Episode 1 - Luck of the Black Cat

Day 1 – The Warmth (~2:30)

[Scene opens: busy Tokyo office, camera pans over rows of desks → fluorescent buzz, papers stacked]

At the boss’s desk; paperwork stacks on the corners of his desk almost block his vision: his colleague is getting scolded as she is attempting to formally apologize.

Boss (Accusatory)
“Pathetic. Can’t you even do this correctly? You can't be this worthless, right!?” 

She is visually distressed.

Boss (Agitated)
“Kazuha! Get your ass over here!”

Kazuha rushes up to the boss’s desk standing next to his colleague.

We don’t hear the rest of the complaint — cut away.

Next scene:

Kazuha is walking her back to her desk. She’s trying to hold it in, on the verge of tears, sniffling. She sits down and grabs a tissue.

He sits the in the chair next to her attempting to comfort her.

Kazuha
“Don’t let him get to you. Everyone makes mistakes, hell even me! You’re doing fine.”

She forces a smile while wiping any moisture from her eyes. A quick montage of computer typing and paperwork filing.

Kazuha offers to help stack her files, but she waves him off with a giggle. She relaxes a little, her smile soft but fragile. They are conversating in the break room, smoke can be seen from a lit cigarette that has been left in the tray by the window.

Kazuha
“Wanna catch dinner or something? My treat.” 

Her smile grows a little bit more as she nods. 

Colleague (happily)
“Sure I’d like that.” 

The camera dims as the hustle and bustle or the corporate work life continues.

[Small restaurant scene, warm lights, bowls of ramen steaming being plated, beers and sake are delivered to a nearby table]

Colleague
“You honestly don’t have to treat me, senpai. It’s just nice to do more than just go home after work.”

He grins with his hand behind his head and a quiet chuckle.
Kazuha
“Nah, you earned it. You’re doing great.”

After the meal. They step out onto the walkway shuffling their feet at a meek pace 

Kazuha
“I had fun. Shall I walk you towards your home?”

Colleague (Blushing) 
“No thank you, but I’ll see you at work tomorrow. Thank you again for the meal.”

Kazuha (With a dejected smile)
“…Yeah. Can’t wait.”

Camera follows as they split at the crosswalk. She giggles softly, walking into the neon-lit street. He lingers, watching her with a small smile as she faded into the distance.

Day 2 – The Break (~2:00)

It is morning now. She is at the boss’s desk again, trembling, handing him a coffee cup. The boss slams it down. A scowl across his face is sheer displeasure.

Boss
“Cold! Did I ask for cold fucking coffee!?”

She cowers behind his beratement.

Kazuha’s fists tighten under his desk, jaw clenched. He looks like he’s about to stand up.

Boss’s shoots a glare across the office like he was daring Kazuha to do something. → Kazuha freezes, just staring at the situation.

She glances back at him, her eyes pleading for help. He lowers his head and settles back down in his chair; Pathetic.

As she turns from the boss' desk, pale, shaken and completely discouraged. She proceeds to conduct her own 'walk of shame' back to her desk. She is clutching her stomach. This time the tears are flowing freely.

Colleague (distraught yet quiet)
“I… I’m not feeling well.” 

She leaves office floor with haste. Avoiding eye contact with anyone.

Boss (chuckling to himself like he was proud)
"Damn rookies. Kazuha, I still need that work done! We have deadlines!"

The hours fly into the evening as one-by-one the employees leave for the day. Kazuha sits alone in the empty office. He is stressed about the workload he still has.

Papers piled high on different desks, clock ticks past 7, then 8, then 9, at the clock strikes 10.

He finishes both of their workloads. Exhausted, he places the later piece of paper into a folder and flops back into his chair. Eyes looks dry and dull as his vision pans over to the clock.

You only hear the ticking of the clock as the empty room echoes the sound. He sighs, pulls himself to his feet and drags himself toward the train station.

Death (~0:30)

The station is empty. A fluorescent glow, vending machines buzz fills the air.

Kazuha stumbles forward on the platform, eyelids heavy, hallucinating flashes of standing up to the boss. Replaying scenes in his head to where he steps up to the boss to give a piece of his mind and to the aid of his colleague.

Kazuha (Exhausted)
"One day, I'll march right up to his desk and..."

Suddenly → headlights bear down, a horn pierces the quiet night.

Kazuha's silhouette in front of the blinding train light.

Screen cuts to black.

[Golden 20 sided dice with white numbers rolls across the screen. Lands on 1]

Visceral blood splatters across the dice.

[5:00 – 6:00 | Overworld Exposition]

[Kazuha/Darin’s voiceover, slightly detached, like waking from a dream]

Quick overview: A statless girl is being beaten in the streets. The Guild shuttling statless porters into the Guild Halls to be rented out to adventurers. Statless waitstaff at a restaurant getting berated as they, men and women both, get sexually harassed.

Kazuha (Foreboding)
“This world feels just the same as mine old one… only here, the cruelty wears no mask.”

Narration over visuals of fantasy city, adventurers, and statless being shoved aside in the streets. A silent auction is taking place as men and women as chained and stripped naked, being showcased to their new potential owners. Each statless missing a certain color on their crest as well as the lines connected to the missing color have dissolved. 

Kazuha (V.O.):
“This world runs on numbers. Strength, speed, intellegence… all given at birth, displayed on your chest. You can improve your stats but that takes months and even years to do. Death oddly enough is a weird subject. You CAN be resurrected. However, the time to be resurrected can expire. The price? You lose a piece of yourself: a stat point, you become weaker, dumber or frailer. The system decides that fate for you. And if one of your stats hit zero? That's it, your life is forfeiture. You become what is called ‘statless’. Treated less than human. Slaves. Tools. Trash merely to be used or discarded. Death is permanent for the statless, you become tangible property with no will or voice of your own.”

"You lose your memories, your belongings, but even worse... your name. Your existence is wiped, you aren't even recognizable by others."

You see a person being revived but one of their stats fade from the pentagram on their chest as the lines disconnect from the faded stat.

A scene of a beaten statless being dragged away with their wrist by a guard, a tavern statless slapped and berated for breaking a plate.

Kazuha (V.O.):
“In my old world, I was a coward. A wannabe hero without a spine. Now I was given another chance… this time I swore I’d be different. I swore to be better. Yet... I have lived in this world for 10 years. I'm still   the nail that sticks out gets hammered down.”

The camera pans back showing the entire town. The name town's name "Chardinal" in golden bold letters appears on the screen. As the name fades the camera zooms down through the streets where you see citizens walking the streets as the camera zooms past them all and out of town. You see lush land as the camera zooms down the traveled path it winds up at a cavern like opening but the opening is decorated showing the entrance was man made. The camera zooms past the threshold and past monsters and creatures as it finally meets the party engaged in combat.

[6:00 – 11:30 | Dungeon Party Build-Up]

New adventurer team, cocky leader boasting as you see the team taking out some common enemies. They look seasoned with their communication and actions, but they have practiced a lot before actually facing the reality of the dungeons.

~Newbie adventurers 4 with 1 Stateless girl with zero Dexterity (cannot fight). She is carrying the loot that has been obtained thus far, and they are doing well. She also is carrying potions and tools the party had purchased for the run. The leader walking forward turns his head to glance at his party while boasting about their run so far not paying attention to the path ahead of him. ~

The Porter trudging silently, black aura flickers (only visible to the audience). A Black 20-sided dice in the bottom left corner is rolled. The dice is of a void of color shell with red numbering.

~While the camera is fixated on the company behind the leader you see a blackish aura glimmer then fade away from the porter. (This aura will always be unnoticeable by people in this world but always shown to the audience) ~

Knight
“I don’t understand why everyone calls you ‘Black Cat’. You’re more like a good luck charm with all the treasure we found so far!” 

Young Fighter
“And cheap!” “you’re stronger than you look that’s for sure.” 

The hunter is glancing around surveying their surroundings. The mage is also quiet but the furthest back of the party. The porter is in the back in case they get ambushed.

Quick character sketches of the party showing their inexperience.

[Trap triggered → floor collapse]

The Knight doesn’t pay attention and steps a loose stone which causes their group to fall though a fault in the floor. The group only falls one story. Their hunter tumbles to avoid hitting the ground as hard. The fighter lands on his feet, he catches the mage before she hits the ground. The warrior is picking himself up as he was the only one to have a rough landing.~

· Dust clears → they’ve fallen into a Minotaur’s lair.

~As they begin to gather themselves, rubbing out aches and pains. They seem to have fallen upon a minotaur which can be seen picking itself up from the rubble that fell on top of it. It looks enraged~

[11:30 – 12:30 | Cliffhanger Before Commercial Break]

· The party is separated from the porter girl by the rubble and monster unironically guarding the path. The corridor looks like this:
[Party ----------- Minotaur—Rubble (which almost blocks the path) -------Porter Girl]

The warrior tries to charge, yelling a war cry with his sword prepped to lunge at the beast. The minotaur raises its massive arm and backhands the armored plated warrior. He slams into the wall dazed and staggered. He falls on his face dropping his sword.

Party freezes with an inaudible gasp, paralyzed with fear.

Minotaur stomps toward him, hovering over his body. You can see the cruelly breaking his arms underneath its mighty hooves. Shrieking cries echo the halls. Blood curdling screams pierce the silence. His arms mangled and metal sleeves dented and flattened.

The minotaur picks up the dropped sword and stabs the warrior, impaling him to the cobbled floor.

The minotaur picks up the warrior's sword, as he lay there screaming for help is impaled by his own blade through the upper back. Blood pools and drips from his mouth.

The Party members scream in disbelief for their inaction, trembling. The mage stumbles on her robe falling backwards dropping her staff. She pees herself in sheer fear, as it pools underneath her. The fighter has his daggers pulls his daggers out slowly as attempts to draw them into a defensive stance. He is in front of the other two as the hunter begins to draw an arrow from his quiver.

The other 3 members panic with tears streaming down their fear and distress extremely visible.

[Close-up: Minotaur’s single eye → contracts into vertical catlike slit fixates on the remaining party members.]

[Commercial break.]

[14:00 – 19:00 | Dice of Fate & Collision]

Brutality continues as the party collapses. 

The remaining party members cannot avoid the minotaur's wrath as all three members end up falling to its raw strength and gore. Splattered and ripped apart you can see the carnage of their bodies being beaten, maimed and dismembered.

[The porter girl still cowering. She cannot fight the beast. Flees in panic.]

The porter watching the tragedy unfold. She it all encumbered with the same fear. However, this isn’t the first time she’s watched that kind of brutality. When the last member falls the contract is void and she is no longer bound to them. She bolts off as fast as she could in the opposite direction of the defeated party. 

[Dice appears on screen: zoomed in on the black 20 sided dice rolls a 19.]

As the minotaur closes the gap, blood and tattered clothing that once belonged to the mage is hanging off of it's horn. Panting and gasping for air as she tries to elude the monster. Her black aura sparkles around her frame again (19) she immediately turns left at the next opportunity and winds up crashing into another adventurer.

[They physically collide at the bottom of the screen as she crashes into Darin. Items from the bag fall out and scatter on the floor as the pack remains on her back.]

A black 20-sided dice sits on the screen. Suddenly a golden bloodstained D20 rolls across the screen colliding into the black dice (19). The black dice is knocked causing it to now display a 2 rather than the 19, adjusting her fate. The gold dice reveals a 17.

The porter girl and Darin look deep into each other’s eyes, one filled with panic the other with confusion → You can hear the roars as the minotaur rounds corner.

As she was carrying the pack of her former clients, she was filthy, small, and her clothing barely covered anything at all was just as dirty and torn. Feelings of remorse swept her as she is looking at the adventurer almost as to apologize with her eyes. Darin pushes the girl off him as he stands up getting ready to embrace combat with the beast. She was taken back by the force used to remove her from his lap. The porter noticed a strength vial was one of the items that fell from the sack she was carrying. She scrambled over to the vial gripping it tightly.

Bad toss of potion → tension.

She tossed the vial towards the adventurer however the vial fell ridiculously short of the target and began rolling towards him. The adventurer began stepping back to attempt to pick it up, but the minotaur began his charge. With a loud bellow it thrusted its horns at the porter girl as Darin, abandoning the vial, lunged forward and shoulder blocked it into the wall. Pinning the minotaur the best he can he is eventually shoved to the ground. His hand falls on top of the vial; he quickly picks it up and consumes the contents. These vials aren’t cheap…

[Darin protects her → full fight against Minotaur.]

Darin pulls out a short sword swiping his thumb across his nose. As though he was wanting to show off what his training has done for him as this posed the best challenge he's had thus far. Darin lunges forward meticulously swiping the short sword at the beast.

Mount his own offense finally, cutting the rough exterior of the minotaur. The minotaur stumbles backwards but regains its composure. Rears back and lowers its head. With a loud snort and ear shattering bellow it charges at Darin. He steps back with the sword engaged at a downward angle holding it around his shoulder as though he was intending on reengaging this minotaur. He begins to run at the beast.

[19:00 – 22:00 | Aftermath & Connection] Darin kills Minotaur (dagger scene).

Darin tosses his sword towards the wall as a distraction, pulls out a dagger and slides on the ground, dagger thrusted into the chest of the rampaging beast dragging down the minotaur’s torso. Opening the monster's chest cavity, you hear a wet splatter as the minotaur’s insides flop out onto the dungeon floor. The minotaur is wailing as it struggles to stand, eventually flopping to the ground with a tremendous crash.

Darin mumbles and groans as he lays there the words stuck in his thoughts begin to mutter from his mouth. 

Darin
"10 years... 10 years of training. Well, I didn't die so I guess it paid off." 

Exhausted, bloodied. The porter girl's feet gave out from her as she fell, sitting in awe, silent.

Bloodied and out of breath he lays there attempting to collect himself. The porter just onlooking the scene as the beast's corpse lay a few feet from her hero. After a few minutes Darin picks himself off the ground. Introducing himself, Darin notices the broken pentagram. ~

Darin (Concerned)
“A statless… what are you doing here alone?” 

A pause....
“Oh, the minotaur split you from your party… are they alive? Do you know?”

She doesn’t respond, just shakes her head. He reengages her with a rebuttal.

Darin (forward)
“You don’t know? Or are they dead?” 

 She cowers a little as his voice elevates. 

Porter Girl (scared and nervous)
“Yes sir, they are deceased.” 

Darin (Impressed)
 “How bout that, you do talk.” 

An affirming smile crosses his face. He places his weapons back into their hilts. Goes to the minotaur to retrieve any drops he can recover. A tuft of hair, some of the hide from the beast, its horns. Spoils of war.

Darin
“Then come with me. I’ll get you back home.” 

[22:00 – 23:00 | Ending Beat / Stinger] 

 They begin the trek back out of the dungeon. The porter’s footsteps are quiet. They walk together down a quieter corridor. Darin begins asking questions. 

Darin 
“How long have you been a porter?” 

Porter (faintly, distant)
“…Ever since I can remember.” 

[Their conversation fades in the distance, you see her black aura flickers as camera pans upward to the cavern ceiling, torchlight flickering.]

Ending Hook (23:00 – 23:30)

*Final shot: Scene transition to the Porter’s black dice rolls across the screen. It lands on 1. A faint crack forms in its shell, glowing gold from within. 

Fade to black.