Dszquphsbqiz Qsbdujdf (Solo)

[Rezren]

Summer 51 – 512 AV Rezren decided it was time to do some last minute training before departing on the mission he had signed up for just the day before. The mercenary figured that every bit of training he could get would be useful. Such a dangerous task with such large rewards could not be taken lightly by any means. Success was the only possible outcome for him. Failure wasn’t an option. It was possible that the Ebonstryfe and, by obvious extension, Rhysol could fail this holiest of quests, but Rezren was certain he would end up on the winning side or, at least, escape with his life. Surviving such a dangerous task could be seen as a victory by some… As he decided how to train, he stared out his window as he was prone to do when in thought. He could find a way to practice his swordsmanship or his shield skills, but he felt that perhaps working on more subtle things could garner unexpectedly positive results. He would need more than combat skills to earn his way into the Ebon Vault. Rezren pondered his choices and then came to an epiphany. “Cryptography…” He whispered in a characteristically brief verbal statement. The idea had been in his head for a while and the mornings considerations had merely brought them forth. Some of the spies or intelligencers that he had gathered information for had made him write down the data in encrypted formats often providing the key. At the time, Rezren had seen it as an unnecessarily tedious precaution spawned from paranoia, but his life hadn’t been on the line. Now that his life would very likely be at risk, he figured that every single precaution should be taken. Brushing up on something that his superiors treasured dearly seemed like a way that could possibly save him in the near future. The mercenary went and fetched a book, quill, and ink that he had bought a while ago. Most of the pages were still blank so he flipped to a random one, sat on his bed, and held the ink tipped quill an inch over the paper. Rezren hesitated as he decided how best to practice cryptography. He didn’t have any particular messages to translate or information to convert. After a few more moments of consideration, he decided he could practice quick thinking and speed of conversion using a very simple exercise. Simply by looking out his window and jotting down notes about random people passing by in a code. The code he had used most was a simple shift code. Rezren could just jot down lines and shift each letter by one. He decided that was too easy though. A one shift was too easy. Shift codes in general were quite easy, even for a novice like him. He decided he would shift the code by one for every line to make things a little more difficult.

[Rezren]

He began as soon as he decided his course of action for the basic exercise. Black hair, dagger on waist, slight limp, dirty clothing, muddy boots… “Cmbdl ibjq, ebhhfs po ybjtu, tmjhiu mjnq, ejsuz dmpuijoh, nveez cpput…” Rezren sketched out, but not without a few long pauses. He cursed as the next person walked by. Two shifts would be a bit more difficult. Clean shaven, no hair, no weapon, nice clothing, accompanied by a slave… “Engcp ujcxgp, pq jckt, pq zgcrqp, pkeg dnqvjkpi, ceeqorcpkgf da c uncxg...” Rezren was writing in short bursts. Some of the switches came more easily than others. He figured he had made a few mistakes but another person walked by before he had a chance to check. He continued doing this for a good ten lines before giving up. By the end, he had fallen so far behind that his writing was quick, his hand a vibrating blur of frantic energy, and he could only get a detail or two before moving on to the next innocent victim of his scrutiny. The way the ink blossomed from the quill tip was mesmerizing. It looked like black flowers blooming instantaneously. As the ink entranced his eyes, the ideas occupied his head. Letters fell into place like puzzle pieces in his mind. He looked down at the page with pride. The intelligencer had done better than he had given himself credit for. He scanned it over for errors and found a few, probably missed more, but he certainly had done a decent job given his lack of practice and expertise. He decided to repeat the exercise, but go backwards instead of forwards when shifting. He found this much harder to do and, after he had reached his limit, easier to decrypt. Rezren attributed it to the natural tendency to read the alphabet sequentially. Everything began to unfold like a picture in his mind. Letter segments lined up with their encoded counterparts on the blank pages of his memory. It was as though he was decrypting the basic elements of cryptography. The idea amused him. Rezren continued going through and practicing page after page of notes. A dull ache began to build in his hand as the ink left dark scars on the white sheets. The distinct sound of flipping pages sent a satisfying wave through his mind, but the ripples of joy were interrupted by the next stint of writing. The fire burning in his hand grew as he continued to scribble down encoded messages with no particular importance. He encrypted message after message until he was able to do almost twenty lines, given mistakes and omissions were rampant at that point. It was simple and basically boiled down to being comfortable with the alphabet. The more he understood how shift coding worked, the less pride he felt in his accomplishments. He took comfort in the knowledge that he was at least improving. With a sigh, he flipped through the notes that he had taken so far. The progression was surprisingly fast, but he supposed that as long as one knew the alphabet, such things weren’t so difficult to pick up. Rezren tried to remember how to do other forms of code. Shift had been the easiest, but he remembered getting lists with random encryptions for each letter. He figured he could make one of those lists pretty easily. He used the back of a page to write down the key. He figured he would do something simple and just flip the alphabet. A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Z Y X W V U T S R Q P O N M L K J I H G F E D C B A N wouldn’t change but Rezren figured that may just help throw off anyone trying to encrypt it. He went back and began to encrypt messages he had already encrypted. He figured that this double encryption would actually work out quite well. The mercenary hadn’t even really considered doing this before and he was actually pretty happy with the results. It was very slow going though. He spent so much time flipping back and forth to and from the key. He tried to memorize it or come up with some trick, but Rezren was struggling to grow accustomed to the code.