"He was in his twenties. A young man, but he had plenty of experience by then," says Raef. "He took me by surprise. By the time I realised that I needed to fight back, I had already lost." A grim expression steals across his face. "That won't happen again."
"What if she doesn't come back tonight?" you wonder aloud. "What if she's gone somewhere else, for whatever reason, and won't be back until morning? We could be waiting for hours!"
"There's no way to know if that is the case," says Raef, not-very-reassuringly. "Still, we've only been waiting for a few minutes. Waiting a little while longer won't do us any harm."
This is such a relatable exchange, it perfectly encapsulates that "wait or don't wait" push and pull that is rages through my head in times like these. I usually end up waiting, though.
I read the spoiler because I am insatiable and bad at puzzles, so I won't comment too much, but maybe they form words vertically?
Seeing them in four letter bursts somehow puts me in mind of knuckle tattoos, though.
Well, this sounds like a job for Nevill! I remember what happened back in Sorry Your Time Traveling Priviledges Have Been Revoked, even if I didn't read it until after it had already ended. $5 says this will be either solved or proven impossible to solve the next time he posts, if the rest of us don't do it first.
Not reading that spoiler, at least not yet. Gonna at least try to solve this on my own. Hmmmm... so, my first thoughts are, maybe this code is contextual, not just some arbitrary thing in a vacuum. Something related to Green Flame's experiences and situation, or possibly Cadre 1F's.
I spent most of today clinging for dear life to the sides and occasionally the roof of UAZ while a local jigit sped through mountain passes at 80 kmh. I am still a little woozy from the ride, so can't contribute much, but my untrained eye spots an anagram for AIR, HEAL, ISOLATION, which is obviously a sign that Green Flame went on a walk to improve her mood, and we should leave her office and go out looking for her.
I'll make a more serious attempt at solving this tomorrow.
Okay, the night's sleep didn't improve my faculties much, and so far all I know is what the puzzle isn't.
It isn't a ROT or substitution cipher, unless they are more complex or have more steps to their decyphering (like shift + anagram) than whatever was presented in earlier puzzles, and I find that unlikely. Even the professor's notebook had an additional clue in the same update.
It isn't a "snake"-riddle where you hide the answer among 'white noise' by having the words' letters connect to each other. Frida's quest had one of those. Even if we allow diagonal movement to make up for a small number of combinations, they still don't make sense.
And yes, there is the fact that we found those books in random order and can not guarantee we've found all of them; we are only making that assumption because of a 4*4 grid.
Another assumption I made is that the solution takes a letter from each string in some kind of order... which would presumably repeat several times. Like if you can make word for "hair" by arranging them from top down, you should be able to make out the rest of the message by tracing the same books over and over. The example for "hair" gives us "silo", and then nothing.
EHSO AAIA
TLLI
NIOR
Admittedly, this assumptiion isn't based on anything other than the complexity of the puzzle being above the player level otherwise. Still, even if it isn't observed, and the proper order of books remains unknown, we could just look for anagrams like I did, but they too produce nonsense. The most coherent I got out of them was what I wrote above.
If there is an order, we can also make another assumption about a missing book. It would allow us to have words that I would expect to see in a secret note, like... I don't know? "Elf"? "Elys", if we made a particularly strong impression and she guessed we may come here again. Possibly "headmaster", though that one would require both D and M. Alternatively, we may need to look for articles like so:
TLLI
EHSO
xxEx
AAIA
NIOR
...aaand there is nowhere to go from there. So either there is a different system in place, there are more missing books, or the content of the message is drastically different from what I expected a secret note in Green Flame's office to be.
Regardless, I am currently stumped, and won't have much time to spend on the puzzle until late evening.
Though spotlessly clean, it's a dingy, with flaking paint on the walls, cracks in the ceiling, and a tiny window with blurred glass that only lets in a little light. Everything in the room is plain and functional: there are five chairs; a desk with a selection of quills, an inkwell, and several neat stacks of paper on it; a wastepaper basket; and a bookshelf with a few yellowed tomes sitting on it. Evidently, she has only just moved in to this room, or else has made no effort to stamp her personality onto it.
Pursuant to Nevill's excellent analysis, I looked up the original description of GF's office, for comparison. I dunno how many 'a few' is though. Certainly not a replete bookshelf, for sure. Actually... Elys was here, but the description she recieves is necessarily making way for the conversation, so no number is revealed there either.
@Chandagnac how many is 'a few' in this case? Could we roll to see if Elys remembers if these are all the books, or if these are the books that were here last time?
Huh, even not counting the first Nevill post that basically just said "I'm not up to it right now because of real life stuff", more than a post later and we still have no idea what to do here. Looks like I'm out of $5.
Anyway, my actual first thought was that these codes would have something more to do with the books they are on, the titles or subjects or something, but I am assuming that excluding that very easily checked piece of information would be incompatible with asking us to solve it. Still feels like we're missing something, but I dunno. So I don't feel like I'm contributing nothing, the rest of this post is going to be dedicated to listing all possible alternate orders for the codes, so we don't all get too stuck on Tascion's particular arbitrary 4X4 grid.
TLLI
EHSO
AAIA
NIOR
TLLI
EHSO
NIOR
AAIA
TLLI
AAIA
EHSO
NIOR
TLLI
AAIA
NIOR
EHSO
TLLI
NIOR
EHSO
AAIA
TLLI
NIOR
AAIA
EHSO
EHSO
TLLI
AAIA
NIOR
EHSO
TLLI
NIOR
AAIA
EHSO
AAIA
TLLI
NIOR
EHSO
AAIA
NIOR
TLLI
EHSO
NIOR
TLLI
AAIA
EHSO
NIOR
AAIA
TLLI
AAIA
TLLI
EHSO
NIOR
AAIA
TLLI
NIOR
EHSO
AAIA
EHSO
TLLI
NIOR
AAIA
EHSO
NIOR
TLLI
AAIA
NIOR
TLLI
EHSO
AAIA
NIOR
EHSO
TLLI
NIOR
TLLI
EHSO
AAIA
NIOR
TLLI
AAIA
EHSO
NIOR
EHSO
TLLI
AAIA
NIOR
EHSO
AAIA
TLLI
NIOR
AAIA
TLLI
EHSO
NIOR
AAIA
EHSO
TLLI
...we're completely barking up the wrong tree, aren't we.
Well, if we go with the "missing book" hypothesys, I can almost make out something about 'the raise':
TLLI
EHSO
xEEx
NIOR
AAIA
Clearly, she wants to start a strike and the first ever elven worker union.
...jokes aside, though, if there is just one other book we might be able to guess the solution looking for syllables and/or popular letter combinations.
Like TH (THIS/THAT/THAN), TION (many words end in those), and the like.
T LL I__ T LL I
EHSO__AAIA
AAIA__EHSO
NIOR__NIOR
I already tried that with just four books, and got nowhere, so maybe if there is another one it can be made to work?
T LL I EHSO
NIOR
xTSE
AAIA
By adding, say, an xTSE string, we can get someting like "This Alert Alone"... AISOx..? Well, this one is a dead end. But there may be others?
@Chandagnac how many is 'a few' in this case? Could we roll to see if Elys remembers if these are all the books, or if these are the books that were here last time?
Well, if we go with the "missing book" hypothesys, I can almost make out something about 'the raise':
TLLI
EHSO
xEEx
NIOR
AAIA
Clearly, she wants to start a strike and the first ever elven worker union.
...jokes aside, though, if there is just one other book we might be able to guess the solution looking for syllables and/or popular letter combinations.
Maybe there are some more clues in Green Flame's office? Alternatively, you could leave the office and try to find Green Flame or Cadre 1F so you can talk to them about the puzzle.
Let's put it to a vote, shall we?
What do you want to do next? (Choose one)
[] Search Green Flame's office, trying to find some more clues that will enable you to solve the puzzle.
OR
[] Leave the office and go looking around the school for Green Flame or Cadre 1F.
OR
[] Do something else (write in).
[x] Search Green Flame's office, trying to find some more clues that will enable you to solve the puzzle.
I am a fickle poster at times, so now I am far too curious to leave the puzzle be. Let's see if we can find the hypothesized missing bit of the code. If her name was four letters, it'd seem like maybe that's part of the code? But she has two names of five letters each.
Hey neighborhood pal Flashkannon here with a second post in a row to say I was thinking a little about the books - there are exactly four of them, just like there are four members of Cadre 1F. I wonder, are the books connected to the individuals? Maybe the codes in the books have a cipher based on their names?
Also, I know it's a little last in the Posting cycle for a new vote, but perhaps we could ask Archironaeus where GF is? He's a being of the school, maybe he can track people within it. Though, he hasn't come to say hi, which makes me wonder if, even if he can do it actively, he doesn't do it passively.
There is no reason for GF to include her own name in the note she herself wrote, is there?
I mean, if the note were a diary entry then sure, it would feature there either as an introduction or a sign-off, but the note seems limited to about 20-30 characters and it would be wasteful to spend 10 of them on something anyone could deduce from whose office the books were found in.
Cadre 1F though... there should not be much they and the teacher have in common; not to the point of necessitating secrecy. They are just the latest in the line of her youngest pupils. I imagine Green Flame helped a lot of youngsters in a similar way, in whatever ways she could.
Their names could be used as cyphers, though; the best passwords are those that only mean something to the one intended to get past them.
...even as I typed that I kept staring at the books with suspicion, and...
Rich (BB code):
VPIDEHSO
NIOR
TLLI
AAIAxNAN
The missing letter is probably D (the first letter of Venta's name)? Or the very key the puzzle is meant to produce, since it doesn't fit with the rest. Or maybe it's even something like this:
Rich (BB code):
VPIDEHSO
NIOR
TLLI
AAIA1NANFDER
It's not that there are four books; there almost surely are missing ones; but there are four letters in each book. If these are all the books that are there*, however, the answer to the puzzle must be the letters VPID, since they are required to complete the pattern (Phil's name can't fit in 6 or even 7 symbols, so the name endings might be irrelevant)... and are the first letters of Cadre 1F names besides.
...so what does that mean? We may have the answer, but there is no question to pair it with.
Edit:
* if there are missing books, then the solution to the puzzle is coded in the letters that aren't a part of Cadre 1F names, like so (except I obviously don't know what the missing letters are):
...and even if it took a bit longer than usual, Nevill strikes again. Despite us not quite even having all the pieces of the puzzle this time.
[X] Have Elys write down or say VPID and NAN, explaining to Jana and Raef that these form the names of the four members of Cadre 1F and that there are missing books.
Cadre 1F though... there should not be much they and the teacher have in common; not to the point of necessitating secrecy. They are just the latest in the line of her youngest pupils. I imagine Green Flame helped a lot of youngsters in a similar way, in whatever ways she could.
This seems like information she was unable divulge, until she could parse it a certain way. Maybe this is her wrestling with her instructions?
In particular, because there's only a few people in recent memory who would have both the need to silence Prentigold (presumably about the dissappearance of his predecessor), and the means to do so by just straight up giving him an elf.
Cadre 1F though... there should not be much they and the teacher have in common; not to the point of necessitating secrecy. They are just the latest in the line of her youngest pupils. I imagine Green Flame helped a lot of youngsters in a similar way, in whatever ways she could.
Because Green Flame doesn't have any friends or family, or any life outside of school, she has an unusually close relationship with the students she has been told to mentor, especially Cadre 1F.
The missing letter is probably D (the first letter of Venta's name)? Or the very key the puzzle is meant to produce, since it doesn't fit with the rest. Or maybe it's even something like this:
It's not that there are four books; there almost surely are missing ones; but there are four letters in each book. If these are all the books that are there*, however, the answer to the puzzle must be the letters VPID, since they are required to complete the pattern (Phil's name can't fit in 6 or even 7 symbols, so the name endings might be irrelevant)... and are the first letters of Cadre 1F names besides.
...so what does that mean? We may have the answer, but there is no question to pair it with.
Edit:
* if there are missing books, then the solution to the puzzle is coded in the letters that aren't a part of Cadre 1F names, like so (except I obviously don't know what the missing letters are):
"Hey, Elys, come over here and help me solve this puzzle," says Jana, in a transparent attempt to distract you. "You're incredibly clever, aren't you? I mean, you solved Professor Elthonar's secret code in only a few minutes. So, I'm sure whatever code Green Flame came up with won't be much of a challenge for you!" She gives you a slow, deliberate wink. "Isn't that right?"
"Give me the books, please," you say, rising to her challenge.
After some consideration, you realise that the four sets of four letters can be arranged next to each other to form the names of the four members of Cadre 1F. Or, at least, that would be possible if you had a few more letters: the first letter of each name is missing, as are the last letters of Isolia's and Dorian's names and the last four letters of Philander's name.
"There must be more to this puzzle. Can you see anything with the letters 'VPID' written on it, in that order?" you ask Jana.
She looks a little disappointed. "Are you sure about that? Well, maybe we'll find something if we keep searching."
"I sense… something," says Raef, screwing his eyes shut for a moment. "A very familiar magic. Interesting."
"Familiar how?" you ask.
He shrugs his shoulders. "I can't be entirely sure. Perhaps there is a ritual circle… uh, somewhere near here? If I could examine it, then I would know."
"Maybe it's hidden somewhere in this office," says Jana, reaching for the desk drawer. "Let's look for it!"
You don't like that idea: you feel as if you've breached Green Flame's privacy enough already by entering her office and examining in her books without her permission.
"Let's look around the school for Green Flame," you say. "I doubt that she will have gone far." You think about it: you remember that, when you met her, she mentioned that she was a slave. A valuable slave, perhaps, but with very little control over her own life. Her 'owner' has commanded her to be a teacher here at the Tyrepheum Academy, so it seems unlikely that she could have taken an extended leave of absence, at least not without permission.
"I think that I will be less noticeable if I look like one of the younger pupils," says Raef, shapeshifting into a teenage girl who bears a certain resemblance to you and Jana: nut-brown skin, dark hair, similar facial features, and so on.
"It might make people suspicious if we all look like Quellonian girls. This far north, the locals tend to have a lighter skin colour," you say.
"Good point," says Raef. In that instant, her skin colour changes to a lighter hue.
"When you shapeshift into a girl, do you think of yourself as a girl?" asks Jana, curiously. "Or are you a man wearing an elaborate disguise?"
"Man or woman, whatever face I wear is merely a role I must play," says the ancient elf. "It is vital that I stay in-character, so I tend to think of myself as the person I am pretending to be, whoever that is." She looks down at her scrawny teenage girl body. "This is not who I really am, but that doesn't matter: it's who I am for now."
"That sounds kinda confusing," says Jana, with a raised eyebrow.
"I'm used to it," says Raef, with a shrug.
Tentatively, you open Green Flame's office door just a crack, trying to make sure that there is no one outside who might notice your leaving. The corridor appears to be deserted. "Come on," you say, beckoning to Raef and Jana. "Let's get going before anyone sees us. Raef, how about you give us a tour of the school?"
"All right," she says, giving you a nod.
"Where do you think we might find Green Flame?" asks Jana. "The library? The dining hall?"
"Elves don't need to eat, so probably not the dining hall," you say. "Unless she arranged to meet someone there…"
Jana chuckles at that. "She could have arranged to meet someone anywhere. Or… well, she could be anywhere, provided that she had a reason to go there. You're not exactly narrowing down the list of places where she could be."
"I'll show you around the school," says Raef. "Perhaps we'll see her along the way."
Over the course of the next half an hour, you are shown all around the school, which isn't terribly exciting: it consists almost entirely of corridors, classrooms, and auditoriums, as well as offices belonging to various teachers and several dormitories where pupils sleep.
While she is showing you around the sports hall, Raef becomes rather animated. "Do you play Bladderwrack?" she asks, sounding so excitable that you can almost imagine that she really is a young teenager.
"Isn't that a kind of seaweed?" asks Jana.
"No! It's a game! For wizards!"
"How do you play it?" you ask, bemused.
For several minutes after that, Raef proceeds to tell you all about Bladderwrack, its arcane rules system, and how wonderful it is. "You don't have Bladderwrack in Quellonia?" she asks. "Hey, maybe the two of you could be the ones to introduce it!"
Diplomatically, you nod your head and say, "Sure, I'll consider it."
Next to you, Jana rolls her eyes. Fortunately, Raef doesn't seem to notice.
You don't see Green Flame anywhere. The Tyrepheum Academy is an enormous place, with hundreds of pupils and dozens of teachers, which makes you worry that you could spend weeks searching it and never find her. You haven't even got as far as the abandoned parts of the school building just yet.
And then you come to one of the classrooms that is not like the others: the walls are richly decorated with purple and gold paint; there are tapestries depicting horned huntsmen chasing down frightened peasants; there are tables at which young people sit playing various gambling games: some of them involve cards, some dice, and there's a table with a roulette wheel. To one side, in the corner of the room, a little shrine is dedicated to a golden demon statue.
"This wasn't here before," says Raef, looking rattled. "Oh… it's an illusion. But for what purpose?"
"Demon-worshipping cult?" Jana suggests, eyeing the shrine in the corner of the room.
"Oh, my lord Achamat doesn't demand that we worship him," says a weaselly-looking young man wearing a long black coat, stepping into view: it appears that he was just inside the room, leaning against the wall, as you approached. "He's a subtler deity than that."
What will you do? (Choose one)
[] Run away as quickly as possible.
[] Engage the weaselly-looking young man in conversation.
-[] Write in: what do you want to say?
[] Call to Archironaeus for help.
-[] He's the god of this place, right? Therefore, he should be able to help you, right?
[] Do something else (write in).
Heh. Simony was one of my favourite characters in School of Sorcery. I always found him amusingly twisted, but I don't know if anyone else liked him. I'm pleased to have this opportunity to use him again.
Also, it may interest you to know that I've updated my HameFura/ASOIAF fic, Screw Destiny! I'll Make My Own Destiny! Or it may not: I'm pretty sure that Chosen by the Dragon God appeals to a completely different readership and that there's not much overlap. Still, I would be grateful to anyone who decides to give it a try.
[x] Engage the weaselly-looking young man in conversation.
-[x] So what does he demand instead?
-[x] I heard he is a demon of luck? Is it good or bad luck - and for whom - that we ran into you?
Perhaps Simony could direct us to Green Flame? At the cost of knowing that we were looking for Green Flame. It's a bargain and a half!
More seriously, his patron can likely see through our paper-thin disguise, but it works both ways. There is nothing to be gained from making an enemy of a Greater god by starting something with their Chosen, but perhaps Simony could see potential in making a deal that benefits him in some way. Everything must have a price for him; let's get to haggling.
[x] Engage the weaselly-looking young man in conversation.
-[x] So what does he demand instead?
-[x] I heard he is a demon of luck? Is it good or bad luck - and for whom - that we ran into you?
Simony! I liked that guy and his general ... flexibility.
Now we will look silly! XD
