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Comments
Would be good if we had reports on the rest of the days in the note.
You could ask that.
(Although, uh, honestly, I'd like it if you didn't, if only because it's actually kind of painful to type up that much at once currently. But if you don't mind causing me pain, then sure.
)
I would never want to cause pain to our lil' Gypsie Q_Q T_T :`(
[Well, I've waited long enough. Just picking an option now.)
"These are dates," you say slowly, moving your finger down the second row on the page you had viewed earlier. "That's pretty obvious."
You move your finger over to the fourth row of figures. "J.S and J.F could mean a few things, but I think the most likely bet is Job Successful and Job Failed," you continue. "As such, I think this is a list of jobs done, either failed or successful."
You move your finger over to the third row of figures. "This leaves us with several things that these could mean. The two most obvious are the name of the person involved in the job, and the type of job involved."
Here, you slide your finger over to the first entry on the page. "Eff-Tee-Gee-One," you read out. "The fourteenth of April. Bee. Job Successful."
You turn over to the book. "I've looked through this for a list of crimes committed on the fourteenth of April. On that date, a grocer's store was robbed, a merchant was pickpocketed, a noble's house was robbed, a baker's stall was robbed, and another merchant was pickpocketed. Of these, we can eliminate the two pickpocketings, as they are too minor to list on your ledger of crimes committed, and the grocer's stall robbery, which was a failure of a job."
You turn to Rory now. "Can you tell me about the other two crimes?" you ask him quietly, looking down at the sheet. You almost have it figured out. Almost. You're missing something.
Rory nods, then searches through the stack of books next to him. You wait impatiently as he pulls a thick volume out and starts leafing through it.
"A noble's house was robbed," he says eventually, scanning a page. "The noble was called Nerrin Veyarn. He lost several valuable items, including some extremely expensive jewellery and perfumes, some valuable books, and an ornamental sword decorated with jewels. The sword was later recovered, but we were unable to trace it back to the original thief."
He frowns. "Nerrin Veyarn. I recognize that name from somewhere..."
He shakes his head and continues. "The grocery stall that was robbed was owned by someone called Randa Uvilen. He reported that nothing major was gone, but they had absconded with a large number of pastries and pies that put him out of pocket for quite some time."
He looks up at you. "Did that help at all?" he asks.
[A] Complete the code.
Hold off on the code for just a moment. Ask Rory if this is where the name comes from.
You frown, looking down at the papers.
"There has been a rash of deaths among the lower-upper class recently," you murmur, recalling the conversation you had heard when you first entered Farever. "Is there any chance that this Nerrin is among those deaths?"
Rory looks at you for a second, then turns to the pile of books and takes out another one- a smaller volume, bound in a purplish leather. He flips through it for a moment.
"Nerrin Veyarn," he murmurs. "Found dead in his house some two months ago, with his heart burst. Yes. That is correct."
I have no idea if this will produce anything, but I'd like to look up crimes for these dates.
You turn back to the book with crimes listed in them, and cross-reference the dates. You want to know what that B means.
There's not a lot of entries for June 6, or for the 4th of July. There's more entries for the 16th of June, though.
The entry for July 4th is short again.
Okay, things we can conclude.
So...give Rory this information. Out of curiosity, also ask if who the victims in these crimes were and if they're alive.
Also mention that "F.T." are Feila's initials, though that's very circumstantial.
There's no guarantee that the objective of all crimes were the same, but still, we should try to identify some kind of common element in terms of successes and failures. I somehow doubt murders are the point, since there doesn't appear to be political motivation here. Or, at least, attacking through politics doesn't appear to be the means of achieving this organisation's objective. With the robberies though -- some of them huge; 30,000 marks! -- it's conceivable that money is being collected as a sort of underground power investment.
Notice that, in case of the robberies, we get two failures and one success. The failures are for the 6th of June and the 4th of July.
This is the kind of money an underground organisation would be after, and what's more, the perpetrators being caught is certainly an example of a job failure. As for a successful job?
Something of a grand heist, and the perpetrator gets away. In all three cases, large amounts of money were stolen from merchants or nobles, giving the crimes a consistent objective. On each date noted with "J.F", the perpetrators were caught. On the one date with "J.S", the perpetrator successfully escaped.
I think what we need to do, eventually if not now, is to talk with Terinsel Everos and Markus Lynsworth. We might put that off just for a bit, though -- we'll have to work out how to approach it, and see if Rory had already got any information out of them.
oh well ninja'd
Yeah, I don't expect that to be the case, but hey, no harm asking.
Also, just for convenience, a repost:
I would speculate on the other job types, but the guards can figure that out with some quick cross-referencing.
I'm far more interested in the "G1," "L2," etc. Clients or something?
Just to be clear: You wish to ask Rory about the two failed burglaries mentioned, and ask about the victims of each, correct?
Sure. Also might as well ask about the successful one though.
^^^ I doubt it. There aren't enough repeats for consistent, reliable clients and my suspicions are that this organisation are working for their own immediate benefit. Obviously we have the dates, the initials, successes and failures, and an inkling of the job type, so we have most of what we need (or at least, when we need to glean more information).
While there's no solid support for this hypothesis, I suspect that the letters and numbers after the initials stand for map sectors, perhaps map sectors specific to a navigational system or method that the criminals use. Numbers and letters used together like that certainly line up with modern maps, and that system of map organisation has been around for quite some time.
So for my money, we have:
Let's see if we can't cross-reference a little.
I'd like for Rory to bring up the crimes listed for the 28th of May and see if he has location information about it, and also to ask him about the location of the 16th of June crime. If they're in the same general area, then my hypothesis of these codes relating to location has some support. If that is the case, then I'd like to know about the location of the 22nd of July crimes (which is O2 on the crime chart above) and see if any were close to that location.
^^ I'm easy. We'll have to get around to these different pieces of information anyway, so I'm not bothered about how we order it at that moment.
Agreed on all that. I'm just speculating wildly.
Very likely.
Good call. I do however feel sorry for Nova's hands.
You hum thoughtfully under your breath.
"Terinsel Everos," you mutter. "Tee Ee Arr One. Markus Lynsworth. Em Ell Bee Four."
You scan the ledger, then look over at Rory.
"I think I've mostly figured it out," you say quietly. "The first column represents the name of the criminal involved with the job, along with another letter and a number, which I'm not sure of yet. The second column then refers to the date of the job. The third column refers to the job type, and the fourth column refers to whether the job was a success or a failure."
You point at Markus' column. "Em Ell Bee Four- Markys Lynsworth, something. July fourth. Burglary. Job failure. Markus Lynsworth broke into a house and made off with some very valuable goods on July the Fourth, but was apprehended. It was a burglary which was failed."
You look over expectantly at Rory. "Can you please tell me about the victim of the burglary on June 16?" you ask him, moving your book to the side. "And can you cross-check that with the deaths happening recently?"
Rory frowns, then begins flipping through his books again.
"The victim of that crime was known as Renarden Heris," he says eventually. "Thirty thousand marks were stolen from him. In particular, ten thousand marks were stolen in coins from a secure chest. I found this suspicious, because there is no way someone could carry that many marks alone. Jewellery, artwork, and expensive gems were also stolen."
He flips through his other book. "Renarden Heris was also killed recently," he says quietly. "His heart burst, leading him to bleed to death from the inside out."
You nod. "Can you check the victims of the other two crimes?" you ask.
He flips through both books. "The merchant who was robbed on June the Sixth was named Yevel Uden," he reports. "Yevel was found dead several days ago, in the same manner. The merchant who was robbed on July the Fourth was named Gregarik Ulitene. He was found dead three weeks ago, in the same manner."
You bite your lip.
"These second figures in the first column," you say quietly. "Can you tell me about the crimes committed on the twenty-eighth of May and the sixth of June? In particular, locations for the crimes committed."
Rory nods and pulls several books over. He begins flipping through them.
Well shit.
Alright, now I'm going to need 22nd of July. The 28th of May was a dead end; if we're on the right track with the map coordinates and have been successful in presuming that the B crimes were heists, then O1 ought to be somewhere in the Noble's District. No crimes were reported there for the 28th of May, however, and the initials don't line up with any perpetrators.
However, if we get something on the 22nd of July close to or within the Noble's District, then we're on to something.
If we successfully determine whether there was a Noble's District crime of the same type that succeeded, we then have to work out where the crime happened in relation to its O1 equivalent in terms of compass directions. For all we know, the grid for the map might have the numbers vertical, going down or up, or horizontal, going left or right.
T_T
You frown. "That wasn't helpful," you mutter. "Okay- what about the 22nd of July? Can you list the crimes on that date, and their locations?"
Rory flips through the pages in his books, then begins listing them out loud.
Okay, all we've learned here, I think, is that "D" isn't the type of crime you can expect the police to find out about. Drug deal, maybe?
Same goes for "I," it seems. Intimidation? Who the hell knows.
Hm. How about...shit. I dunno what to do next.
Wanna just go after Osten's killer or something and come back to this later? Maybe interrogate those guards he named the way we did with Uva?
Yeah, let's do something along those lines for now.
Some time later, you sit back in your chair and throw the mess on Rory's desk a dirty look.
"I can't figure it out," you mutter. "There's too many things that it could be."
Rory leans back with a weary sigh. "Yes," he admits. "With the information we have now, there's just no way we can figure it out."
You nod. "I think we should wait until Ari comes back with your guardsmen. Hopefully, they'll have some more information for us,"
Rory looks down at his desk, then up at you. "I think you're right," he says. "Go and get something to eat, then... I don't know."
You stand, stretching your legs. Lien, who had been casually 'resting his eyes' next to you, stands with a jerk.
"If you could find a room and call in Teir Vallan, Patir Uran and Estit Vrentu, I would appreciate that," you tell Rory. "I will begin looking into the death of Osten."
Rory nods distractedly.
---
Once you have eaten your fill again, you rise and begin pacing around.
You're getting distracted. Helping Rory is all well and good, and the guardsmen looking into the princess's kidnapping is a big asset, but you should be out there, hunting down the cloaked man yourself, not sitting around here playing guardsman.
Even as you think it, you know that you're not going to do any differently. The princess's kidnapping is important, but you can't just ignore other people who need help. Given the lack of urgency in the situation, there's no compelling reason for you to stick around.
You just wish that you could go back-
"Excuse me," a voice interrupts you from behind. "Sir Rory asked me to tell you that a room has been prepared for you."
---
The room is simple, but spacious. There's a large table in the room, with a chair on one side, and three on the other.
You reach into your pack and take out your board and silver flakes once more, throwing your pack onto the table to hide it from the guardsmen's eyes. You take your time drawing your symbol, before you gesture for Lien.
"Please tell the guardsmen to send in the guards for questioning," you tell him quietly. He nods and leaves the room.
He soon trundles back in, leading three guardsmen. The guardsmen are chained at the wrists.
You assume that the scowling man with long blonde hair is Patir Uran. You are less sure about the other two.
You settle down to begin questioning them.
[A] What do you want to ask them?
WHO DID IT
WHERE'S SCARECROW
WHERE IS SHE
Well, we know what info we're after, and I feel like our ritual might work better if the target is off-balance, so let's just start up with "who killed Osten?"
[Well, no other votes, so CU's option it is.]
The three don't look very unsettled at your stare. That just won't do; people with a stable mental footing don't tend to reveal things they don't want to.
You open up with a question designed to unsettle them.
"Who killed Osten?" you ask, smiling politely at them.
You can almost see their faces stiffen up. You're not sure whether it's because of surprise or a reluctance to show guilt.
"Pardon?" one of the two whose names you don't know asks eventually.
You continue to smile politely. "Osten was found dead yesterday," you reply patiently. "You are known associates of the criminal known as Urghal, and Osten himself revealed that the cause of his death was due to his association with Urghal. I would like you to tell me who killed him."
They look more off-balance now, but they're still refusing to answer.
[A] What else can you think to ask them?
You speak in open questions. This often leaves me in a bit of a loss, so that's why I offer limited response.
That'll stop soon enough. Hopefully.
Currently, it feels wrong to offer up guided answers, so I don't. I'm pretty sure that'll stop once you're in less open-ended situations, where there's fewer possible ways to progress and thus I feel justified in putting in closed answers alongside the open-ended one.
Or maybe not, who knows? I'm pretty sure I will though.