Anyhow, the short version is that we've had to end the Geist game early. I'm not going to get into the why, but I can provide some closure as to the story. We were close enough to the end that for the purposes of my notes, at least, I could describe the rough arc of the remaining session. I mean, we were at the point where all that was left was the 'boss fight' anyways. So I wrote up, in broad strokes so as not to assume too much specific action, roughly how the finale would have gone and as my players have not objected to my interpretation of events I'm sharing it here.
Think of this as being like a YouTube video showing you a video game's final cutscenes while skipping the actual battle.
So everything's lined up, it's all a matter of waiting for the warrants to go through. That takes a few days, but soon enough Kenneth is leading the state cops on a raid of the casino. Certain employees are arrested or detained. FBI technicians (Eddy and Richard among them as 'civilian consultants' because that's the best way to legally have them in the building) come in and start taking away the slot machines. While it's known for a fact that Rossi is in the building, he's difficult to find at first. But thanks to Eddy's reconnaissance, Kenneth knows where to find Rossi's ledger. Of course, the tricky part is getting anyone to notice it enough to properly acknowledge it as evidence, but that's a 'cross that bridge when they come to it' thing.
Eventually, they find Rossi trying to sneak out of the casino. After a brief chase by our intrepid trio, a convenient floor collapse (due to weak spot from recent renovations, facilitated by Fate magic for a safe place for a confrontation) dump the four of them in the half-finished basement, away from any civilians. So here we have the boss fight.
The 'twist' is that Rossi's already gotten a massive charge from the casino-battery, that manifests in a magical field around him. When he gets going, it looks like motes of gold dust floating around him... until the fighting starts. Then the gold dust briefly collects into solid shapes to block attacks or form projectiles he can launch as ranged attacks (mostly shaped like fists and blades). In addition, he has his regular spellcasting, which because he's an Acanthus is mostly buffs and debuffs. But the magical field basically gives him a free ranged attack per turn and a bunch of extra 'health levels.'
(At some point, if I could find a way to activate it without being too forced, I'd arrange circumstances to reveal why Rossi didn't use magic to kill Kenneth -- the elaborate magical working he used to ensure his success had a Doom, which meant everything would fall apart if he ever directly uses Fate magic against someone with a badge. In the fight, the spell would backfire on him and a bunch of stuff would stop working.)
But eventually they would wear down the protective field he's got from the casino-battery, which means he'd stop and tap it to recharge... at which point the pendant Eddy stashed in the machine would come into play. It would short-circuit the magic, and a portal to some dark, evil place the characters can't even comprehend would open. Rossi, terrified, would hear a voice speaking to him and some force would strike him down before the portal closes. It wouldn't kill him, but it would at least temporarily sever his connection to his Exarch. He'd be completely without his magic for a little while, long enough to be properly brought into custody. It'd be easier to do so at this point since one way or another, by now the effect hiding the ledger would have fizzled out.
And that would be it. I mean, there'd still be his trial ahead, but I wasn't planning on dealing with that -- for the purposes of the game, once he was behind bars, he'd find himself cut off from resources both mundane and magical and everything else would be entirely background stuff. The syndicate would cut him off, and his fellow Seers of the Throne would expect him to bust himself out of jail if he thought he was deserving of freedom.
Regardless, the group has basically won. Kenneth would have gotten most if not all of his FBI status back in short order. Eddy's new-ish mob buddy Kevin Moreno would step up to take Rossi's position in the organization, and he'd bring Eddy in closer and put him in charge of a crew of his own. The raid would reveal that Rossi had in fact acquired all of those rigged slot machines, which means over the course of the investigation they'll be confiscated, eventually dismantled for analysis, and afterwards sold for scrap and spare parts, fulfilling Richard's goal of getting them off the street forever.
And that's it, not much more I can add or say at this point. It'd be nice if things had turned out differently, but them's the breaks. But I at least wanted to post something here for closure's sake, and if anyone is reading these I'll let you know when the next thing starts up (circumstances have plans up in the air at the moment).
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