scenes can be "fast-forwarded".
1. PUB. Federico meets Matteo in a smoke-filled pub. They have a
couple of beers. Matteo is Federico's local connections guy. He
knows who is cutting what deals in town. He knows people. And he
has been contacted by a Client. What is more unusual is the profile
of the client perhaps. Matteo recalls her platinum blonde hair,
expensive designer outfit, and oversized Christian Dior sun-shades
(to hide her face) when he met her at a cafe. She had his number
from an uncle she knew. She had a business rival to get rid of. No,
not to kill. She didn't want violence. But she did want her rival
ruined and unable to compete with her in the firm where they both
worked in. Some international hotel chain. The job sounded like the
type of thing that Federico specialized in. Matteo wouldn't take a
cut for a previous favor he owed Federico, but he saw the photo of
the rival, the Target for the job, and he thought she looked
smoking. He wanted a piece of her when Federico would finally have
her under his thumb. Federico has four weeks to find something on
the Target. If he found something worthwhile, Federico would meet
the Client and be paid in cash for delivering the Materials. The
Client would then determine whether or not to put Federico on a
retainer to continue his investigation.
2. APARTMENT. Grace emerges from the shower in a bathrobe. Putting
on her work clothes. She kisses goodbye to her boyfriend still in
bed. Boyfriend of the last six months. She had only moved to this
city about twelve months ago. Attempted to keep a low profile. Just
a receptionist job in a hotel, enough to pay her bills. Didn't want
to go out, didn't want to meet people. But was too hard. She
couldn't live like this. A friend introduced her to Mark. They
started dating. She was beginning to feel happy again ever since
the Incident. But Mark didn't know her past. She has been
tight-lipped. Wanted a fresh start. He said he understood.
3. HOTEL. Grace arrives in the hotel she is working at. She had
been promoted from receptionist to front desk service
representative within three months of working there - the
supervisor saw her potential. She was smart, and had an eye for
details. He could swear she had a design or marketing background
but she would smile cryptically when he pressed for details. If she
continued performing well, John (the supervisor) just might promote
her to Front Desk manager over Judy. Judy was efficient, but just
not well-liked by her colleagues. She was a snob. Grace on the
other hand was popular with the hotel staff, even the security
guards and bell-boys.
4. HOTEL. John is on duty one day at the hotel lobby, and is
approached by a man. The man tells him that he had something to
discuss, but wanted to meet him after his shift. John agrees to
meet the mysterious man at the location, more out of curiosity than
anything else. He said he had something to share regarding one of
his workers, Grace.
5. CAFE/PARK etc. Federico reveals he is a private investigator
[Federico feel free to modify the premise] investigating Grace.
John asks what about. [Fed to fill in the blanks through rp].
Federico enquires about the circumstances of her hiring by the
hotel (she was hired by John), what does John know about her,
encourages John to share any 'suspicions'. [Why would John reveal
such things to Federico? Up to Federico to fill in how he convinces
John to do so, and ensure that John does not give the slightest
hint to Grace.] John mentions some irregularities (not adverse) in
her credit report. She is "clean" so he hired her. She seemed very
earnest about wanting a job, and mentioned some personal
difficulties in why she left her home country to come here. John
cannot share a copy of the report with Federico. [From here on, Fed
has to decide whether to break into John's office to retrieve the
report, OR to make a trip to the agency. The sketch assumes the
latter.]
6. CREDIT AGENCY. Federico makes a trip to the credit agency. [To
be filled in by Federico. He either pays off someone to get a copy
of the report, or talks to some employee and cajoles him into
giving him the information.] He now has the first piece of the
puzzle, for the report gives him some insight on the places that
Grace had been last year, before coming into the country. The
Client would be interested in this.
7. JANUS OFFICE. Federico talks to a fellow investigator. They plan
to do two things. Follow Grace in her daily movement to find out
more - where she goes, who she meets, where she eats. [Grace to
fill in details.] Secondly, to break into her apartment to find
something. Not sure what. Perhaps to plant a bug or spy cam even.
Federico has been in this line too long to know two truths. One,
nobody is innocent. Two, if you don't find some dirt, you can
always create some. Everyone has two faces. Two sides to a story.
Hence the code name Janus, a reference to the two-faced Roman god.
They leave the office with the necessary equipment.
8. APARTMENT SEARCH. [This part isn't really a roleplay scene. More
like a scavenger hunt. Grace can hide clue number 2 somewhere for
Federico or his accomplice to find. They also discover her real
last name, which will no doubt be useful for future occasions.]
9. HOTEL. Grace gets a mysterious email at work. She opens it and
her blood runs cold.
Between part 8 and 9, there should be two clues to be gathered. One
from grace's apartment. The other from trailing Grace. Together
with clue number 1 which is the credit report, and possibly
something from the bug/spy cam, Janus will have 4 items to report
back to the Client with. The Client or Janus will then initiate
contact with the Target directly in part 9. This forms the basis of
the Blackmail.
Once the Blackmail has been executed initially, grace may be
subject to one or many of several possible outcomes
- Matteo wants a piece of her, as promised by Federico
- John may be brought into the plot as a conspirator to control
grace, depending on his desires and inclinations, and interaction
with Judy (maybe Judy will strike up a bargain with him eg. make
grace his sex slave and promote Judy)
- Judy wants to humiliate grace at work so that she would
automatically disqualify herself for promotion, possibly get fired.
Either to get her to do something clandestine and sexual like
sucking off all the bellboys and security guards and male
colleagues one by one. Or to humiliate her in 'public' settings eg.
make her wear ridiculously tarty outfits to meetings
- Federico can be asked by Judy to use grace's boyfriend Mark as
further threat against grace. Do xxx or Mark gets to see the photo
of you sucking so and so. Alternatively Mark may not be so
innocent. Maybe Janus gets photos of Mark having sex with Grace's
best friend at work
- Grace may be made by Federico to turn over blackmail material
from her previous experience with GS, which will create further
humiliation and leverage against her. This is the essence of Janus: the past and future is interlinked, or one interpretation is you
can't escape your past. So grace will continue to be blackmailed in
the future because of her past.
Am happy to furnish more ideas of what grace can be forced to do.
Always have many ideas on that, more than I can publish.
Dark Avenger
=======================
(posted by Federico)
About the Janus storyline
.. this is getting more of a sketch for an erotic novel than a plan
for roleplay. Oh my.
Well, first of all thanks to Sir Meth for the contribution. I like it
up to now, but I would do some adjustments - Grace setting the scene
in Sweden gave me some different ideas on how to involve Janus.
By the way, Sweden is a strange coincidence since the inspiration for
Janus itself came from my liking of a secondary character of the
Larsson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Armanskij, director of Milton Security), so the novels intersect our
narration again.
The point is that Abu//Federico (why he now is both characters has an
explanation that this margin is too small to contain) is too far to be
involved in first strike. So, both me and Dark/Meth have created
alternate characters to work out the connection.
The part of the "dark lady" is again a bit different in my imagination
- mainly because Grace's job was, in my interpretation of her
narrative, more low level than one could infer from Meth's story (she
mentioned also some concierge work). This could again depend on who
(if anybody) would play the part.
But a concierge-level employee would hardly reach up to a private eye
(in another country) immediately. What could she do? Well, at least in
Italy, what you do is resorting to the Union. Sweden has excellent
social services and I imagine unions to be powerful there too (though
this needs documentation). So, a corrupt union representative would be
the perfect link. Someone doing Union work normally, with sometimes
shady extensions; someone who could in fact be a contact of Federico.
So, that's Matteo job (perhaps we could change name to a Swedish name
- Gunther Larsson could be a fine choice).
Federico could be involved only later, when Gunther-Marco understands
that there is more to the case than meets the eye. Then Gunther could
make a phone call across the ocean.
The boyfriend was a good addition, I didn't think to have it actually
play a part.
We need also Grace's boss.. to reason, the Marco-Gunther union man
would go first to him. And with a strategy - that job comes with a lot
of negotiation skills, and lying becomes instinctive; he would seed
calumny. The first meeting could then be between them; John-Bedlam
would probably know Gunther already, and not trust him..
So many scenes to play, so little time.
================================
(posted by Dark Avenger)
The union rep works great. In fact, it lends itself to further humiliating scenarios - "Sorry Grace, I emphathise with your situation but I have to put your case in front of the union committee. You may want to be prepared to be called in front of the Committee to explain yourself, or at least the union chairperson, and convince them why..."
What I had in mind but did not articulate about Judy the rival / dark lady / client is that although she is quite low level in her current role in Front Desk, she actually comes from a rich family. Her uncle is on the board of trustees of the hotel (or something along those lines), but her father is very strict and does not want her to have a cushy job lined up for her (she had been pampered since young) just because of family connections, hence she has to prove herself by working up the career ladder. This makes Judy even more sore about Grace, whom she sees as a stumbling block on her road to eventually a high position in the hotel management hierarchy. Judy has also inherited some of the business ruthlessness of her mother, and learnt the importance of tapping on drastic measures - nevermind if the measures are on the brink of legal/illegal-ity.
Hope this helps. Feel free to improvise.
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