Hoi, chummers. So, um, that was a week, wasn't it? Let's just get on with it.
So we pick up with Kenneth calling Max to ask about the symbols they saw him writing down when they were going over the slot machines, as a way of getting into the symbol in the Bacchus basement. They talk about ways Kenneth could let him see the symbol, but they talk around to getting Max to take a look if he comes out. Kenneth then comments on the building having been razed in a 'very localized earthquake.'[0] That seems to get Max's interest, and he'll look into going ahead and coming out, and they make vague plans to follow up.
After that, Kenneth asks the others if they have any way of contacting Carmen, Eddy pulls a card out of his rolodex and hands it over. Kenneth calls, an unfamiliar man picks up, and he just says to tell Carmen "her contact at the Crossroads" is on the phone since he doesn't know how much the guy he's talking to knows. The guy recognizes what he means and gets her. Kenneth then explains what he found in the basement of Bacchus.
He also asks her if she knows anything about the weird language Manny kind of squawked at him in. She knows what he's talking about, though she doesn't know anything about what the language is or how to understand it. She thinks it might be some spoken version of some of the runes they've seen associated with Rossi and Mel and their magic. This conversation segues[1] into how Mel worshipped some sort of deity, and Kenneth mentions that their geists are kinda like that, and Carmen clarifies that as powerful as geists are, what she's talking about regarding Mel is more of a "booming voice from the sky" type of god. She says it's like how there are Chthonic Gods that rule the Underworld. The conversation comes back around to the symbol in the basement, and Carmen says she'll probably go swing by the site and get a look for herself sometime that evening.
The krewe basically spends the rest of the evening getting caught up on work stuff (and, in Kenneth's case, going back to his replica Native crafts for his project with the guy at the tobacco store).
The next day Kenneth's copy of Max's report comes in. It's all good -- pretty much everything he wants it to say and nothing he doesn't. He makes a copy of it for good measure and stashes the original somewhere.
Carmen turns up at the hotel with what looks like a photo album tucked under one arm, and they all set up in a conference room so she can spread stuff out and all that. She shows them the various symbols she's copied down, stuff she's collected from Mel and other supernatural influences. She says that she thinks the symbol in Bacchus is actually a combination of three other symbols, and presents her renditions of them. She thinks the first is something representing death or the Underworld in some manner. The second she thinks reflects the Ruin, the name of the entity that Mel worshipped, sort of a god of entropy. The krewe asks if the Ruin is a threat, and she says that as far as she knows the rest of his coven is scattered to the winds so the Ruin's probably not any sort of threat at the moment.
This becomes a larger conversation about Mel, Manny, and wizards in general. They talk about the conflict between Manny and Mel, and at some point the Dealer comes up. (I'm not sure of the exact context of that.) This comes back around to the symbol and what it could mean, and what Manny might want with it. Carmen speculates that it might be something that might let someone access the Underworld -- they know Mel couldn't use it to open his own portals to the Underworld from scratch, because he didn't do that when Eddy was destroying the building. I can't remember exactly how they get to this, but the Avernian Gate in Nelson comes up, and they tell Carmen about the weird old men outside the cave. She suspects that the area was already touched by the Ruin, and that's likely what drew Mel's attention in the first place.
They then get into how the Underworld connects to other places, and Carmen mentions that she's been to the Neon Table, the casino Dominion where you can gamble for memories and mementos. Eddy doesn't get why anyone would go there, and she explains that there's a lot to be found there if you go looking for it. She mentions that, for instance, there's a casino chip found on Bugsy Siegel's corpse is supposedly a powerful memento floating around the casino. On that note, she heads out and says she's going to look more into the Bacchus symbol.
Shortly afterwards, Eddy hears back from his various underworld contacts, and learns that the head of the El Cortez's security, a man named Ed Sipes, was looking into Richard. It doesn't seem to be any sort of intense investigation, but probably just looking for some leverage to exploit. It looks like this is something he's looking into of his own accord. Eddy drags Richard into his office to fill him in. Richard vaguely recalls Ed from his dealings with the local mob. This is a problem, but it's not the police investigation that's rapidly becoming a hunter's crusade. Kenneth conveniently shows up and they fill him in (he knows Ed from his investigation, so that saves some time), and we left off there.
[0] -- At this time of year, at this time of day, in this part of the country, localized entirely in your kitchen?
[1] -- Usual 'I didn't record the conversation so I don't have a transcript or anything' disclaimer applies here.
No comments:
Post a Comment