Shantyhouse on Mud Street in the castle town of Blackhaven

[Sam]

Oct 17, 2013 8:36:27 GMT -5 The Stranger said:

The note appears to be in code. It has similarities to a Cave code that Markus knows, but is not the same, and so he can not read it without work.

Markus takes a seat on a stool, if there is one, or the floor if there is not. He dredges his memories for the various ciphers that Lord Cave commonly uses, and then for the less common ones.

[Noteworthy Espionage]
[Novice Intrigue]

[The Stranger]

Markus only knows one cipher, which is the one used to communicate with him. But if it followed a similar principle he might be able to make some progress.
(OOC: how long are you willing to spend doing this here?)

[Sam]

Markus quickly realized that the cipher, while similar to the one that Cave used to communicate his own orders, but with a number of key differences. It occured to him that the rest of the "team", while they all would have their own separate codes, might be able to help in cracking this one, by combining their knowledge of the ciphers. He frowned, realizing that it was unlikely he could accomplish the mission, by keeping this to himself.

"Oi, over here," he said to the others, with a slight reluctance in his tone. "It's similar to my cipher, but different enough. It'll crack faster'f we all work on it," he added, not mentioning the key that had fallen out of the note whne he originally opened it.

[Marie]

"Let me look," Sasha said, leaning over to look at the cipher.

[Novice Espionage]

[Ser Donnel Royce]

"This could take some time. I suggest we do this somewhere that someone hasn't recently been recently murdered." Dickon whispered, as if the body might hear him.

[Marie]

"I want a quick look first, then let's move," Sasha replied, peering at the letter and trying to decipher it. "Come help?"

[The Stranger]

The cipher consists of a about 60 characters, many of them repeating, without any apparent break for punctuation. Each character is a scrawled rune made with ink and quill. If it is a Cave cipher, then the punctuation marks are also enciphered with their own characters to make the code harder to crack.

(OOC: I need a firm statement of how long you want to spend.)

[Marie]

OO - 20 minutes? If the guys agree?

[Sam]

"We'll take this elsewhere. I got a room at the inn, meet there in ten minutes and we'll all crack it."

Once Markus left the shantyhouse with the note, he made his way back toward the inn and unobtrusively slipped up the stairs to the room he had reserved. There, he waited for the others to arrive, though he began working on the cipher himself in the interim.

[OOC: I'll work on it for a few hours, let's say 3, now that we're no longer sitting in a crime scene.]

[Marie]

OOC - ok, 3 hours is fine with me too, just wasn't clear if we were leaving or not.

[The Stranger]

OOC: I need to see if Creighton is going home or going to harass the drunk man again, otherwise we can get to the deciphering.

[Deleted]

Oct 18, 2013 7:32:11 GMT -5 The Stranger said:

"Bugger off," he growled. There was silence after that.

Ser Creighton, totally unaware that the others have found the coded note upstairs, snorts and bangs on the door again and this time harder than before, and took a step back, prepared for the door opening and the angry man coming out to give him a piece of his mind. His left hand rested on the hilt of his mace.

[The Stranger]

There is a minute or 2 delay but indeed the man does come barreling out, a massive cleaver held in his right hand.

OOC: it will be a minimum of 3 rounds before anyone can aid creighton.

[Deleted]

Having been prepared, Creighton drew his mace to meet the man's attack with the cleaver. His plan was to disarm the man as he still wanted to talk to the man, but he was prepared to do what it took to survive.

[Notheworty: Blunt Weapons]

[The Stranger]

Creighton manages to catch the man on the elbow with the blow from his mace. The drunk howls in irritation, but feels no pain. He turns to attack again. This time when Creighton swings, the man sways wide left, and slashes with the clever, catching a chink in the armor beneath Creighton's armpit, and bloodying him.

The two trade parries for a time, as the sound of the fighting now reaches the upstairs (OOC: All those around the cipher can now begin to move, at least one turn to reach the bottom. Because of the narrow stairs, you can only join the fighting one at a time. So one player in round 5, then another in round 6, 7, 8 etc.)