First off, I hope everyone had a pleasant holiday. We took a couple of weeks off because of Christmas-related schedule disruptions, but we're back now for the first post of 2021.
I can't recall anything else that needs to go here, so let's just get into the write-up.
So where we left off, Kenneth was shuffling back to the hotel, covered in dirt like Bride in Kill Bill, with a spectral deer skin slung over his shoulders and a silver-bladed shovel in one hand.[0] Eddy and Richard, naturally, have questions. Kenneth describes his little adventure in the Underworld, and between his story and Richard's encounter with the cop, Eddy feels like he's about to have an aneurism.
As Kenneth finishes telling his story, he asks for some bourbon ("Give me a shot of your best stuff because this dust in my throat is turning to brick.") and Eddy shares. Eddy's a little concerned that what Kenneth is describing, what with the shallow grave and all, is that he'd been effectively killed. Kenneth is insistent that what he's experienced is a symbolic death and rebirth. Eddy doesn't pretend to understand but he's glad that Kenneth is okay.
A call comes through for Richard while they're talking. A woman named Angela Rake got his number from another of his repair work clients and she has an emergency. Her washing machine is acting up, giving off sparks, making unholy noises. He can hear a loud grinding sound in the background. At first blush, it sounds like her washing machine is haunted. Eddy's worried that this is some sort of trap, or sting, but Richard wants to go check it out. Kenneth goes to get cleaned up at his room at the hotel.
Richard goes ahead and heads out to Angela's home. She takes him back to her laundry room, where she has one of those tub-style washers with the wringer on top. There's water and torn clothes scattered everywhere and there's scuff marks on the floor like it's been dragging around on the floor. Angela says that it kept going after she unplugged it. She also off-handedly mentions that she bought the washer at an estate sale about a month ago before she gives him some room to examine it in private. He tries whispering to it, trying to get the attention of any possible ghost slumbering inside, but he doesn't get a response.
He asks her if he can take it back to his shop for repairs because he doesn't have the tools or parts he needs on-hand. He also explains away the 'still moving after unplugged' thing as being possibly due to a faulty capacitor that could have held a charge. He heads out to his truck to get a dolly, and notices that his glovebox is open and it appears that someone has been rummaging through it. He makes a note of that and gets the washing machine loaded up, gives her an estimate, and says he'll have it back to her in a couple of days.
He takes the machine back to the hotel and wheels it down to the basement because he doesn't want to risk it ruining the hotel floors if it is haunted. He then informs whatever or whomever is in the machine that it's safe to come out. Nothing. He opens it up to give it a good once-over and finds that a wrench has been jammed into the motor, and he's definitely figuring that someone's putting one over on him. The detective, perhaps?
He heads upstairs and fills in Eddy and Kenneth. Kenneth asks if there was anything in the glovebox that he wouldn't want the police to see, but according to Richard it's just work gloves and the documentation from when he bought the trick, pretty much. No harm done. Eddy argues that as an illegal search it is 'harm done,' but Kenneth says they can't prove that.
On a hunch, Eddy gets Angela's address and looks her up in the phone book to make sure that it matches up with everything, that this wasn't actually Detective Popham's wife or something, that she actually lives there. The address matches up, though. Richard's plan is to fix the washer and see if she wants her wrench back. The others warn him to be careful, and Eddy decides to make a few calls and see if this could be anyone from the mob sniffing around.
Eddy goes ahead and puts out some feelers while Richard manages to get the washer fixed in about an hour. It's pretty simple, really. Basic repairs.
While this is going on, Kenneth gets a call from a Special Agent Milton asking about Richard's involvement in the case. Kenneth quickly gets a vibe that something is up -- this call isn't matching up with protocols, Milton's not acting the way an agent should be acting. Kenneth asks if he's got a case number, and the guy fumbles around for a minute or two before producing a number that's clearly bullshit. Kenneth then says he's going to have to call the man back and asks for his extention number. The man stammers before giving him another number that's obviously bullshit. Kenneth says he knows two Agent Miltons and asks for the first name of the man he's talking to. The guy hangs up in a panic.
He goes and gets Richard and brings him into Eddy's office where he regales the others with what he describes as the clumsiest attempt to impersonate an FBI agent in his life. But Kenneth knows the local cops well enough to be pretty sure this isn't one of them. (At the very least, it would be a much more competent impersonation.) But it also seems to be pretty clumsy for Rossi, so either it is Rossi and he's not putting his best people on this, or it's yet someone else with an interest in Richard.
They want to talk to Angela and spend some time figuring out how to go about doing it. Kenneth doesn't have any legal grounds to get involved in this. There's no way to do it civilly. Eddy toss out that they could just kidnap her. (It's tough to tell if he's joking or not.) Richard says he's made enough mistakes already, and Kenneth is uncomfortable, but Eddy goes on to describe a hypothetical kidnapping as if there's something brilliant about this they're not seeing. It's still unsure if he's kidding or just leaning into it to mess with them. Either way, they can't just openly question her.
They talk about maybe getting one or more of the krewe ghosts to help surveil Angela's house. Eddy's not sure that's going to be a great idea given that some of them are still upset with him after having them look in on Rossi's casino. Richard suggests pitching it as dealing with a possible threat to the hotel and those inside it, and he goes to round up a few of them.
Soon enough it's clear the idea has some traction, partially because this wouldn't involve everyone going out on what looks like a personal errand. One of the ghosts, a former performer and call girl named Rose, volunteers to watch the woman's house. They'd just have to get her anchor out there, which is simply a pearl necklace. Maybe they could stash it somewhere. Another ghost, Larry, suggests that Richard could hide the necklace in the guts of the washing machine and take it back (since it's already fixed). Larry suggests he tell her it's a temporary patch job while he sources some parts and he'll be back in a couple of days to properly finish the job, at which point he'll retrieve the necklace and bring it (and Rose) back to the hotel.[1]
Richard's got basically no trouble doing all of that as described. Easy-peasy, nothing weird.
While he's out, Eddy gets a call from an informant friend of his named Francis. Francis is calling from a pay phone to let him know that "Manny" Rossi is poking around the Bacchus wreckage all alone. He knows that Eddy and his friends have something going on with him and the guy who used to run Bacchus (Mel, if you've forgotten -- it has been a while). Eddy wants to wait for Richard to get back because he doesn't want to go out there alone. Kenneth wants to go right away because he doesn't want to risk Rossi wandering off before they get there. Kenneth decides to head out there right away and Eddy can catch up when Richard gets back.
He drives out to the site. The sun's creeping downward and the construction is done for the day. Most of the area is taped off, and much of the land is an open pit showing off the basement and foundation, with a few ruined scraps of the original structure still standing. Kenneth heads to the edge of the pit to find Rossi in the basement, poking through dust and bits of rubble with a stick, muttering to himself. The mob boss spots Kenneth as he heads for the stairs to climb out. They take a couple of steps back and have a bit of a bantery-chat.
I didn't exactly record everything for transcript purposes, but I got a few highlights down. I mean, they just have some typical back and forth banter, dancing around the issues between them. At one point Kenneth offers to help Rossi with whatever he's doing, with the shovel that he brought with him. He also apologizes for the whole mess with taking the slot machines. Manny just kind of shrugs and acknowledges that it's 'another step in the dance.' They talk about whether this whole mess is bigger than the two of them. Manny thinks it is. Kenneth says it's the size of them, but there are bigger things, like the city of Las Vegas, the state of Nevada...
Manny interjects to say that there's also the... and then he makes a sound like a combination of clearing his throat and radio static. Kenneth just looks at him, confused, and Rossi just goes "Huh."[2] Kenneth offers him a smoke, and he accepts. As they talk, Rossi mentions he was able to replace the machines for the moment with some stuff he had in storage in the back. The agent says he understands the need to do that and that he, too, is interested in 'the shape things take.'
They get to talking about Mel (still maintaining the pretense that Mel has left down and sold Manny the casino before he left) and Rossi asks what Kenneth thinks brought down the casino, whether it was the undetected fault line that's the official story. Kenneth says he thinks it was magic. This becomes a conversation over whether magic exists, and Rossi says that he believes there's magic in the city itself, that there's power there and in wealth. I can't remember how they get to specifically this subject, Rossi talks about how he and Mel had differences of opinion there. That Rossi believed that power is in building things up and Mel believed it was in breaking things down. Fortune tellers in general (and Talya in particular) come up at some point, and while they're talking Eddy and Richard show up.
Rossi's careful not to let any of the three of them out of his field of vision as they continue to speak. Mostly banter, and they talk about the theme of the hotel, about how Mel had plans to reopen the place as "Persephone's," and Rossi's plans to basically knock down the rest of the structure to build the place up fresh. (Of course, Eddy has plans to use earthquakes to knock down anything that gets built there by these gangster wizards for the indeterminate future).
Eddy and Richard stroll over towards the stairs leading down to the basement, curious to have a look around. Rossi goes out of his way to warn them that it's not his fault if they get hurt or something fiddling around down there, and it's clear it's more 'covering his ass for legal reasons' as opposed to threatening them with some sort of horrible accident. (After all, as we all know, horrible accidents are his stock in trade) Eddy uses Boneyard to feel out the area, but the only thing that stands out is the symbol in the basement floor -- which he realizes is actually part of the stone, not merely painted on.
As they head back up, Eddy comments that Mel was strange, using the past-tense, and Kenneth rolls his eyes and repeats that Mel is strange. Rossi agrees that Mel 'is' strange, and all but winks at them. The pretense that the krewe didn't kill Mel is getting thinner and thinner, and it felt (to me, at least) that one wrong word, one snappy comment, could have started the inevitable confrontation earlier than anticipated.
But Eddy just wishes him luck with the place, and they agree he can't do worse than the last guy. Rossi comments that Eddy would have said that regardless of where Mel is right now. He then says that he'd just been explaining to Kenneth that he and Mel had differences of opinion on what constitutes success, and what you do with wealth, and so on. He says that Mel was more interested in tearing things down whereas Manny is more interested in building them up.
And with Mel having moved on to greener pastures and out of his way, he is free to build as he pleases.
The others take their leave, Rossi sticking around to make sure he sees them go and isn't just leaving them there. Kenneth doubles back after a few more minutes and, seeing Rossi's car gone, goes to take another look at the basement. He's not sure what he's looking at, but there's a moment when the last rays of sunlight creep over the horizon that the symbol glows through the dust for just a moment. He copies down the symbol and leaves, the krewe now having plans to reach out to Carmen and Max Morgan to see if they've got any theories.
And we left off there. Later, folks.
[0]-- The deer skin exists in Twilight but is otherwise more or less mundane. Only ghosts, death-aspected spirits, and sin-eaters can see it. No special powers beyond that, but it's cool to have and could serve as something to trade or whatever. The shovel, however, is absolutely a memento with powers yet to be discovered.
[1]-- I'll admit this is me using my NPCs to throw the group a bone. It's not something I normally do, but it felt right in the moment.
[2]-- For those of you unfamiliar with Mage: The Awakening, Manny said something in High Speech (the language of Atlantis, which only mages can speak or understand when spoken) to test to see if Kenneth is a mage. Spoiler alert: He isn't.
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