PC: Tama 💀

[resumed]

Comments

[ballies]

He’s pretty active, you know. [ thinks about him hoisting those goons around in one of the side paths. ] He has to be, for his job.

It’s not too different to an investigation, really. We have starting points — the rules, why they changed, someone mentioned the responses to letters in the paper, Addy? Those have changed over the past couple of weeks. We could try writing something in and adding a code maybe? See if anyone spots it?

[resumed]

I'm gonna take your word for it, Tama, and not put much thought into it. [ but. yeah. ryuki's a cop (?) so he supposes this makes sense. ]

Yeah...those are different, but I'm not sure what that means. [ but oh. that's an idea. ] You think that'd work? I don't even know what we could write that'd make it to publication or whatever.

[ballies]

If he was an unhealthy cop, he wouldn't be working the field let me tell you. [ running around after criminals takes it out of you. ]

We'd just need a topic to cover. The Addy letters seem to be about anything and everything, so it'd be figuring out what to say and how to slip a code into it. The simplest one I can think of is the one were you use the start of each sentence to spell a short phrase. ARE YOU THERE? Or something?

[resumed]

Alright, alright. [ no more talking about ryuki's health, that's private. but he seems focused on the idea of a letter. ]

We can make up a scenario since it won't matter. Something short's a great idea. [ ... ] Some of the responses sound a little...interesting. You know?

[ the verbiage...is a little specific in some instances. ]

We should have a back-up message, too. Just in case the first isn't clear enough.

[ballies]

[ she was thinking more along the lines of if he wasn't like. active and able to run. he does so much running, i realise. ]

Yeah. I really need to look over them all again, see if I can figure something out. [ hmm. ] Like... two messages to show it's not a coincidence?

[resumed]

Yeah. Once could be a coincidence, twice is a pattern. Or something like that? I think if we make sure the message gets through we have a better chance of something coming back to us. From whoever.

[ballies]

… Man, codes are tough to figure out when you can’t just automatically translate them.

[resumed]

[ pff. ]

Welcome to being mortal. [ it's a joke because fuck, he's there, too. ]

[ballies]

If I had the same level of ‘net access it wouldn’t be such a big deal!!

[resumed]

Improvisation! We're learning together. [ now he is just being a shithead. ]

[ballies]

Uggggggghhh.



The simplest other code would be one letter to the right. I guess we go with one of those?

[resumed]

So like...a equals b, and b equals c, and so on? That's an easy enough cipher if you can make it look like not complete gibberish.

[ballies]

Yup. We could capitalise it too, but that might give it away a bit too much…

[resumed]

Maybe that's a plan for next time if this doesn't work. For now, we can try to build in the cipher and see if whoever's responding to these letters can address it. Even if it's nobody...it's better to know than not.

[ and then they both cyoa'd and probably did not manage shit, but it's okay. ]

[ballies]

[ shakes ]

It’s worth trying, I think. And I think other people are picking up on it too, so we might have multiple attempts to hand.

[resumed]

Better than just us. [ not that he doesn't trust their efforts, but also, other people's efforts are fine because if those don't work they can still cross things off the list. ]

Maybe I'll ask around, too. See who else has noticed patterns lately. It can't hurt to consolidate stuff.

[ballies]

Many hands, light work. Or something like that.

[resumed]

Something like that. [ he carefully takes shame from tama's shoulders. ] Come on. Didn't you want to find a pet for the dorm?

[ballies]

[ the irony is since we started this, the dorm is full of kittens. ]

Yeah! Or at least to have a little look and see what might work.

[resumed]

[ so i have heard. ]

Okay. Let's go this way to check.

[ and we can handwave the rest if you'd like becks! ]

[ballies]

[ thumbs up. i free you to drown under all your post-cyoa pcs ]