Something something sorry about last-minute post. Been working on the Scion book and my sleep schedule's been utterly borked for a while so that ain't helping.
Anyhow, on with it.
So once the krewe sent Lucas on his way, Eddy goes to give Nicole a call to fill her in, and to tell her to feel free to bring other 'cursed' stuff his way to sort out.
Kenneth puts together a package to send the knife and the compass home to Lucas' family, drops that in the mail, and then runs by the police department to get around to filling out a police report on his encounter with Gimmick. But that wraps up that day, functionally.
The next morning Kenneth gets a call from Max Morgan where he goes over his report with Kenneth and offers to send him a copy to read before he fully submits it. Just to make sure all of the i's are dotted and the t's are crossed. So there's that ahead of him.
Meanwhile, Eddy's making phone calls to try and find buyers for the stuff he got from Nicole. And it goes pretty badly at first, someone gives him a not-entirely-undeserved earful for trying to sell that stuff, but he manages to make up for it while making a connection with a young mob boss (a little above Rossi in the hierarchy) named Kevin Moreno. Moreno's more inherited his position than earned it, but people are watching to see whether he's tough enough to hold onto it. Eddy sees him as a potential 'in' with the larger syndicate and starts cultivating him as an ally.
While all this is going on, Richard's out doing house calls for his repair work, and he realizes somebody's following him. It's Officer Draper, the cop who's been working with Popham on Richard's case. Draper's not in uniform, but he's definitely following Richard around in his car. After a couple of stops, Richard pulls into a diner for lunch and he sits where he can see the parking lot and his car out the window. He can see where Draper pulls into a parking lot across the street and just watches Richard's truck until he finishes eating and leaves.
After going to his next appointment and finding the cop still following him after that, Richard drives out of town a little bit and then pulls off to the side of the road. He just sits there and waits to see what he does, undeniably sending the message that he knows what the officer is doing. Draper just drives by, meets his gaze through the windows, and just keeps going.
Richard waits a while to see if he does anything or comes back around (he does neither), and then heads back to the hotel. There aren't any signs that he's being followed. He goes in and tells Eddy what just happened, and Eddy gives him some grief for mocking the cop, and warns him against doing anything foolish like antagonizing them when they've already got it out for him.
Elsewhere, after his phone call with Max, Kenneth finds himself drawn to explore the Underworld a bit. He heads to the cemetery and uses one of his remaining coins to descend. He wanders down various tunnels and winds up in the little empty/ruined village where they fought Mel, where some of his remains still, um... remain. Kenneth kicks what's left of Mel into the river, and then looks up to see a man in a robe with a boat sitting there as if having come out of nowhere.
A Ferryman.
They talk a little bit, about how Kenneth isn't sure why he's down here or what he's looking for, but the Ferryman offers to take him someplace that might help him. Kenneth pays the man in blood, cutting his arm and bleeding into a wooden monk's offering bowl and closing it up with plasm (which also runs into the bowl). The Ferryman punts them down the River of Gold to a clearer, sparkling river where they see all sorts of creatures in the waters nearby. The Ferryman drops him off at the shore of what looks like a blasted wasteland, where there's a gate and an old man with a beard sitting next to it.
Kenneth asks the Ferryman if he'll come back, and the Ferryman says he'll swing back around at some point. The agent disembarks and the old man sits up and informs him of the Old Laws of the Barren Wilds:
- Respect the dichotomy of predator and prey.
- No human may impose authority over animal.
- Any request an animal makes must be obliged.
Kenneth decides to let his geist, the Skinwalker, lead the way across the dead grass and trees and through the hills of a desert-like waste. In the distance in the shadows he can hear Barghests, animal ghosts, snarling and stalking around. In the distance he hears a growl that rumbles like thunder. Overhead, vultures made of bone circle him.
He recognizes he's in a Dominion representing the harshness of nature, cycles of predator and prey, and such. So he spends some plasm to tap the Skinwalker's survival skills and goes to hunt something. He finds an undead deer and chases it through the hills, stalking it, and activates the Rage Haunt to wrap himself in his geist to make him 'involved' in the hunt. He gets up on a ledge over the deer and pounces, quickly disabling it.
As he goes for the killing blow, it speaks to him, and a coyote emerges from what is revealed to be a deer skin disguise. The coyote calls Kenneth 'brother' and offers to show him secrets -- specifically, where he can find himself, find a new self, in exchange for Kenneth letting him go. Kenneth agrees, and the coyote leads him across the waste to a spot that looks suspiciously like the spot in the desert where Kenneth was crippled and left for dead by Rossi. Except here there's a shallow grave with a shovel with a silver blade embedded in the ground. Kenneth asserts that he's proven himself as much animal as anything else and so he insists (by the Old Laws) that the coyote not betray him.[0]
He gets into the grave and even though the shovel doesn't move, there's the distinct sound of the dirt being shoveled over him as it moves of its own accord. He finds himself trapped in the confined space, barely enough room for one person, and in the darkness he feels himself and his geist compressed together, having to share one space, one body. He recognizes that this is the essence of synergy, and he digs himself out with a dramatic spray of dirt.[1] As he dusts himself off, he sees himself in the reflection of the shovel blade, and for a moment sees that he is the coyote.
He takes the shovel and the deer skin (which was neatly folded up on the ground nearby), and walks back to the gate at the river's edge. The old man is still there, and Kenneth gives him his flask of gin to thank him. He asks when the next boat arrives, and the man points out at the river -- where that same Ferryman floats as if he's been there this whole time. Kenneth comes aboard and bleeds into the bowl again and catches a lift back to the dead village. He trudges back to the Avernian gate, deer skin and shovel in hand. He then remembers that he either needs to use a Key to unlock the gate or perform a life-affirming celebration.
He grudgingly sings happy birthday to himself, and that's actually enough to get the gate open. He hates so much that that works, and is simply glad that nobody saw him do it.
And we left off there.
[0]-- I might be misremembering the exact timing of this statement, this might've been before letting the coyote lead him off.
[1]-- And now Kenneth has access to the Caul Haunt, which is why his player wanted to take him down there in the first place.
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