[sub]WIP posted. Patience appreciated.[/sub]

[center][img]https://i.postimg.cc/QdXfygTW/witwc.jpg[/img][/center]

[center][i]“History belongs to the world.
Beauty belongs to the living.
If you lock it in a vault, don’t be surprised when a woman in red picks the lock.”[/i]
[color=lightgray][sub]— Handwritten message left by [b]C. San Diego[/b]. Evidence serial CSD-IP-0051-A435.[/sub][/color][/center]


[color=lightgray]It didn’t matter where you came from. If you were among the best at tracking criminals, analyzing crime, and catching thieves, you got the call: an invitation to join Interpol’s newly formed, fully funded task force known by its acronym, ACME (Allied Cyber Monitoring Enterprise). 

You and your team are the front line, dispatched across the globe and tasked with bringing in the world’s most elusive thieves.
ACME has already put away some very big names.

But now the biggest name of all has reappeared in grand fashion. Under immense pressure from national governments, museum boards, private security firms, and the embarrassed billionaires whose vaults she has treated like revolving doors, ACME gets the first chance to answer the question everyone is asking across the globe:

[i]Where in the world is Carmen San Diego?[/i][/color]

[hr]
[color=lightgray]Three big collaborative scenes (first robbery/encounter, second robbery/encounter, encounter) before a final confrontation/conclusion, and a wrap-up. 

What is collaborative, what is solo posted, depends on the players involved. 

Small number of players wanted; two, maybe three, not including myself.

Yes, each major plot point has been at least loosely mapped out.

No, that doesn't mean the story is pre-determined. Plot points may be mapped out, to a point, but the story stays loose enough that player choice ultimately decides the fate of those involved.

Yes, there will be multiple clues with multiple hints at where Carmen is for that case, leading to a potential showdown, or an idea where she might be headed next. No, I don't care if you Google/AI/whatever the clues. It's a RP game. I'm just trying to throw out some fun, lesser seen ideas.

As a sample, the first case mini-brief:[/color]

[hider=The Timbuktu Manuscript Affair]

[center][h2]ACME CASE DOSSIER - CASE FILE: CSD-001[/h2]
[h3][i]"The Timbuktu Manuscript Affair"[/i][/h3][/center]

[b]Primary Target:[/b] Carmen San Diego
[b]Known Alias:[/b] The Woman in Red
[b]ACME Classification:[/b] International Cultural Theft / Illicit Antiquities Trafficking / Cyber-Financial Laundering
[b]Case Priority:[/b] Red
[b]Assigned Unit:[/b] ACME Field Team One

[h2]CRIME SCENE REPORT[/h2]
Recovered from the marble floor of a private vault beneath Geneva, Switzerland:

[center][i]“Burn a library and you murder memory.
Buy one and bury it, and somehow they call you a patron.”[/i]
[sub]— Handwritten message attributed to [b]C. San Diego[/b]. Evidence serial CSD-IP-0001-A001.[/sub][/center]

The message was found resting on an empty archival display stand. The stand previously held Manuscript TMK-1138, a 16th-century West African legal and astronomical text believed to originate from the Timbuktu scholarly tradition.

The owner of the vault, billionaire logistics magnate Alban Voss, claims the manuscript was purchased legally through a private antiquities broker in 1998. The paperwork is immaculate.

[i](Off record comment: Which, in ACME’s experience, usually means someone spent a great deal of money making it that way.)[/i]


Timbuktu was once a major center of scholarship, trade, manuscript production, Islamic learning, law, astronomy, poetry, theology, medicine, and intellectual exchange. Its manuscript libraries do not merely preserve old books. They preserve evidence of a civilization thinking in its own hand.

TMK-1138 contains three significant features:[list]
[*] A legal commentary on inheritance and trade disputes. 
[*] Astronomical tables used for religious and navigational timekeeping. 
[*] A chain of ownership marks showing the manuscript passed through several known families of Timbuktu scholars. [/list]

The final ownership mark is damaged.

Or rather, it was thought to be damaged.

ACME analysts believe Carmen may have discovered that the “damage” is artificial, potentially a deliberate scraping meant to conceal the last legitimate owner before the manuscript entered the private market.

In summary, team:

This manuscript may prove that Voss’s entire Timbuktu collection was laundered.

Not stolen by a masked burglar in the night. Stolen by paperwork.

Carmen, naturally, appears to have objected. Either way, the Swiss want Alban’s property returned. Get to the bottom of it.[/hider]