the ancient and inhuman bodhisattva, a master of the flesh and bone shintais, and beseeched him for help in reigning in his brother's new nature.

In Seoul Minsheo and Sehwayo hired a mortal investigator to uncover the truth of what was happening to her business interests while exploring the varied night life of the Korean capitol. After an audience with Minsheo's old mentor they brought their excursion to a close and made plans to find and meet up with the rest of the Wu.

On an unnamed island somewhere in the Philippines Pongreet had reached an accommodation with the creature that was Tikbalang, he would allow the young Kin-Jin to stay on his island for a time to allow him to focus on retaining his humanity, while Pongreet's brother had himself also expressed a wish to stay in the wilderness claiming his own visions had led them there. With the arrangement agreed the Song of Shadow made to leave the area, but as he did so he spotted the three eyed vampire watching him once again, this time he approached it directly and challenged it as to its intentions. She responded that her purpose was to save his brother's soul. It was, apparently, part of the purpose of her 'clan'. They talked and he came to believe her, eventually leaving his brother to whatever awaited him on the island with the bodhisatva and the three eyed woman.

Meanwhile back on Tanegashima things had once again taken an extremely violent turn for Yamamoto Shinzo. Upon returning home from Bangkok he was ambushed by a team of well equipped mortals, seemingly intent on capturing him though for what purpose he did not know. All he knew was that yet more dangerous intruders were present on the island, and this time they had come right to his front door. Relishing the righteous bloodshed to come the Devil Tiger instantly threw himself into the fray with the intruders. This time however they were ready for him, using debilitating electrical weapons they sought to wear him down but the son of a samurai was not to be defeated with such things, not yet. These were men of flesh and steel however, they fought hard and fought bravely and though Shinzo took pleasure in their deaths at the point of his katana he also could not fail to acknowledge their skill and commitment to their cause. He had fought true soldiers that night, perhaps for the first time since his mortal days, and though he had been victorious the fight had been far too close for comfort.
The female sorcerer that led them escaped with the surviving members of her team after leaving a bomb behind to clean up the evidence of their encounter. He tried in vain to pursue them but doubted it would be long before the peace of Tanegashima was once again broken by their return.

The next night Shinzo was grateful to hear from Pongreet that the Wu of the Jade Hand was once again converging on Tanegashima. He knew he would need them when the strange soldiers showed themselves once again.



*Kin-Jin - Western vampires.