Redemption for Jessika

Redemption for with Elsa (RfJ) is the second adult game set in the Elsaverse. It was publicly released in English on January 25, 2016 in HTML format, and officially ported to Ren'Py in 2021; it can be found in the Elsaverse Omnibus Vol.1 (2021) compilation. As of January, 2022, RfJ is still the best rated game in the Elsaverse, and second overall, at the erotic gaming site PlayForceOne.com.

The story takes place some undetermined time after Dreaming with Elsa (2015), and is intertwined with Finding Miranda (2016) and Darkness Falls (2018) first season, as well as with some chapters of the AAA (2018) novella. During the development phase, Tlaero seriously considered to release Finding Miranda first and even conducted a poll in Sharks' Lagoon forum over the topic. Users actually voted for Finding Miranda ' s scenario to be explored first, but finally she decided against it due to narrative logic and worldbuilding reasons. In Redemption for Jessika, superpowers are explicitly mentioned for the first time in the Elsaverse, and non-canon path and post-credits scene starts building up to the storyarc grand finale.

Premise
Players take control over Marc, a court transcriber who is infatuated with Jessika, the leader and vocalist of an uprising local rock band called Mayhem. Thanks to a lucky coincidence, he'll get to know her, but she's in a really dark place: a few weeks ago, five people died in a riot at one of her concerts, pushing Jessika towards a self-destructive spiral. While trying to help her, Marc will find out that Jessika's guilt and loss of self-esteem are surprisingly rooted in a supernatural power. And, although they can't know it yet, a chance for redemption will arise less than a week later. Will Marc be the hero she needs to get her out of her misery on time?

Canon Path Summary
''Please, be aware that this is not a walkthrough, but a plot summary. In order to succeed in the canon path, Marc must be respectful with all the women he meets, while showing a wide range of traits by balancing fun, sexy and serious answers.''

In the introduction, Marc attends a preliminary hearing related to the riot at Mayhem's last concert, which resulted in five deaths. To his surprise, not only does he find her platonic love, Mayhem's singer Jessica Springfield (Jessika is her stage name), in the courtroom where he acts as a transcriber, but he also witnesses how the prosecutor, Gary, intends to charge her for the multitudinary brawl, under the incredible claim that she sang in anger and that caused people to get angry. The judge quickly dismisses that baseless accusation, but Marc can't help but notice that, with her attitude, a gloomy Jessica seems to agree with the prosecutor.

Back in his office, Marc is visited by Sylvia, an attractive policewoman who works with him at the court and wants to introduce him to her girlfriend, as he's the only man who respects her enough at work. When Marc arrives at his co-worker's apartment that same evening, he finds out that Sylvia's girlfriend is actually Mayhem's drummer and Jessika's roommate, SeraB. And the day just keeps delivering: after testing Marc with her charms, SeraB admits that they have actually invited him over to experiment whether sex would be more exciting with a third person watching them. The women get at it, and Marc keeps his word and doesn't try to join in, even though he feels seriously tempted several times.

Once the hot show is over, the three of them discuss that day's events at the courthouse, and Marc states that he'd like to meet and help Jessica. Trusting him due to his remarkable well behavior during the evening, and desperate to help her friend, Sarah (that's SeraB's real name) tells Marc that Jessica spends most of her time getting drunk at a bar across the street from their home. On Saturday evening, Marc goes there and finds her beloved Jessica clearly drunk and depressed. After talking to him for a while, Jessica starts to sing an angry song to brush him off, but Marc is the only person in the bar who doesn't react negatively. Then she calls him "immune", and suddenly changes her mood, becoming extremely affectionate and inviting him home; when they get there, Jessica tells Sarah that she is going to have sex with Marc. But then the singer passes out, and Sarah and Marc put her to bed to sleep. In her bedroom, Marc sees a picture of Jessica's ex-boyfriend, Charles, and learns that he broke up with her just before the ominous Mayhem concert, upsetting Jessica before the show.

Sarah offers Marc to sleep on the couch so that he can talk to Jess in the morning, when she'll be sober. When they wake up, Marc tells Jessica about last night events, which she barely remembers, and they end up talking about what happened in court on Friday. He then asks Jessica what did she mean when she called him "immune", and she confesses that she has an unnatural ability: although it didn't work with Marc, she influences people's emotions when she sings. That's why she feels guilty for the deaths, as she's sure she caused the riot by singing in anger over her breakup with her boyfriend. In her defense, she claims that she didn't exactly know back then that she had this power: a mysterious woman tried to warn her shortly before everything happened, but Jessica just thought that woman was crazy. While keeping to himself that all of this sounds indeed crazy, Marc tries to convince his idol that, in that case, she wouldn't be guilty, but responsible, as she would have never done that, had she actually known for sure she could alter people's emotions like that.

Due to him being immune to her singing, Jessica is convinced that the love and admiration Marc feels for her are real, and she tells him that the worst thing about her power is not knowing anymore if people's love for her is actually sincere, as she might just be influencing them with her voice. Immediately, Marc replies that Sarah really loves her, since she still helps her and cares about her even when she's passed out like last night. Then he suggests Jessica to spend more time with her friend, away from the bar. After kissing goodbye and exchanging phone numbers, Marc goes home as a happy man.

On Monday, at the courthouse, and after reassuring Sylvia, who was worried sick about him thinking less of her due to last Friday's events, Marc goes to the prosecutor's office. Gary explains to him that he was at the Mayhem concert with his wife, Cynthia, a huge fan of the band, and the two of them got angry and hit each other during the mass brawl, so blaming Jessika was an easy way of evading his own guilt. But now, while checking the concert's footage, he has found a frame that shows an unidentified man throwing the first punch that started the riot; despite the tense atmosphere, the man was smiling, and could be charged as the real instigator. Although at first he can't remember who that man is, his face looks familiar to Marc, so he asks Gary to send him that frame; later, in his office, Marc realizes that the man is Jessica's ex-boyfriend, Charles.

Marc decides to check with Jessica, who confirms that the man in the picture is indeed her ex-boyfriend, Charles Reyes, and sends his contact to Marc, who forwards it to Gary. It seems that Charles knew about Jessica's power but was also immnune to it, and he deliberately pissed her out before the concert to use her angry as fuel for the riot he was planning to start. Then Jess and Marc go out for a walk, and Jessica confesses that she hasn't sung nor played her guitar since the riot: not only because she feels guilty for her fans' death, but also because doing music with her power feels like cheating. Marc tries to convince her that people would love her music even without her power, as he can testify due to his immunity to her voice. Back at Jess's apartment, she offers him a striptease and a blowjob, with Sarah peeking in on them. Afterwards, the three of them stay up late chatting, going over anecdotes from Mayhem concerts.

On Tuesday, Marc talks to Gary, who thanks him for the lead and says that Charles has been suspiciously missing since the riot. Then Marc gets a call from Jess, who invites him to a concert of some friends of her. Before picking her up, Marc goes to buy a book to replace one that Charles borrowed from Jessica and never returned. That's how Marc shows up at Elysian Books, where he meets Elsa and a mysterious woman named Miranda, who right guesses everything about him. After getting the very same book Charles stole from her, Marc goes to Jess's apartment, and she shows him that she's not wearing panties to the concert.

When they arrive at the concert venue, an old church recycled into a club called "El Cuerpo", the bouncer welcomes them, quite happy to see his friend Jessica doing something music-related again. As soon as the couple get inside, they start dancing; a little while later, they are just kissing and heavily groping each other. They quickly return to Jessica's and, still in the elevator, they have explosive sex. Afterwards, Marc asks Jessica to play some music for him; in her current state of mind, for Jess that's even a more intimate act than sex, but she agrees and they go to Jessica's recording studio in her apartment, where she sings a beautiful song that he doesn't recognize but that makes Sarah cry.

The next day, Marc visits Jessica again without calling her first, and finds that the whole Mayhem band is there, rehearsing for the first time since the riot. Marc meets Sven and O-Kumo, the two male members of the band, who thank him for all what he's doing for Jessica. After a long rehearsal that Marc lives almost like a private concert, the musicians leave, and Marc and Jess end up making love on the piano. After that, while cuddling up on the couch, Marc tells her about the prosecutor and his wife. Feeling still a bit guilty for their fight at her concert, Jess suggests to have lunch with them; that way she could also thank Gary for dropping her case and being now trying to catch Charles instead.

On Thursday, which is a local holiday in Sangrive, the two couples meet at the Delfinos restaurant. When Cynthia acts as a devoted fan and doesn't hesitate to dismiss that crazy theory of Jessica being the culprit of the riot, a huge weight is lifted from Jessica's shoulders, as she confirms that her fans will still love her. Later that afternoon, while taking a walk, Marc and Jessica see a large crowd of people heading to a Mayor Joey Bertradino's rally. But, as they walk to the square where the rally is being held, they see Charles locking a car and running away. Surprised, they approach the vehicle and find a bomb inside. As Marc calls Emergencies, gunshots are heard coming from the rally: it seems that the terrorists' plan is to make people flee towards the street where the car bomb is planted, and then blow it up to cause as many victims as possible.

Marc and Jess run to alert the crowd, but the gunfire has caused panic and no one listens to them. Jessica goes on stage and tries to make herself heard over the loudspeakers, but people keep running away towards the bomb. Distraught, she looks at Marc, who thinks it's the end. But then Jess starts singing a soothing melody, and her power causes the crowd to calm down and stop, thus preventing a massacre. That evening, the news talk about the artist's redemption: after the deaths at her last concert, today she has saved hundreds of lifes. Jessica thanks Marc for all what he has done for her, considering him the real responsible for her saving so many lives: without him, she would have been at the bar, getting drunk while the city suffered a dreadful attack. The couple make love in Jessica's bed, and it is stated that they will stay together during Mayhem's rise to stardom.

Non-canon Path Summary
''Please, be aware that this is not a walkthrough, but a plot summary. To unlock this path, Marc has to show some inclination towards lewd answers, but not too much at first, in order to be invited over by Sylvia; then he must endure the lesbian show until they change positions; and then being as straightforward as possible with Jessica.''

On this route, Marc is a bit too lewd with the people around him, although he still shows some signs of decency. After agreeing to be a mere spectator during their lesbian sex session, Sylvia and Sarah kick him out when he tries to join in, so Sarah does not tell him how to find Jessica. However, as he leaves Sylvia's apartment, he sees a car that could be Sarah's and, knowing that she lives with Jessica, he uses the courthouse network to access the Department of Transportation's billing database and get their address. As he approaches the building to meet his idol, he realizes he doesn't have a plan that wouldn't make him look like a crazy, stalker fan, so he decides to go into the bar across the street to consider his options. Jessica happens to be there, and their meeting goes as in the canon path; this time, though, Sarah doesn't invite him to sleep on the couch, so he can't talk to Jessica the next day.

On Monday, at the courthouse, the scene with Gary varies slightly, and the conversation focuses a bit more on Cynthia, hinting that Gary's wife finds Marc attractive. With Charles' image on his phone, Marc returns to the bar where he found Jessica to see if she can confirm that the new suspect is actually her ex-boyfriend. Jess nods, but she doesn't share any further details about Charles, and asks Marc to leave her alone for good. The next day, after reporting back to Gary, Marc learns that the prosecutor's wife is convinced that he has cheated on her with a red-haired intern, which is not true. A bit later, a red-haired, tattooed intern named Chloe arrives in Marc's office and asks him several questions about his work, and they flirt a bit. Marc tells her about Jessica and, once he assures her that he's not pursuing the singer anymore, Chloe leaves.

On Wednesday, Gary asks Marc to come to his office. Cynthia is there, and she proposes Marc to get revenge of her husband's infidelity in front of him, right then and right there. If the player accepts, the scene ends with a threesome with the prosecutor and his wife, who reconcile afterwards. In any case, on Thursday, Marc is walking alone around Sangrive and approaches the Mayor's rally, but Chloe sees him and tries to lead him away from the bomb, just before it explodes. Marc wakes up in a small apartment, naked and handcuffed to a bed, with Chloe next to him, also naked. The news on TV shows a terrible bombing that has caused a lot of victims.

Chloe tells Marc that she is not an intern at the courthouse, but kind of a secret agent for some powerful man from her family who orders her to do dirty jobs for him. Her last mission was precisely preventing Marc from starting a relationship with Jessica, but he ruined his chances all by himself and she didn't need to do anything. After explaining that, in her job, she is often forced to have sex, she offers Marc a sex session as a way to thank him, but he convinces her to do only what she'd really want to do, the way she'd want to do it. In a sex scene that is as hot as emotional, Chloe lets her passion take over and enjoys a pleasurable and satisfying experience for the first time in a long time. But, at the end, with Marc exhausted on the bed, she injects him with something. Whether she has murdered or simply sedated him is left to player's interpretation.

Achievements
In Redemption for Jessika, players can get up to 10 achievements. A minimum of two playthroughs are needed to unlock them all. Each achievement's title is actually a real world song.


 * "And Justice for All": Complete the canon path.
 * "Fade to Black": Complete the non-canon path.
 * "Round and round": Get the best possible mix of answers to make Marc a "round" character.
 * "Running Blind": Complete the canon path with the score hidden.
 * "Has Anybody Seen My Baby?": Pass the checkpoint after the first date.
 * "My Little Red Book": Go to buy a present for Jessica and meet Elsa and Miranda.
 * "99 Problems": Meet up with Gary and Cynthia for lunch (canon path).
 * "Jessie's Girl": Have a threesome with Gary and Cynthia (non-canon path).
 * "Just A Game": Check a game poster in the bar before meeting Jessica.
 * "I Get Off": During breakfast, tell Jessica that Marc is a secret agent.

The "Just a Game" and "I Get Off" achievements make reference to Tlaero's old games Meeting Keeley and Getting to Know Christine. Getting all the achievements unlocks a bonus scene of sexual nature.

Post-credits Scene
The post-credits scene in Redemption for Jessika takes place a few days after the end of the canon path. Jessica goes to the "Delfinos" restaurant to meet Xara, the short, blind woman who tried to warn her about her power before that Mayhem concert in which Jessica caused a riot with her angry singing. After apologizing to each other for the way they both handled that first meeting, Xara calls Jessica "Spell-singer" and tells her that there are more people with powers, and that some of them use theirs for evil purposes. She's fighting a powerful opponent, who tried to get Jessica depressed by inducing the riot some weeks before, so that she wouldn't be at the Mayor's rally later on. Xara wants Jessica to help her stop that opponent, by calming Xara's future recruits and make them listen to her so that they don't run away like she did. Jessica accepts, under the premise that she will just calm them, and won't force anyone to change their mind. As the waitress, Theresa, approaches their table, Xara asks Jessica to be ready to act in any moment.

Bonus Scene
After getting all 10 achievements, a bonus scene is unlocked. This scene takes place after Mayhem's charity concert for the few victims of the bombing, with Marc, Jessica, Sarah and Sylvia going together to have a celebration lunch at Delfinos. Several comments of a sexual nature arise, related to different events depicted on the canon path. Eventually, the four of them agree to have a joint sex session, without swinging partners; however, the limits are blurred soon after they start and the whole encounter turns into a real orgy.

Sex Scenes
Although she's now dealing with lots of stress and insecurities, Jessica is a confident rockstar who's not shy about sex. Therefore, there are more sexual scenes in Redemption for Jessika than in Dreaming with Elsa, and their tone is significantly different, as the characters involved are clearly sexually experienced and know what they do and what they want from their partners.

"Redemption for Jessika" has no gallery of scenes, so there's no way of replaying those sex scenes out of the actual game. The only replayable scene is the bonus scene, which can be accessed from the Achievements screen.

Miscellaneous

 * The night of the concert date, after having sex with Marc in the elevator, Jessica sings a beautiful song for him about how people is generally good inside. Despite being one of her greatest fans, Marc doesn't recognize that song, but Sarah, who is listening her friend from the sound room and seems to be singing along with her, cries with emotion. In AAA' chapter 9 it's hinted that this song is actually the first song she wrote, back in her school days: the first time Sarah listened to it was in a really tough day for her, when she was outed at school, and only Jess and Amanda were there for her. That's why she is specially moved when she hears that song again: not only it is the first time Jess sings since the concert, but that exact song is particularly meaningful for Sarah. AAA chapter 9 also tells that Jessica sings this same song after the bomb explodes, moving people to help the victims.


 * The night of the concert date, when they have sex in the elevator, an interesting detail is that the next checkpoint is placed after the sexual scene, and not before it as it's the common norm in this kind of games: it's a clever way to show that, in Jessica's case, sex is not the greatest sign of intimacy she can share with her partner.