Welp, here we are again. This one's running a little behind -- I realized as I was writing it that I'd actually made a mistake in the session, and wanted to sort it out with my players first before finishing the post (reflecting the correct version of events), and then got tired last night and forgot to post it. Apologies.
So we left off in the middle of a quick montage of the krewe menacing William's alchemist buddies to get them to stop spreading around the cursed gold. We kind of handwave the scenes in question because there's only a couple of them and it'd mostly just be the same conversation again (I didn't feel like arbitrarily having one of the conversations go off the rails for the sake of action/drama).
So then they start talking about how they're going to find Mel, because they're not sure they have any powers that are going to help. Kenneth suggests they pound the pavement, do this old-fashioned, mundane-style. So they start making phone calls to determine where Mel is and where he got the money for his casino.
So Eddy starts making calls through his various criminal and business contacts, and discovers that Mel leaves town on a semi-regular basis, heading somewhere vaguely southeast of Vegas. Nobody knows exactly where but they do know that once he called back to check on things, discovered a crisis, and was back in about an hour. Of course, there's a lot of desert and hills out there, and even assuming he's someplace that shows up on a map that doesn't narrow it down a great deal.
Next we switch to Kenneth, who's gone down to talk to the local cops to ask around, bringing donuts. Everyone's going on about the destruction of Bacchus, and they mention that supposedly Manny's sniffing around the site. They think Manny's after Mel for something. They also tell Kenneth about the trips out of town. They agree to give Kenneth a call if they heard anything more.
We cut back to Eddy, talking to his business contacts about where Mel got his startup money for the casino. What he can turn up suggests that it's a combination of two sources: Mel made some sort of under-the-table non-financial deal with the previous owner (the sort of stuff that mobsters are generally known for, and why the RICO Act was eventually created), and it looks like he also acquired and sold some artwork. Like, legally sold. Eddy couldn't find details on the pieces or their source but the running theory is that Mel found some thief's lost stash of stolen art and cashed it in.
Richard's not much of a 'pounding the pavement' guy, so he mostly just takes a nap.
The group reconvenes at the hotel in the early afternoon, Eddy and Richard getting back to find Kenneth already there, smoking a cigarette because, as he puts it...
"I'm a hard-boiled investigator. I have to be smoking, drinking, or brandishing a .38."
The krewe compares notes and they float the idea of heading to what's left of Bacchus and seeing if there's anything useful that can be found in the wreckage, but Kenneth doesn't think that'd bear fruit. But they do need to find some way of narrowing down the possibilities. They discuss maybe putting the rest of the krewe on it.[0]
(There's a bit of confusion at one point when they talk about checking Underworld contacts and Kenneth, thinking they meant underworld with a small 'u,' was confused because he knew Eddy had already checked those.)
Richard reminds the group that at some point Mel's going to want to come back for that gold, given the job he hired Richard to do. (And as far as they know, he has no reason to suspect Richard had anything to do with what happened at the casino.) They know a ceremony that can remove curses, but as far as they know it only works on people. Kenneth suggests that if they use the ceremony on someone who's been cursed by the gold, then that person is safe until and unless the coins pass to someone else, possibly. It's not a great plan but they put a pin in it.
But they're coming back to scouring the city directly while having the krewe go out to see what they can dig up.[1] They use the cenote in the hotel basement and spectral bourbon from Eddy's stash of grave goods to help Kenneth and Richard top up some plasm. While they're doing this and tossing out ideas, Kenneth mentions that there is a 'witch' named Talya with whom he's acquainted. He was desperate enough to go to her for a tip on Manny, and she predicted his death out in the desert. So they decide to drive out to the outskirts where she lives.
They find her in a Lustron house on the edge of the desert. There's no sign or anything advertising her services, but there's a mural painted on the side of the house of what appears to be an interpretation of the Fool card from the tarot. They knock on the door and she opens, and through the chain-gap in the door expresses some mild surprise at seeing Kenneth. He's not sure what to think when a fortune teller is surprised to see him, and she explains that there was some debate as to whether his path would draw him back to her.
She invites him and his friends in, and introduces herself as Talya Sikora. Richard introduces himself, and Eddy -- not one to just give his name to people he just met -- just nods and says "Ma'am," to which she replies with "Mr. Black."
She then asks exactly who they're looking for, to 'narrow down the possibilities' because the future's not set, etc. They mention Mel and she suggests she knows him, and explains that she knows a lot of strange and unusual people in Vegas on both sides of the law. Kenneth mentions that he himself is strange and unusual (for the Beetlejuice reference), and Talya remarks that she knows that because she's 'seen his death, but his doom is yet to come.'
She gets ready to sit down at her crystal ball and do a reading, and Kenneth takes a moment to light a cigarette. The smoke wafts from his cigarette to enshroud the crystal ball in smoke, seemingly of its own accord. She explains that she's aware of what happened to Bacchus, and somehow knows that it was destroyed by 'forces from the Underworld.' (I'm blanking on exactly when, but she remarks a couple of times that 'forces from the Underworld' often interfere with destiny.) She also comments that when it was renovated, Mel was planning on reopening it as 'Persephone's,' which someone (I think Eddy but I could be wrong) commented was a little on the nose.
Meanwhile, Kenneth is looking for an ashtray and Talya pulls one out from under the table and sets it up. He puts his out and starts a fresh one. Then she pulls out her own pack of cigarettes, taps one out, and Kenneth lights it with a match for her.
And then Eddy's geist, the Lonely Proprietor, starts reacting to the smoke. He sniffs at the air, and remarks he hasn't smelled that brand in a while. When asked, Talya remarks that she smokes Morley Crimsons, a spin-off of Morleys marketed to women. Kenneth puts his own cigarette out to keep from distracting the Proprietor further. Now, at this point, Talya can't see or hear the geists, and is currently focused on a tarot card reading that somehow involves incorporates the crystal ball, sliding the cards through a space under the crystal ball and viewing them through it.
The Lonely Proprietor apparently once loved a woman who smoked Morley Crimsons. He'd buy them for her in a shop that had pictures on the wall, and she was in one of the pictures, one taken at a party or something like that.
Conveniently at about this point, Talya finishes her reading and has determined that Mel is consulting with a silent partner. The group speculates that he's hiring someone to take them out, and she remarks that that's unlikely given that something like that would put him on Rossi's radar. Mel's trying to keep his head down, as Rossi doesn't approve of Mel's ambitions (Which are, in her words, to 'bring ruin' to Rossi's operation). So then they assume that if anyone wants them dead, it's Rossi, and she corrects them on that. Kenneth is a little hurt that Rossi isn't actively trying to kill him.
This leads into a conversation as to whether Manny knows that Kenneth is still alive, and Talya says he definitely knows but he's keeping his distance because the people he kills don't normally get back up. Now Kenneth is worried that Manny might be a wizard like Mel, and he asks Talya if he is. She just says that if he was, it wouldn't be her place to tell him.
But getting back to Mel, she says that he's reaching out to his silent partner, an Underworld figure called the Dealer. Then she has to clarify that she means capital-U Underworld, which had tripped up Kenneth again. Kenneth remarks that someone calling themselves "The Dealer" is likely either a ghost who's forgotten who they are, or has a flair for the dramatic.
"Or both," Richard chimes in. And Talya gestures to him as if she were about to say the same thing.
She then says that he'd go by the Fixer, but there's already someone under Chicago going by that name. Kenneth says he didn't know the dead have a patent office, and without missing a beat Talya says that in the Underworld, reputation means everything because it all comes down to how you're remembered.[2]
Seeing that they're hitting the end of the conversation, Kenneth asks what they owe her. She says she wouldn't turn down cash donations, but they can just owe her a favor later. She then quickly clarifies that she's not going to just show up out of the blue and make demands, but when the day comes that she needs something, she suspects they'll be free to offer it.
Kenneth lays down a couple of bucks, thanks her for her time, and heads out. Before Eddy and Richard do the same, one of them asks her where she buys her Crimsons. She says there's only one store in Vegas that carries it, as it's not especially popular. It's a tobacconist called the Peaceful Leaf, and it's on the Strip.[3]
So they head back into town and look for the store. It's pretty easy to find. It's really tacky and racist -- the place has a really offensive Native American decoration theme inside and out (sign of a peace pipe above the door and everything), the sort of thing that wouldn't fly today but the game takes place in the 50's. But they go in and there's an entire wall of pictures of celebrities out at the casinos, most of them signed. According to the guy running the place, it's something that just kinda got started with a couple of autographs. The store isn't famous, but he'll sometimes get famous people in when they're in town because of the location.
Eddy's geist, the Lonely Proprietor, latches onto one picture in particular: Howard Hughes and Jean Harlow in 1930, apparently in the area promoting Hell's Angels. They're framed on either side by a couple of waitresses, and the geist recognizes one of them as a woman he loved, who loved him back. He's having trouble remembering her name, though -- it starts with a 'D,' but that's all he can recall. But either way, the geist has a bit of a breakthrough and Eddy's completed his first Remembrance scene.
Meanwhile, while this is going on, Kenneth is talking to the guy who runs the place (and is apparently the owner). His geist, who was once a Shoshone shaman, is positively fuming at the decor. But Kenneth talks to the guy running the place about how he could probably try to make it a little more tasteful, maybe talk to some of the local Shoshone and see if maybe he can turn part of the store into a little museum, share a bit of authentic lore with the customers. The guy gives it some serious consideration and he and Kenneth make some vague plans to sit down over lunch or something and work it out.
And we left off there.
[0]-- This is a thing that you can do in Geist second edition. A sin-eater's krewe consists of NPCs, both living and otherwise, and you can set them on tasks for you.
[1]-- This will take long enough in-character that we'll see the results next session.
[2]-- Not to pat myself on the back, but I'm pretty proud of that line.
[3]-- I may be misremembering exactly when this exchange occurred.
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