Boston, MA: March 8th 2065

Agent Russell tugged absent mindedly at the glowing corporate sponsorship badges that adorned his Federal Law Enforcement uniformed. The pulsating blue, red and green lights from the digitized holo ads cast festive shadows across the face of the stone man that sat in front of Agent Russell.

'I never thought somebody would get turned to stone in the daylight,' mused the cherub like police officer. 'Night time sure, I could see it. But at 50,000 yen a head brunch at 10 in the am...just doesn't strike me as....you know...the way people should get petrified.'

Agent Claire Suvas listened absentmindedly as she cruised the matrix looking for a Private Consulting firm to investigate this murder. Agent Russel tapped the fork in victim's hand, the slice of catenlope in its prongs and the piece of true silverware fell to the floor. 'Hey don't mess with the crime scene until the PCs get here,' shouted Suvas.

Russell shrugged in response, 'I am guessing he was cursed or something, just ran out of time. I wonder what he was looking at when he-'

There was a loud crash as agent Russell;s petrified corpse crashed into the still set table. Agent Russell had been leaning across the table, and leveling his face with the victims when he turned. He was too poorly balanced to be left free standing, and the recently alive stone statue crashed into the table and knocked the petrified victim onto the marble floor. The two fossilized men crack and shatter into a fascinating pile of stone limbs and organs. At just that moment the Private Consultants hired to investigate this murder walk in to the room.

Set-up:

Bernard Hoistman (victim) was a famous ladies man and headhunter. He travelled around the world stealing talented individuals from their current jobs, and enticing them to go work for the competition. He specialized in exploiting contract loopholes, and giving the individual very personal hard sell. He had made a lot of enemies in his work. On March 8th he was attending a fundraising brunch for a new women's history museum that would be entirely virtual. The visitors would learn what it would have been like to actually to live as a women in various time periods and around the world.

Bernard knew nobody personally at the brunch, but had purchased his ticket months ago. Bernard was sitting in the middle of long regtanular table that sat 52 people when his flesh turned to stone in an instant. The incident occurred during the keynote speakers talk regarding the changing views of the female body through out time.

Clues:

Bernard was a freelancer working out of Atlanta, but his trip to Boston and been funded by a corp called A.

Corp A specialized in product AA.

The chief corporate sponsor of this event was corp B.

Corp B buys product AA.

Bernard had been having an affair with the junior CFO-from corp B.

Bernard's junior CFO is not at the brunch.

The husband of the junior CFO from corp B was sitting next to Bernard.

Bernard had an appointment to meet with an employee of Corp B named Carab.

Carab was not at the brunch, but many of Carab's friends and co-workers where there. Bernard was gathering information on Carab, indirectly from his friends and co-workers. This is a classic headhunter technique.

The police officer that turned to stone had looked directly into Bernard's stone eyes. Inside the stone pupils of both Bernard's and police officer eyes are the Runes of the Gorgon. The Gorgon Rune is powerful magic. Whenever somebody sees a complete Gorgon rune they are turned directly to stone. This new stone form of this also has the gorgon etched in their pupils. A skilled magic scholar should be able to figure that out.

Thus Bernard was killed by looking at a Gorgon Rune.

Aside from the eyes in the corpse there are no Gorgon Runes in the room.

Sitting directly across from the CFO's husband was a beautiful woman not associated with corp B. She was wearing a very old-fashioned conservative gown.

Her name is Cleo Thamatopodus. She is a headhunter. She was hired by Corp C (located on the island of Crete) to steal Carab from Corp B.

Cleo Thamatopodus has a bombshell body, curvy, busty and tall.

Subsequent events:

Carab gets poached by corp C via Cleo and moves to Crete.

Bernard's life insurance agency puts out huge bounty on finding his killer. Bernard had some weird quadruple indemnity clause about being turned to stone, eaten or immolated.

The CFO's husband will try to destroy Bernard personal data link that is now in the hands of the PCs.

An interview with Cleo will reveal her to be an attractive conservatively dress women that lies well. She claims she was planning to blackmail Bernard about his relationship with the CFO to give up his run at Carab. She will offer up all the information about Bernard and the CFO.

Facts that come up:

An inspection of the CFO's activity will that she was feeding Bernard confidential information about Corp B.

The husband and the CFO are red herrings.

The last known use of a Gorgon rune, and the last fully formed Gorgon rune was associated with series of murders like this in Turkey 20 years ago. They were labelled gang related in Ankara and never solved. But they stopped.

The only name associated with the Gorgon Rune on file is the leader of the gang that was attacked:Kiaser So-He Say

A picture of half the rune can be found in Turkish criminal records.

More Subsequent events:

With a trip Ankara the PCs will easily find the former gang leader connected to the killing. His name is Kiaser So-He Say and he is now a well to do fertilizer importer sub-contracting to Corp C . Kiaser will meet the PC in a public place. A chain Tea Market and Day care center that if full of poorly supervised children. Kiaser will explain that there was only one woman who knew how to draw the Rune. She ran a rival gang, and would find ways to draw the rune on peoples toilet paper or at the bottom of coffee cups. 'Sick shit'. She was greek-vietnamese her name was Ang Stepholpolous.

As So-He Say is about to finish his story he is turned to stone.

Children will try to approach the statue. This should slow the PCs down don't so they don't catch Cleo at this point

Cleo is Ankara when this goes down. She was at the Tea Market wearing the same dress she wore to Brunch if the PCs don't see her there here they should be able to figure out she was/is in town.

More Facts:

Another man was turned to stone this was in Los Angeles a few days before Ankara. He was also a headhunter. Cleo was officially in San Diego at the time

It will be possible to break into Cleo's hotel room in Ankara. The dress is hanging up in there. It is magic.

Cleo has hired a bodyguard for Ankara. He is tough.

Ang Stepholpolous runs a tattoo parlor in Athens.

Ang Stepholpolous's tattoo parlor is called the Gorgon's Den.

An expert search for information regarding fabric or the details of the dress would find a Roma woman on Crete that works with fabrics and patterns like the dress.

The Roma woman is named Suffant Eclipse.

Possible Subsequent Events and even more facts :

Ang Stepholpolous is blind has no fingers. So-He Say cut out her eyes and fingers when he caught up with her twenty years ago. He also killed her husband and son.

Ang runs the tattoo parlor with her two sisters.

Assuming that So-He Say is dead Ang can be bribed, bluffed or intimidated to give up the story. She taught her sisters each to draw half the rune. They cover half the rune with tape and then tattoo the other. She agreed to tattoo Cleo's breasts with the rune if Cleo would kill So-He Say.

Suffant Eclipse is even more agreeable. She had met Cleo when they were both part of the Greek special forces (they specialized in room sweeping and house raids). After Suffant Eclipse left the military she started studying the arcane arts and is very proud of her flirting dresses. She makes one a year. They can be bought for fifty million yen. She gave Cleo her first one as a gift.

Ang's sisters didn't know the nature of the rune only that its was magic. They do minor magic runes in halves like that all the time.

Ang and her sisters will not sell the rune no matter what, they'd rather die than spread evil further.

New developments

The insurance company needs proof that Cleo did it. Digitial confirmation of the rune will work.

There is a market of people that will buy the rune, if it is delivered carefully

Other groups of freelancers are now looking into the 'Gorgon Murders'. These other groups may even try to buy the PCs information. If the PCs don't act quickly other groups will sweep in and snipe the commissions

There is brewing conflict between the insurance company and corp A, B, and C. If the insurance company can find clear convincing evidence that a Corp killed Bernard as part of a for profit effort than they can sue the Corp for damages. The insurance company wants the PCs to find 'proof' that Bernard was killed by one of the corps. Alternatively, the corps could offer a reward to if the PCs can ensure that Bernard's death was a result of private interests.

Final Showdown:

By now the PCs have figured out Cleo is killing the competition using Gorgon Runes and flirting dresses. Assuming they haven't sold out or framed somebody else for the killing they should go confront her and try and capture her. When they confront her she goes ballistic breaking out the automatic shotguns and going into battle topless. The PC should be able to deal with her easily if they can avoid looking at her chest.

Login or Register to Award axlerowes XP if you enjoyed the submission!
XP
105
HoH
0
Hits
3,791
? axlerowes's Awards and Badges
Longest Comment 2010 Dungeons of the Year 2010 Most Comments 2012