A short while later, one of the pages begins to flicker. What's wrong with it?
Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2013 11:20 pm
The looks were completely lost on the Skark. She took his tail and began looking it over quite methodically. Even stopping here and there to bring it up to her eye and probe it with one of her antennae.
"I don't think it's broken?" she said and handed his tail back to him. She looked at the boil quizzically. "Does it still hurt?"
Her attention was caught as the Professor announced that their next task was ready. This time, code breaking! Well, if it was something she could hit physically, Canon supposed breaking codes wouldn't be too hard. However, when she ran over and picked up the two sheets of paper, there were just a bunch of seemingly random symbols on them. She took these back over to the box, and placed them on top of the lid where the other students could take a look at them, and then examined the lock pad, thinking that perhaps it would be something she could strike.
"I don't think hitting it will make it open," she admitted to herself, studying the letters. So code breaking was more like solving a puzzle? Okaaaay. Canon rummaged in her clothes until she pulled out a rumpled piece of notebook paper and a pen.
A flicker caught her eye, though, and when she looked at the larger paper again, she saw that some of the symbols changed. Changed into letters! Canon quickly jotted them down onto her notebook paper.
"So these symbols each match an alphabet letter!" she exclaimed. The Skark drew out each symbol along the left margin, and numbered them. Well, she came up with 27 different symbols, but two of them were very close. If they were the same, that meant there were 26 letters, one for each letter!
She also counted how often the symbols appeared, and wrote that down as well. When she was done, she placed her paper next to the others, and beamed at her classmates. Look what I did!
Canon's Notes
MoonKitsune
Zee Oddwyn
Tenacious Bookworm
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Seiana_ZI
Codebreaking Conversationalist
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Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2013 6:18 am
Serafina was in no way an ace at puzzles, but she liked to think she was pretty good at figuring people out. Figuring out a code wasn't much different than figuring out a more typical paper code, even if this code was nothing but typical.
Canon's attempt at hashing out the code actually made sense. There were twenty-six symbols listed and it was an exact match up. It looked like she managed to figure out what some of the symbols were, too. How had she done that? There were no real clues other then the order things went in on the sheet and what would make sense because of it.
Then she noticed the sheet was flickering.
The clue she had requested was right in front of her face. "Hey, guys! There's other letters on here too. The lowercase r with a circle on top is an r, and that backwards P with a circle underneath looks like a u... Oh! And the less than symbol with a circle in it is S!"
She was getting excited now.
" Might the bump with the circle in it in front if the first U be a Q?"
((Forgive typos, phone. :T))
Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2013 6:32 am
Tomoko stared at the code with a dumb look on her face. She wasn't the 'figure out mysteries' sort of ghoul. She probably wouldn't have figured out the end of a mystery novel no matter how badly the 'surprise' was written, so standing there with a group that was talking out all of the strange symbols was well.....
She'd twisted her skirt in her hands and looked anxious, leaning against Jack's side and giving him a pathetic look.
"I don't get it..." she said quietly.
Nerpin
demon_pachabel
Beloved Werewolf
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Seiana_ZI
Codebreaking Conversationalist
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Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2013 10:13 am
Suddenly, Serafina's eyes widened. "Does the second sheet say 'The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over the Lazy Dog'. Everything would seem to match up!"
Though she wasn't sure if what that would make the first code would be correct. Still, it looked correct. All the words matched up. And that would give them all the letters!
Wait.
"And the first piece of paper says Antelope!"
Quote:
http://db.tt/HV4e5PE6
Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2013 10:47 am
Codebreaking was Jack's weakness.
He just didn't get alternate languages - he learnt fast, but without a general idea, he was right out of it. Feeling Tomoko slowly lean against him made him feel a little better about his lack of assistance as he watched Serafina and Canon go through the list and work toward a possible answer.
"I'm not very good with codebreaking either. I'm more a physical person." He mumbled back to her quietly. "No worries."
Levi placed her hands at her hips when she stood, grinning back at Jack and his uncovering the mystery of the final lock. He'd hit the nail right on the head. Could say that. So long as ya'ain't tellin' nobody nothin'. A sly wink was shot his way; you never snuck and told.
Turning to look at West at her side, his face looked puzzled before the puzzle had even been revealed. What? They were of few words sometimes.
Then the professor began and this became a bit puzzling for everyone. Nodding in agreement to the whole not-hitting-it plan, Levi squinted down at the things smudged onto the pages. Looks good ta'me! really, she couldn't have done it any better, even if she'd claimed otherwise. the tatzel would pay a compliment where a compliment was due. Way ta'use them smarts, ghoulie. Levi looked over the pieces of paper and the two ghouls figuring it out. Turning her head at the one page with the strange markings, to the point of her basically relying on her tail for stability, she came up with nothing.
Yea, I think yer right. Yep, she'd agree if they seemed certain.
Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2013 11:53 am
Arachne had looked at both sheets of paper, but her code-cracking skills were obviously on par with her First Aid ones, as nothing leapt out at her. When one of the pages began to flicker, she had slightly better luck, and was slowly pondering it when a few others in the group seemed to come up with a solution.
She wasn't sure if they were right, but if she relied on her own brain at the moment, coming up with the right answer might take much longer. So she merely echoed Levi's sentiments, and waited for a task that didn't involve weird symbols masquerading as letters.
(( Have headache but wanted to do post for word count >_< ))
Canon looked over Serafina's paper with interest, glancing from her own to the ghoul's, and with it laid out so neatly, she wondered how it could have seemed so difficult.
"Well done, comrade!" she congratulated Serafina, beaming. Since the other students seemed to agree that the code was correct, Canon quickly punched the code into the key pad.
Smerdle
ANTELOPE
Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2013 12:52 pm
Round Three: What...
Kenner nods his head and grins, clearly pleased with their performance. "All right, everybody stand back and..." He leans forward and turns the face of the unlocked keypad a quarter turn to the right, lifting the second lid off of the inner box when it comes free. A little bag sits right inside, but he promptly confiscates it before anyone else can open it. He mutters something about "them" sending "the deluxe edition," but he's all smiles again soon enough. He lifts several strange bracelet-sized rings from the box and places them on the ground. Eight of them, to be exact. When they are all scattered around the area, Kenner stands back and addresses the class again.
"These," he says, gesturing at the rings, "must be stacked in there on top of that."
If you look inside the box, you can see a cylindrical depression, just large enough to fit all eight rings in a pile. This first ring is already in place, but it isn't terribly fancy like the others.
"If you put 'em in the right way..." Kenner spreads his fingers, mimicking an explosion. Does that mean the box will explode? He doesn't say.
"Chop chop. I'm sure you've all got slam books to write in."
Quote:
OOC TIME!
In this final round, you must open one last lock. This one technically requires an image editing program, but if you're really into wasting paper and have a color printer and a very strong light table, you can do it that way as well. Don't worry if you can't do anything OCCly, just play with some rings ICly or something. XD
You must line these up ( x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x ) in such a way that they unlock the box. That's it! When you're done, one person can post an image of the repositioned rings.
This round will last until January 18th at around 2pm or until someone opens the lock, whichever comes first.
ALSO...
That little bag is awfully strange, right? What could possibly be inside it?
...
What if a bunch of these were in there? What. If.
The minipet you will be receiving for this class has not yet been named. If you would like to take a stab at naming it, please post your naming attempt at the bottom of one of your posts sometime during this round. The name will be chosen by raffle near the end of class.
there's always a typo in these things, apologies
nekoluch
astrabot
Vashtya
Nerpin
demon_pachabel
Zee Oddwyn
MoonKitsune
CitrusCupcake
Seiana_ZI
Kanth
Smerdle Crew
Scamp
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Zee Oddwyn
Tenacious Bookworm
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Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2013 2:04 pm
((Assassin's Creed 2 don't fail me now!))
Canon was beside herself with curiosity as the next layer of the puzzle box opened. She almost pounced on the bag, but the Professor was quick to scoop it up and away. The little Skark looked puzzled for a moment, but her attention was quickly drawn back to what the Professor said was their next task. A number of ring were strewn on the snow, and one more was embedded in the box.
Canon investigated the latter first, nothing the marks on the ring. She then picked up one of the loose rings, and saw that it also had the marks on the outside, though there was an interesting lattice on the inside. On a hunch, she picked it up, and placed it on top of the one on the box, rotating it and trying to get the marks to match up. Which they did perfectly. Well, that was one!
She scampered over to another ring, and tried to do the same thing with it, but the marks didn't match this time. Canon puzzled over it for a bit, before picking up another one, and trying it instead. This one fit! Canon puzzled over the other one for a bit before looking to her classmates for help.
((Here's the solution. Didn't want Canon to solve it ICly right off the bat, so other people have a chance to post. Name idea: Doozy))
Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2013 2:27 pm
He had to give it to the code-breakers, they did a lot better than he would have. He sometimes even had problems with his original language, let alone figuring out others.
Seeing Canon doing something in the corner with the rings, he raised his eyebrows lightly and went over to regard her, tail flicking happily as he figured what she was doing. They made. . . something. Clearing his throat, he crouched in front of her, smiling wildly.
"It looks like a bit of an image, but we'd need all the rings to interlock, of a sort." He offered up, pulling a ring he had grabbed and sticking it in with the other ones, hearing a nice little click. "We'd just have to figure out how they work. Hm."
Zee Oddwyn
Quote:
Being at work means not being able to use my art progs, but I'll play along > wName Idea: Prisen
Serafina was absolutely beaming that she had gotten it right, and everyone seemed to agree. When people were agreeing with her, she nodded her head in response and grinned from ear to ear. And when Canon called her a comrade, she returned a bow of her head, responding, "I couldn't've figured that out without 'The' being translated... Before that, the whole thing really just looked like a bunch of picture drawings."
But, unfortunately for the Serafina who thought she was on a roll, the next puzzle wasn't as linguistic-related. Interlocking rings? And what was in the bag? Serafina had half-the-mind to join Canon in lunging for the back to see what was inside it--and then promptly claim whatever it thought it was as her own--but the professor had yanked the bag away before she could even attempt. Disappointing. Hm. Maybe he'd let her look inside the bag if she helped out with this interlocking ring puzzle?
The matching marks seemed to be a useful clue, but perhaps another useful clue was the way the different pieces of the rings seemed to fit together. Was there something they were trying to make?
"Maybe we can figure out how these fit together best if we can figure out what these are making," offered Serafina, picking up another ring herself and looking at what was attached to the side of it. "They seem to click together rather easily, though. Perhaps we should just keep matching up the sides."
She popped the ring on top of the pile that was already forming, grinning at the clicking sound.
Quote:
Name Idea: Emontosaurus (hur hur hurrr)
Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2013 4:55 pm
Oh. It seemed like the code was actually easy when someone started explaining it, Tomoko crouching back down to make her thoughtful face again and slowly inching closer.
And then inside were more puzzles. Great. Tomoko was awful at this kind of stuff. Not in that she couldn't do them, but she took a long time to do them at all. She took one of the rings and played with it, twisting it around with one of the others to get an idea of where it would fit with it, before sheepishly pulling her hand out of the entire mess.
"Do you think the red parts all fit together?" she asked. "Since it's kinda..color coded and..." she continued talking but no sound was coming out of her.
demon_pachabel
Beloved Werewolf
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Vashtya
Tipsy Hoarder
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Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2013 9:11 pm
Having not really contributed to the second puzzle, Aedan peered down at the rings. Great, another puzzle. Not his strong suit, to be sure. Tilting his head slightly to the side, he looked down at the pile of rings, unable to make heads or tails of it.
"Do they maybe make some kind of a picture, d'you think?" He murmured, shifting uneasily. There had to be some logical way of deciding how they all stacked together...unfortunately, what it was completely eluded him. Maybe he should just make himself a sign that declared his uselessness at puzzles and throw it onto the front of his shirt.
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