[Flashback/Solo] What does this even mean?

[Tonoc Belost]

10th of summer, 510AV Tonoc had been following this Daler for almost two bells through the streets of Sunberth, taking what seemed to be random turns at completely random times. At one point Daler had even managed to walk them in a large circle, twice. Whether this was a clever ploy or he was just wandering he had no idea, yet his contact specifically stated he needed to watch this man until he settled in for the night and he was determined to do just that. Taking yet another turn onto a rather dingy looking street the crowds started to thin out. It had been especially hot this summer and people tended to stay in the shade when possible. To say that this street lacked shade would be an understatement, not even the overhang of a ramshackle building graced the sun bleached stones of the road. Letting the distance grow slightly between Daler and himself to avoid too much suspicion Tonoc let his senses wander just a little, keeping his eyes fixed firmly on Daler’s back. He could hear the tantalizing coo’s echoing from the pleasure house just on the other side of the street, asking or in some cases begging for a charge to join them inside. Catching a small draft of perfume that was way too liberally applied caused him to scrunch his nose, vainly attempting to get the lingering smell out of his nose. Refocusing on the task at hand he realized that Daler had significantly increased the speed at which he was walking. So much so that a single unlucky turn would put a rather worthless end to the last two bells of work for Tonoc. Turns out that both attempting to quickly catch up the target while also trying to remain completely inconspicuous is much more difficult than Tonoc first imagined, he managed to get an awkward shuffle at best, trying to close the gap a little. Delar continued to pick up the pace and Tonoc was he had blown whatever cover he had to begin with. Throwing caution to the wind e broke out into a run, attempting to keep up with Delar as the crowd again began to thicken as they moved deeper into the city where the streets were slightly narrower. People and buildings began to streak by as they broke into a run. Tonoc was unsure why he was still attempting to follow the man considering he had completely blown his cover yet he pressed on, his clock flopping unbridled behind him. Just as the distance between them seemed to shorten Delar took a sharp right turn into a small alley. Tonoc knew better than to follow a man who obviously did not want to be followed into a small, dark alley in Sunberth. Better men than him had made that mistake and become a convenient dinner to the vultures a few bells later. Coming to a stop well before the alley Tonoc then slowly and as carefully as possible approached the mouth of the alley. For such a small recesses between rundown buildings, the light seemed to be sucked away as if it clawed at the darkness held there but could do no damage. Walking gingerly up the building’s that created the dark recess tonoc noticed a small, white paper, stuck to the wall on a small paper. Taking the paper and slowly backing away, Tonoc kept his eyes firmly on the alley until he was well clear of it. Slowly unfolding the small piece of parchment it only contained what seemed to be a very short sentence of.... complete gibberish? AF VAKLJWKK, FG EWWLAFY LGFAYZL Scratching his head he wondered if this really was just gibberish on a page, or did it really have some meaning? Deciding to keep hold of the paper he tucked it securely into one of the inner pockets on his robe, now sweaty from the most recent chase. Making sure to take a round about path home all the while pondering this very weird situation.

[Tonoc Belost]

As the sun set the temperature noticeably started to drop, forcing Tonoc to finally get around to starting a fire. Without the fire the inside of his house would reach the same temperature as the outside, only thin wooden walls kept the seeping cold at bay. This was only the beginning and it would indeed get much colder as Fall turned to Winter, and with winter came snow. Striking his flint multiple times into the bed of the freshly laid out kindling a small ember appeared to catch, its small glow starting to fade quickly. Dropping the flint and pressing his head almost directly onto the floor boards he blew, gently at first trying to coax the flame slowly out of the ember. With a small roar the flame caught quickly clawing its way up the wood pile. Within a few chimes the little hovel had risen to a comfortable temperature. Dragging a chair across the room and putting his feet up towards the fire Tonoc sat, letting out a long sigh as he slowly sunk into the chair. After another few chimes of enjoying the heat on his feet Tonoc slid the paper he had acquired earlier in the day. Slowly running his fingers over the parchment as he unfolded it, with some dark spots on the edges it seemed as if it had been stuffed in a pocket for quite some time, although he was unsure, it even could have the hue from the few hours it spent in his own pocket. Yet the writing was in still intact, looking very small compared to the full sheet that is took up. That sentence at least that is what he thought it was tormented him. “What does it mean” Does it actually mean anything? Taking a deep breath he settled his thoughts, the only way to work through this would be logically. No one would write useless nonsense like this on paper, it would be a complete waste. Now on the other hand, someone with something to hide or trying to leave a message to specific person could come up with some kind of code that only they knew. This would allow them to trade messages on a paper medium without the fear of them being intercepted. Thinking through it all it started to make sense, whoever this man he was following was part of something larger. “And he tried to send a message to someone and I now have control of it. “ The only thing that remained was to crack the code, but how? Tonoc had no experience with codes of any sort, although he knew how to read and write he by no means considered himself an expert. Pondering the question further he came to the conclusion that a trip to somewhere with more knowledge was in store. Throwing a log onto the fire with a cackle he jumped into bed, burying himself deep within the folds of the blanket to fend of the night’s cold. There would be answers tomorrow.

[Tonoc Belost]

If there is one advantage to growing up in the lawless city of Sunberth it is without doubt knowing the lay out and important locations of the city. There are many locations that can be of much benefit to citizens if only they knew they existed. One of these locations was none other than the library, nestled firmly between two falling apart buildings, not that much of a case could be made that the library building itself was fairing any better. Unfortunately the part of town the library called home was not the nicest part of town, known as Stumble Alley. Stumble Alley was a particularly dangerous part of town, known for drunkards and thugs; anyone making their home on the alley for too long was known not to leave. Making his way across the street at a quick walking pace Tonoc kept his head on a swivel, he knew what could happen if he got lazy in this part of town. The alley seemed to be less populated than normal today, but he could clearly hear the crowds down at the docks, rumor had it that ambassadors from Sahova docked at the port and were waiting in their ship. Then again, there also were rumors that forces of Sylrian Knights were on their way to invade as well, not that he put much stock in that one. Yet rumors had proved useful to him in the past, and a crowd so loud he can hear them blocks away had to hold some significance. Upon reaching large double doors of the library Tonoc grasped the rusty door handles and gave a solid tug. The doors immediately swung open without the slightest hint of a squeal, “They must have fixed that” he thought to himself. He could distinctly remember the last time he had been here to look up some information about a trinket that turned out to be nothing but a rusty cup. Besides his obvious disappointment he had a clear vision in his head that the doors squealing had gave him a pounding headache. A wall of somewhat dry and musty air hit him full on causing him to give a slight cough as he step through the doorway, closing the door gently behind him. Shelves of dusty books greeted him like old friends; many of these books had not been touched in years, the proof laying in the layers of dust on their covers. He wandered the library for a couple minutes before finally giving in; he had no chance of finding what he was looking for without help. Fingering the parchment still in his pocket he approached the desk, trying to look like a normal guy asking about codes. The librarian was sitting quietly behind her desk towards the middle of the large room. Her desk seemed to be in complete chaos, books open to every page were scattered every which way. “Ahem, excuse me I was wondering if you could help me locate a book.” He managed to get out. At the last minute he started to scramble, trying to think of some way to ask about code languages without drawing to much attention. The librarian took her time looking up, marking her page with her slender finger before raising her eyes. She was obviously slightly annoyed with him, raising her eyebrows as well and laying a bookmark onto the book slowly. “We have all sorts of books here, what specifically are you looking for?” She said, almost so quiet that he found himself unconsciously leaning in to clearly hear her. “Well I uh…” Tonoc stammered, trying to get his bearings, he should have thought this through before he walked in looking for this kind of information. Deciding that honesty could possibly be the best policy in this situation Tonoc reached into his pocket slowly, pulling out the parchment. “I’m going to be completely honest here; I found this in the market place yesterday. It is in some type of code and I want to know what it says. Point me in the right direction and I’ll tell you what it says when I finish, seem fair?” The slightly startled look in her eyes vanished almost as soon as it appeared as she stood up quickly with a curt nod. “May I see the paper?” she asked, almost snatching it out of his hand as he reached it over to her. Obviously the page made no more sense to her then it had to him either, after a scan she handed it back and started walking to one of the back shelves, motioning that Tonoc should follow her. Taking him to one of the back shelves she picked out a couple books and set them down on a nearby table. “Let me know when you are done.” She stated, then walked back to her desk, sat down, and opened her book to the exact spot she had stopped from.

[Tonoc Belost]

Tonoc felt like he had been reading all day yet a quick check revealed that he had in fact only read about 70 pages. It was heavy reading, weighted down with many new terms and concepts he felt as if he was at a standstill, his brain about to explode. Thinking it best that he go back a review some of the material he had already covered seemed like a good idea, so for the third time in so many hours he flipped the pages backward, getting ready to dive head first into stuff he just read. Although it was indeed tedious work he could immediately see its uses as they pertained to organizations of a more clandestine nature. Through encoding your messages you could ensure that only the person who can read it is your intended receiver. Thus in effect making it possible to hide your communications without meeting face to face, if an enemy was able to come across your messages he would first have to crack the code before he could determine its true meaning. At this point in the book is where Tonoc started to get a little confused, it turns out that there are many forms of ciphers and they can be very difficult to crack at times. The first type of cipher is what is called a shift cipher. The most basic form of cipher takes a letter and “shifts” in respect to the alphabet to the left or right thus ending with a new letter. An easy example of this is the “word” ABC. A one letter shift right makes it BCD, the only way to know the original text is to know the shift used. Although this form is most widely used it is fairly easy to crack if the cracker is willing to spend some time working on it. A determined adversary can just try a different cipher until he gets something that works, there are only 52 possible ways to shift the alphabet and so a limited arsenal to encrypt your messages. There are many more types of encryption available but Tonoc thought that it would be prudent to stop here and see if he could find a pattern. Randomly he picked a 10 shift right, slowly working through the message in his head he came up with "qv lqabzmaa, vw ummbqvo bwvqopb” After the first word he knew that it was not right, but he decoded the rest of the message just for practice. Next he tried a 6 shift left, “uz….” He stopped after the first two letters; this obviously was not it either. Tonoc spent the next hour trying different shifts, eventually giving up and starting from 1 right and working his way up. Finally he stumbled upon something that seemed to work. After shifting the alphabet 18 to the right he found something that looked like it would work.“HA!” Tonoc almost yelled as he stood up, he had cracked the code, and everyone now knew about it. That little scrap of parchment stated “In distress, no meeting tonight” Whoever it had been who he had been following, he had scared them enough to call off whatever meeting they had planned for the night. Closing the book and replacing it on the shelf he walked over to the librarian, showing he the parchment before going off to treat himself to a well-deserved ale, he had spent almost 6 hours in the library today.