Union! Game Thread

I don’t think trying to hold them here any longer will work. Not that I expected the Marshal herself to come down here with her lackey in tow…

Tarian looked around, left alone amongst the few soldiers peeking through tent flaps who had suddenly decided it was best to give their ‘guest’ a wide berth for now.

No sense in staying around here. I’m going to be feeling this for a while. Hopefully Othmar has some of that poultice ready. I’d best make my way back.

Briefly Tarian’s gaze lifted to the sky. I hope that was enough time.

As Tarian makes her way back inside the tent, you're all shocked to see her bruised and bloodied face, but she seems to be fine otherwise. Othmar isn't quite back yet, but Njalgas quickly rushes off to get him, and within a couple of minutes, he's inside the tent, baring a few small jars with the requested poultices in: "I hope these work as well as you praised them... hell of a fight you must've gotten yourself into" As he checks Tarian over, he notices that her knuckles aren't bloodied or bruised. "Wait, you didn't even fight back?! That's a lot more discipline than most of the boys here show..." He quickly applies the salves and stitches up one of the wider cuts above Tarian's eyebrow. "Will likely leave a scar, that."

 Turning quickly to Corti, he asks: "DId you find something?" Seeing the letters that Thia hands Brandt, he can't help but hide a smile, before he realises that they are coded.

Gyselle and Thia, you hurry over to the medical bay, and Gyselle quickly hands you a sharp knife. Getting to work on the mouse, you quickly cut open its stomach and start to separate out the different organs, until you find the liver. Slicing into it, you quickly find that it is spotted, but to a far larger degree than the liver of the deceased patient in Duskrock.

Gyselle puts the paper she found next to the letter Thia found and quickly follows after Thia. During the autopsy she stands on her tip toes trying to see over Thia’s ... elbows. “What do you see? Anything that might indicate why the soldiers are getting sick?”

Brandt takes the sheets that Thia's found and shoves them in his boot.

As Othmar got to work cleaning Tarian’s wounds, Tarian held as still as possible, seated on a folding stool so the dwarf could reach her head more easily. “It won’t be my first, Mister Leech. And hopefully we’ll be alive long enough for it to become a scar.”

Tarian’s eyes turned in the general direction of Brandt and Corti. “But I guess that would depend on what the investigation turned up. If we didn’t get anything useful then we should be trying to figure out how to get out of here, now. Corti? Brandt? What’d you find? And where's everyone else?”

Thia, you figure that the heavy spotting of the mouses liver could be due to three things: either, the mouse had ingested the tainted food and water and thus received a heavier dose due to its smaller size, and hence the effect was quickly lethal and resulted in heavier spotting. Alternatively, the heavy spotting could have been caused by the targeted poisoning by the arcanist in an attempt to test the poison, and the heavy intoxication the result of either a more potent poison, or too strong a dose. Lastly, the Arcanist could have suspected poison as a result of the sickness of the soldiers in the tent, but he could have wanted to keep himself safe and had the mice repeatedly test his food and water, so the heavy spotting could be due to a buildup over time. 

WIth the range of options, all you know for sure is that the Arcanist must have at the least supsected poison and the fact that more than one mouse had died, he probably suspected for a while, yet the Marshal seems to be unaware of this. As it stands though, the mice alone probably won't be enough to sway the Marshal, as far as evidence goes. Hopefully the letters you found might shed some light on his motivations.

Corti watches Brandt stuff the letters in his boot and nods, "Works for me." She goes to stand next to Tarian, "Thia found letters, but they look like another language- or maybe coded, since Gyselle found a table of some sort. Oh, and Thia found a dead rat," She adds, lighthearted, then nods towards where they went, "Gyselle's helping her autopsy it, they think it was experimented on." Corti trails off, looking Tarian over, a note of concern entering her voice "What happened on your end? Are you okay?"

“Yeah, I’m fine. As always, talking my way into fights I can’t talk my way out of. The usual.”

Othmar finished patching Tarian up with a light pat on her back and a “Don’t do it again.”

Tarian turned to Corti. “I take it those messages haven’t been decoded yet, then? Was there no time? Were you at least able to get out before they saw you?”

By Corti’s reaction Tarian understood. “They saw.” She winced. Pain flashed where Othmar said a scar would be and Tarian winced further.

I'd rather be making plans to escape, but without everyone here there wouldn't be a point. If we can read the letters in time, if they hold evidence, if the Marshal believes us, if these aren't her plans to begin with... That's a lot of ifs. One person's impulsive decision to help others 'because it's the right thing' may well end with someone else getting hurt. I can't let Thia repeat my past.

“Since Thia’s picking apart a rat right now, I take it there’s at least a little time. The letters, then. Thia or Arc’d probably have a better chance than I to decode them, but maybe we can come up with something.” Tarian put out her hand for the notes. “Let’s work quickly.”

Thia's lips would purse and her brows would furrow. She was able to confirm that it was poisoned, but of course was only able to determine so much and now presented with a range of scenarios. Looking down at the open rodent before her, the red head would grumble. "I can tell you this lil guy definitely suffered from Pale Tincture. There is heavier spotting in the liver, but now I have more questions than answers. It's far from anything concrete to be able to convict him." A gut feeling is not enough Thia. You need to do better. "Stewart Little here," She'd assign a random name to it like 'John Doe' and would continue, "Was either too curious for his own good and simply ate something he wasn't supposed to; the arcanist was testing his food and water for his own safety; or he is testing, perfecting, and/or strengthening the poison." With mouse entrails all over her hands, she had to fight the urge to scratch or pat her nose. Stumped. Again. Circumstantial. Not close to good enough to present to Tarian. So regardless, a waste of time. A sigh would exhale from her lips as she'd hang her head a little in disappointment. The student would close her eyes to take a second to herself. There has to be something else I can try before giving up... right?

Upon opening her eyes, she'd flinch, stopping short of clapping a dirtied hand over her heart. The artificer's heart was already racing, and this almost sent her into another panic. Having to take a double take, Thia had almost forgot Gyselle was so close. And she was still in that damned uniform. Thia, you're so uptight. The redhead would let out another exasperated sigh at herself.

The uniforms! The medic would make attempts to refocus, but now she was hyper aware that the uniforms could be used to identify them and were still in the other tent with Corti,  Brandt, letters and key. Thia's eyes would go wide in concern and she'd turn to Gyselle. "Gyselle. The uniforms!" She'd jut out her chin to the cleric and what she was wearing. "We need to get rid of the... evidence?" She'd feel her nose scrunch not liking the use of that word. "Can you return the uniforms to laundry?" She'd correct before adding. "Please." Thia remembered to use her manners still feeling terrible for how she's treated Gyselle earlier. She'd gesture with her dirtied hands to the gutted mouse, "I'll clean up here, and get rid of any traces of this... disappointment." The artificer would clench her jaw a moment. "That key you found, and those letters are our only hope. Make sure they've started." Her eyes were pleading. "We need everyone on those. It's the only way we can salvage this now." Thia's eyes would look back to the science experiment before her, feeling like she's only wasted more time. Her eyes would still search though, hoping, wishing something will jump out at her. What did he last eat? But it still wouldn't be proof.

Corti nods and moves to look at the letters over Tarian's shoulder. 

After Brandt handed over the pages, Tarian set them and the strange table of letters and symbols down next to each other.

“These look like… letters, I guess.” Tarian shook her head. “Well, I mean, they have letters in them, but—letters. Missives. The short bits at the top and bottom here, it’s like the ‘to’ and ‘from’ bits of a standard letter.” Tarian leaned in close, and counted the numbers of letters, then counted something else on her fingers, up to seven each time. “We don’t have time to figure out who these are actually to or from, so let’s assume the arcanist’s name is at least one of these.” Tarian pointed out several words on the page at the top and the bottom. “It was Ishmael… Hadrari, if memory serves. Seven letters. So, at least one of these ‘words’ might match up with one of those names somehow.”

“It’s probably not just a simple changing of letters, though. See these words here? I can’t think of any two-letter words made of the same letter, or a four-letter word that starts with three of the same letter.” She pointed out a few of the words as she went along.

“You’ve been staring pretty intensely there, Corti. Have you noticed any patterns in that letter chart? Think it might be useful in translating this?”

Let's just hope that these guesses are correct, and that this is written in a language we can actually read. If it's written in some other tongue... well... We'll try to deal with that when we get there.

Corti, your mind, despite all the experiences and training, occasionally works differently. It seeks out patterns and tries to put things into order. Although you quickly come to the conclusion that Tarian gets to about this being encrypted, you recognise the language of this to be common, based on the pattern of punctuation, and the length of the words. Going off of Tarian's point about this being a multi-letter cypher though, you pick up the chart, and quickly realise that every odd column is simply the alphabet in its normal order, with only the even columns being shifted.

Corti cocks her head as she looks at the chart, staying silent a moment after Tarian addresses her. "Well... they're in Common, I know that much. As for the code, you're right about the letters repeating. The order of the alphabet in the even columns is shifted, but I haven't been able to see any sort of numerical pattern for the shift yet. And I'm not sure about these symbols... Although... here, look at this. The sixteenth row and the seventh column have the same symbol. They match up on 'P'." She gestures to the labels for the columns and rows of the table, "Maybe we are only supposed to look at one set of columns? You know, either the odd ones that have the right order or the even ones that don't. That still leaves us with repeating letters though."

“Good eyes, Corti. I think you’re on to something. But what, though?” Tarian stared hard at the column sheet. Her face started to twitch from the effort to not scrunch her brow and aggravate her injuries further. She started quietly muttering to herself.

“Well, if we only look at one set of columns, yeah, the double letter and triple letter words still won’t work. So let’s assume that the fact that there’s so many pairs means something. Maybe the fact that they’re paired means that you’re going from one column to the other? So, instead of one code, we have eight. And each one’s different, so that could solve the duplicates issue.”

Tarian shook her head, then spoke up. “We don’t have time to think about it. Let’s just try to see if we can get it to translate. Let’s just start with the last word on each page.” Tarian handed Corti one of the letters. “I’ll start with ‘Mister Dobby’ here. You try… Taj-whatever. Try to find a matched set of T and either H or I. If you do, do it the same way for A in the next column pair. Hopefully one of these is either ‘Ishmael’ or ‘Hadrari.’ I don’t know where on the chart to start, though, so just start with every pair.”

At Thia’s behest, Gyselle quickly scoops up the uniforms she gathered from the laundry tent, dirties them up a bit by rolling them in some dirt, or mud if she can find any. Then hurriedly makes her way to the laundry tent to return the uniforms. 

Gyselle uses some of the blood from the autopsy and mud from outside, before hurrying over to the tent. She makes sure to throw in Othmar's uniform too, so that you don't return the same number of uniforms as you took. 

Tarian, though trying hard, can't find a way to get "Ishmael" or "Hadrari" from the bottom of the letter she islooking at. That and the slightly different handwriting make it clear that this was likely a letter sent to the Arcanist, rather than from him. With that thought, she focusses on the seven-letter words at the top of the letter. Testing both, she's very excited when she discovers that the second word translates to "Ishmael" if the last column is used first and then each column is used in series. Looking at that, she compares the letter to the table. Eight codes, the first word has seven letters and the second word started by being decoded with the eighth code... of course!

Going back to the first word to test her theory, she starts at the first column pair to decypher the first letter. "B". Then the second column pair for the second letter. "R". She was getting the hang of it, and continued on to the next column in series. "O", "T", "H". Excited, she finsihed deciphering the last two letters. "E", and "R". Brother Ishmael.

Sh quickly points out what she found to Corti, to have her test the same. She quickly does, starting with the first letter and the first column pair. "D", then on to the next. "E". "A", "R". Excited, they both jump to the next word, likely the name of the person Ishmael was writing to. 

Now alone, Thia would exhale, completely allowing herself to deflate before taking in another breath. It took some effort to keep herself from beginning to shake. She needed to keep her head. She needed to remain focused. With the body of the mouse still splayed out before her, the medic would push herself to begin poking around one last time. Now that she was in her own company she felt herself calming as she'd work on dissecting the stomach. She was aware if there was anything in the stomach, it may barely be enough to tell her what it could be. Only water? Direct dose? Any food? She was hanging on a thread of hope, working her way to convincing herself this could not be a waste of time. She refused to give up and allow herself to believe it. Even if she couldn't pinpoint the source or motive... You still confirmed Pale Tincture. It's here. It has to be worth something... The artificer would finalize her last inspection on the mouse.

Once complete, she'd do as she promised Gyselle, she'd begin the clean up. Bit by bit, the student would start cleaning off her tools, work space and self, ensuring there was no evidence of blood or entrails from the little critter. With the mouse staring back at her, Thia fought the urge to hurl it into the trash. If this was a couple minutes ago, she very well may have. But now that she had some time to breathe and reflect, her instincts told her to hang on to it. It was a good idea to take it. It was. She'd try to giving herself words of encouragement, but her nose would scrunch. Not a fan. Shaking her head at herself, the red head would grab some cloth to wrap the carcass up with. Alright Stewart, don't let me down. If anything, maybe you can a good luck charm? She'd make her own face at the thought, shaking her head once again as she'd let out an exasperated sigh at herself as she pocketed the bundled rodent.

Thia would make one last survey of the space to ensure she didn't forget anything. As satisfied as she could be with what she was able to do here, she'd make her way to exit the tent.

It takes Corti a moment to backtrack and understand how Tarian did it, but she soon gets the hang of the translation. "Oh, good find Tarian." she claps her friends lightly on the shoulder and continues to the next name. "K... A, Z, Z, H, A, N. Kazzhan?" She peers at the paper, "I hope that's right."  She glances at Tarian, then moves to find a quill, ink, and scratch paper to test it again. She'll move on to the first word of the letter body and get "the". "Ok. I think I get it. Here, I'll keep working on this one, you keep up with yours. We can double-check the name I got with whatever you get at the end of your letter."

Gyselle hurries quickly to the laundry tent and drops of the dirty uniforms with the Sargent. 

“Got some ‘fresh’ ones here for you.” Dropping then off in the proper place  

Then quickly turns and hurries back to where the group is assembled and arrives back in the tent just after Corti finishes her most recent word. “So ... what did I miss?”