Sin City: Probable Cause (Geist)

Hey there, folks. We had to cancel last week so that's why there's the little bit of a gap, but now I'm back with more Geist-y goodness.

As I have no particular news or commentary to add, let's get into it.

So we pick up where we left off, with Kenneth giving Carmen a call to come out and look at the pendant they yanked out of the Neon Table. And like them, she has trouble looking at it from certain angles without getting a headache. She asks where they got it, and Kenneth tells her they got it from a spirit in the Underworld that took it from a dead wizard. She assumes, correctly, that the 'dead wizard' is Mel. She's seen glimpses of the shapes the pendant makes in runes from wizards of whatever Manny's faction is[0], but even then most of them try not to acknowledge or see it, like it's forbidden. She thinks it might represent some disruptive force (if I remember the elements of the conversation correctly).

But in discussing the pendant the symbols making it up, they segue into a conversation about the slot machines at the El Cortez and the special arrangement of the rigged ones. Carmen takes a look at the notebook of symbols that Kenneth borrowed from Max, comparing them with her own occult notes, and she thinks she's got at least part of Rossi's plan figured out: He's going to turn the casino into a battery. Somehow the slot machines are going to draw power from the people playing them -- not in a literal life-draining way, but perhaps drawing power from the symbolism of people putting money into them or something like that[1] -- and become a battery of power that Rossi could draw on. Combined with whatever weirdness he's going to do with his basement renovations, likely involving something involving bits of the symbol from the Bacchus basement, the running theory is that Rossi's going to have his magical battery, and some sort of summoning circle, and then, well... Bad Things™ will happen.

Kenneth talks about how they could arrest him and potentially put a stop to it now, that they've just got just enough to justify the warrant and arrest him and search the casino, but not enough to make it stick unless they find something really incriminating in the casino. And Kenneth is, naturally, reluctant to make such a risky move without some guarantee of success. If they could prove just exactly how many slot machines he's got rigged to rip people off, that's potentially something, but possibly not enough.

Carmen points out that if they could smuggle that pendant into one of the machines and then get him to actively tap the battery to draw on its power, that might disrupt the magical battery and everything tied to it. Kenneth says they could reassemble the confiscated machines (which his office is getting calls about at this point) with the pendant inside, but they couldn't guarantee that he'd put those specific machines right back out on the floor unless he needed to. Eddy suggests he could possibly get a pendant into one of the machines, and doing so wouldn't have any larger possible implications for the case in of itself (as opposed to, say, evidence with a shady provenance).[2]

Of course, there's the question of how to get him to draw on the battery enough to trigger the effect. Kenneth suggests that trying to arrest him and making him defend himself would likely do it, but he doesn't want to make a move before he legally can. The point is still to arrest him, take apart his operation, use what they find on him against the larger world of organized crime, and all that. Not just have him vanish without a trace to be replaced by someone else.

Carmen suggests they've got time to work something out given that he's going to need time to redo the basement, but they talk about how they could slow that down. Eddy suggests having Kenneth put bureacracy on it to "[Do] what the government does best: Take a simple thing and complicate it." And Kenneth could probably throw some weight around and cause some stoppages, and Carmen remarks that he could even just drag employees away for questioning and that would slow things down. Kenneth likes the idea, and suggests waiting until they begin a day's work and then doing that with a supervisor or something.

Carmen then asks about the notebook that Kenneth has, and that leads into a discussion about how whether Max is a normal human or not, and Kenneth says that he hopes he is because he's tired of running into wizards and trolls and everything else. She hands the notebook back to him and tells him to hang onto it before she finds some excuse to spend hours going over it. But then she reiterates, as she's getting ready to leave, that if they can get the amulet into the battery and make him draw on it, there'll probably be one hell of a light show. Eddy comments that he could hit the El Cortez like he did Bacchus to make Rossi draw on power to defend it, but Carmen points out that Bacchus was empty and the El Cortez -- being a functioning and open casino-hotel -- is likely full of people, and Eddy concedes the point. But with that, Carmen leaves and bids them adieu and wishes them luck.

Kenneth decides to get on the phone and get the ball rolling on getting an arrest warrant issued so he can basically move at any time. The krewe talks about getting Eddy into position to plant the amulet and maybe snoop around the casino to verify there'll be a smoking gun if they go looking. Eddy says he'll do it in exchange for another case of that olive oil he can sell. Kenneth, annoyed, says he'll figure something out if Eddy can find him anything good.

So while Kenneth's on the phone, Eddy goes out to the El Cortez with Richard in tow to potentially provide a distraction. They go in and Eddy makes a beeline for the slots, picking one of the machines he knows was put up to replace the ones they took out because they know that's one of the ones with runes in the casing. He starts playing while Richard heads to the bar. He has the amulet in his pants pocket and he's got a plan to get it to the floor through a hole in his pocket and down his pants leg, and then use Marionette to levitate it up into the workings of the machine. As a distraction, Richard activates the Dirge to sing and draw everyone's attention.

And it works, and Eddy can lift up the machine just enough to tuck the pendant inside through the bottom of the slot machine cabinet. However, Richard's distraction works too well -- Ed Sipes, Rossi's head of security (who was likely behind the attempt to impersonate an FBI agent and get info on Richard), notices Richard. Now, of course, Richard wants to be noticed. Slight problem, though, is that Ed knows who Richard is and is looking at him like he knows that Richard is doing something interesting and is able to resist the mind-control effect.[3]

Richard panics and uses Marionette to trip Ed while he makes a run for it. This gives Richard enough running room to slip away and definitely causes enough commotion for Eddy to escape unseen. They meet back at the car and return to the hotel, where Kenneth has finished his phone calls and put on a pot of coffee.

The pair fill Kenneth in on what happened, and Kenneth opines that Richard might be a little too quick to resort to supernatural methods but it's the results that matter and no real harm seems to be done. So unless Rossi has a reason to move the machines around (and even if he did, he's not going to move a 'marked' machine out of the magical pattern in any case), there shouldn't be a problem. And Rossi still doesn't know what they're up to, at least not yet.

Kenneth asks Eddy if he was able to find any incriminating documents, but he didn't have the chance. Kenneth asks if he thinks he'd be able to try again, and Eddy answers in the affirmative but they can't rely on Richard for a distraction since he's been made. Kenneth does ask Eddy to go in and take a look as soon as he feels safe attempting it, because as soon as Kenneth knows that what he needs will be found in the building (probably Rossi's office), he'll be able to make a move. Eddy says he'd do it now, if they had any way to make sure Rossi is out of his office.

Kenneth has an idea. He heads out to the El Cortez and grabs the guy supervising the renovation (Kevin, whom he previously met at Bacchus) and gets him to stop work while he drags him off to go over permits and paperwork. He takes him to a diner a block or two away to buy him dinner as he does so to make it up to the fact that this guy is just doing his job. He then calls the hotel to inform Rossi that he's going to need him to come down and verify his signature on some of these documents. Out of respect he doesn't want to publicly embarrass Rossi in front of a bunch of people by grabbing him directly, so he's going to need him to come down to the diner. He can practically hear Rossi's eyeroll over the phone but soon enough Eddy sees him leave the hotel.

Eddy uses the Caul to become a swarm of mosquitoes and flies over to the hotel to sneak in via a vent. As he knows the layout of the place from prior reconnaissance he manages to get into the office, where he reforms. He uses the Boneyard to link up with the room, becoming aware of everything in it in an attempt to find something incriminating, like your classic 'ledger with illegal financial info in it.' The office is actually pretty boring -- typical stuff, desk, bookshelf, artsy framed photos on the walls. There's a hidden safe behind one, but what draws his attention is that thanks to a very good roll, he can sense a notebook in the safe that's being hidden by magic. He doesn't know what's in there, but it's the only thing in the office that Rossi has any sort of supernatural protection on. He resists the urge to take it because he knows Kenneth needs to find it there (and getting it out might be a problem anyways), but now he knows it's there and it doesn't matter how Kenneth knows it's there as long as he finds it during an official search. So Eddy re-bugs himself and escapes.

Meanwhile, at the diner, Rossi is going over paperwork with Kenneth, very grumpy but compliant. As he finishes up, he gives Kevin a glare that says 'fuck you, you could have stopped this' and leaves. Kevin, who's eyes have slightly glazed over during all this, snaps to attention, gathers up everything, and leaves. 

Kenneth sticks around just in case, has a piece of pie and a damn fine cup of coffee, and leaves as we call it there.

[0]-- I believe we got into a little bit of a tangent about there being wizard factions at all, but to be honest Carmen doesn't know that much detail about mage society, because for the most part she hasn't had reason to find out.

[1]-- While symbolism and its meaning are sometimes themes that pop up in Mage: The Awakening, admittedly this goes a little deeper down the magical rabbit hole than fits the game's default setting (until you hit the higher tiers of magical reality). It veers a little into Mage: The Ascension's Syndicate faction of the Technocracy drawing power from wealth itself. And this is partially deliberate that I'm blurring the line, but also leads to kind of a happy accident with the character: Rossi has no desire to ascend to the heights of power, only make his own magical life easier, but by doing so he's unintentionally brushing up against some of the stuff that sends mages across the threshold into Imperial Magic. He's not going to become an archmage or anything like that during the scope of the Geist game unless something goes horribly wrong, but part of me kinda likes the idea of a character who's coming close to accidentally becoming far more powerful than he wants to be.

[2]-- If Rossi's people find out about the pendant (and at some point in the future they likely will, hopefully when it's too late), what are they going to do? Have his lawyer file a motion to dismiss the charges on the grounds that one of the investigators fucked up the defendant's dark magic?

[3]-- So, fun fact, mages can detect when people are using supernatural powers. They also have a Gnosis stat that helps them resist stuff like mind and emotion-control effects. Related note, Ed's a mage. Fortunately for Richard he doesn't have any dots in the Death arcanum, so he doesn't know what he's looking at, but he knows that Richard's doing something.