The year is 1999. A group of agents with the FBI quickly discover a routine case is anything but. Thrust into a world that's as incomprehensible as it is deadly, can this team hope to hold back the darkness?
"My partner and I started going through his stuff last night," says Vanessa, "but we didn't find anything yet there. None of it's well organized, but with Wei's obvious mental issues, that shouldn't be a surprise. I'm actually on my way back there to try some more. I'm just leaving the 24th precinct, where I found out how he got hold of that shotgun." She fills Agent Cannor in on the interview with Sergeant Herrera and the video footage of the theft, leaving out the part about Wei being able to predict the future.
“I see. That's disappointing. Nothing here, either. We've reached out to his family, and according to them there were no hints of trouble. I think the kid may have just snapped somehow. Let me know if you find anything else.”
OOC: Please roll persuade to see how well you sell it to Agent Cannor. Just something I am keeping track of.
Nik
Vanessa makes it back to Nik at the college, who quickly explains he's on hold with Dr. Wu.
“I'm no mathematician, but the name sound vaguely familiar. Give me a moment.”
It takes Wu sometime, but he comes back a few minutes after Vanessa arrives . “Sorry for the wait, I believed I had heard his name before,and one of my books in the archive confirmed it.Fascius Claudan, A Belgian inventor from the 16th century. He had some success with astronomy and inventing a simple pulley machine that saw widespread use throughout Europe before it was overshadowed by better models. He had a promising career that was cut short by an apparent descent into eccentricity after a trip to the Orient in 1560,a year before his apparent death. Details are scarce, but his last work was this Libri Plures Admiratio. It's rough translation is the Book of Many Wonders.
"I have never read it, and copies of it seem incredibly rare, but from second sources it was widely derided as nonsensical ramblings and pseudo occult nonsense. It's only claim to fame, as it were, is the Laqueus Equation, a short code that Claudani insisted reveals everything their is to know about the universe. But he left no solution for it, and attempts to crack the code and reveal its solution proved fruitless. The general impression, based off the rest of the book, is that there is no solution, it's just the ramblings of a madman. As for the equation itself, it's occasionally mentioned for its use as a clean cypher and one of the few cryptograms that have avoided modern attempts at being deciphered, but is mostly known as a simple curiosity and nothing more."
OOC: I assume Nik put Wu on speaker, so Vanessa can hear all of this as well.
"I'll keep you informed,"Vanessa replies to Agent Cannor. "I think you're right about him snapping." However, she gets the impression that Agent Cannor is no more convinced of that than she herself is.
"Going by what we've discovered so far,"Vanessa tells Dr. Wu, "it seems that Wei did find a solution to the equation. It was probably impossible in times past, but with the advent of computers, an expert on the subject such as him may have found a way to break the code. If he did indeed discover everything there is to know about the universe, that alone could have driven him mad. What little I've learned has already shaken me."
OOC,Persuade roll (71% skill) to convince [b]Agent Cannor[/b]:
[dice]0[/dice]
"Fascinating!" Wu says, clearly intrigued. "It's very likely Wei has a copy of Libri Plures Admiratio. I suggest your first priority to be finding the book. And then bring it to me, so we can prevent it from falling into others hands. It sounds better to prevent others from laying eyes upon it.."
ooc,Make a HUMINT roll. Success indicates that Wu is interested in examining the book. There seems nothing nefarious here, but given how it effected Wei it may not be a good idea. Then again, Wu has no mathematical background, so it may have no effect. It's up to the Agents.
Nik runs all the names through the FBI databases. None of them seem to have a record.
"Yes, we must find the book - and any of Wei's notes on it - as soon as possible," says Vanessa. "After that we can deal with the crime scene evidence."
OOC,HUMINT roll (54% skill) about [b]Jensen Wu[/b]:
[dice]0[/dice]
HoneyDog wrote:“I think we should finish here first” says Nik. “We should also get this stuff out of here – the notes and hard drives. Let’s get onto McRay – if he’s right about the contagion thing, we shouldn’t leave all this here. “
OOC: This is from the scene in Wei's room - I should have followed this up earlier but Nik intended to get all of Wei's notes removed and brought back for safekeeping. Can we proceed in the assumption that this was done, or would it interfere with game play?
OOC: If you want to try and find the book, give me a search roll with a +20. Unless you fumble you'll find it (if it's here) but the roll will determine how long it takes. The clock is always ticking...
OOC: Edit: Sure, you can have moved everything to somewhere else, but you've not gone through it all yet.
OOC: Will Vanessa be going with Nik, or is she heading off to do her own thing?
Nik heads back to the FBI field office. McRay's pulled some strings and left Wei's things in an evidence room and given the rest of the agents strict orders not to examine it. Once the DG agents have gone through the evidence and removed any sensitive materials, Wei's mundane possessions will be submitted to the rest of the FBI team working the case to catalog.
Nik's able to find Libri Plures Admiratio fairly easy now that he knows to look for it. It's a photocopy of the entire text, still in the box it was sent to Wei in. The copyright information states it was translated into English by the Maurice Ester publishing house and first published in 1944. This seems to be a photocopy of the original 1944 text.
ooc,How closely do the agents want to read the text? Are they just flipping through it, half skimming it, or sitting down to read the entire thing? It totals 192 pages.
If you flip through it will take only a few minutes, but you'll need to make a luck roll and a hard INT*5 check to "get" anything from the book.
Skimming it will take 1d3 hours. You can make a INT*5 at the end to see if you get the gist.
Reading the entire thing takes 1d6 hours of intense concentration. No check is needed to understand the contents in this case.
If you fail any of the rolls you'll need to start from scratch, and I'm going to rule that you can only try to flip through the book once before you need to either skim or read it whole. It's about 1:30 now in the afternoon.
While Nik looks into the book, Vanessa goes through Wei's notes looking for any that refer to the book and its contents, particularly for anything resembling a solution to an equation. Those would be even more dangerous than the book itself.
OOC,Search roll (54% skill) looking for [b]Wei[/b]'s notes on the book:
[dice]0[/dice]
It's tedious work to go through the rest of Wei's works, but Vanessa does so, painstakingly looking for anything involving the Laqueus Equation or its solution. Fortunately, she finds little, and by the end of her search she's about ready to declare everything else mundane.
However, her trained eyes then catch onto the package the Libri Plures Admiratio had been shipped i. By all accounts it's a normal box, and nothing stands out on it. But it still contains an address label Wei neglected to remove; according to the box this package was shipped from Baltimore, Maryland.
Nik meanwhile continues to read. It takes more than one coffee; Fascius Claudan or whomever translated his words has a tendency to ramble, and the language is slightly archaic which means he has to reread several sections of the work again to fully comprehend them. The mathematician spends many pages outlining his early career, and as far as Nik can tell nothing here seems strange in the least. Of course, unless he is truly fascinated by the intimate details of 16th century watermill construction, it's not exactly compelling reading. The only thing that catches the FBI agent's eye is that Claudan makes many asides as to how blind he was, how uneducated.
As he gets deeper into the book things become odder. Claudan discusses a trip he took to the Orient in 1650 which opened his eyes to the wonders of the universe. He describes in detail how he met a very old Arab who had glimpsed the heavens and even seen "the grand library of Nakotic, wherein lay the secrets of the ancient architects of the world." According to him this Arab, whom he never name,s had lived for over 500 years, and it was he who taught him the puzzle of the Laqueus Equation. According to Claudan, it opened his mind to new dimensions and allowed him to glimpse the will of "The Eternal and fulfill their duty." He never describes what either The Eternal are or what duties they have given him. The rest of the book seems largely nonsensical, and the text becomes more and more difficult to comprehend as Nik continues on. References are made to things that Nik has no understanding of, and no frame of reference to even begun to understand. But he thinks he notices prophesy's in here as well; allusions to historical events that Claudan did not live to see.
ooc,These references are disturbing, but not to a san loss troubling. There's nothing spot on; more general allusions to future wars, plagues, and conflicts. None of the events are uplifting ones.
The last section of the book contains The Laqueus Equation. Though he had taken notes throughout the book, here Wei's scribbles fill every bit of the pages, aside from the equation itself. Most of these are not coherent, but the ones that are are scrawled in big black letters and unsteady handwriting that suggests an unhealthy mind.
ITSHOWSTHEWAY
RIDGEWAYSUBTRACT24
DON'TGETCAUGHT
Nik's just finishing up the rest of the book when Vanessa finishes sorting the last book in her pile. As she finishes going through a notebook that contained nothing but mundane math problems, she finds large letters starring back at her.
GOLOOKATTHEBOOK
If Vanessa does so, she arrives just in time to watch Nik turn to the last page.
There on the book is scrawled more text. It's hard to read, but when Nik deciphers it he sees a new equation Wei has written. It's the time on the clock now, 6:32, his and Vanessa's ages, social security numbers, and two sets of longitude and latitude coordinates that if looked up would correspond to both of their home addresses. Below all that is one word, and sprawled next to that is a smiley face in what looks to be blood.
HELLO! : )
Important OOC,This sight costs 1/1d4 Unnatural to see. It's worth knowing that if Vanessa for whatever reason does not obey the note and go examine the book a tthat very moment, only Nik's information is located on the last page. The Laqueus Equation knows what she will do, even if I don't yet. :) In that event, she would not suffer the san loss. I'll elave it up to you Mr.Handy as to what Vanessa would do here.
Vanessa is shocked when she sees the message Wei had left from beyond the grave, but she isn't really surprised by this sort of thing any more. Still, it is extremely disturbing, and she has to take several deep breaths. "I guess he knew all along that he was going to die, too," she says. "Look, maybe he did know the future, but that doesn't mean we can't succeed. We haven't seen anything from him one way or the other in that respect, so the future is still unwritten as far as we're concerned. The real threat isn't Wei. He can't do anything he hasn't already done ahead of time. It's whoever sent him the book. I found the package it came in, and there's a shipping label from Baltimore." She shows Nik the label. "Was anyone on that list of names from Baltimore?"
OOC,Sanity roll (current level 69) for seeing [b]Wei[/b]'s message:
[dice]0[/dice]
Sanity loss:
[dice]1[/dice]
OOC: Taking a few assumptions here, poke me if I overstep and I'll happily retcon
The agents recheck the list of names, but find none near Baltimore. The closest would be Tia Markell in New York City, with Emile Tumlinson the only other member even on the East Coast.
Speaking of Tia Markell, Nik checks his email, and is able to see that it's marked as unread. Apparently she has not seen it yet. But trying to pull up the site, he sees his friend managed to pull it down. The Equation has been thwarted from spreading further in one environment, at least.
OOC: What next? Trying to give you guys considerable leeway with what leads to pursuse, but I realize that can be overwhelming; just roll int*5 at anytime if you need some help. But I have faith in you both.
Nik regains control of himself as he focuses on searching through the names.
“Baltimore is where Johns Hopkins is located. Where the supposed David Farmer works, the guy who sent the book to Wei. What if the name is fake, but the position is real? Maybe our guy does actually work there.”
He looks at the note in the book. “What does Wei mean – ‘subtract 24’? Is he referring to taking out the Ridgeway family? Or is ‘sub tract’ a reference to the local zoning code?” He holds his head in his hands. “This thing is screwing with my head. Look, why don’t we go and solve the evidence problem why we try and figure this thing out? It'll be one less thing to worry about.”
"Yeah, I think you're right about Johns Hopkins and 'Farmer,'" says Vanessa. "The first thing we'll need to do is call the shipping company and find out what we can about the package's sender. We can play the FBI agents investigating a murder card to get them to cooperate. We can also provide that list of names to McRay. He can use his connections to have people interview them and find out if they've been contaminated. Tia Markell's right here in New York. It's disturbing that she hasn't read your email. Maybe we should pay her a visit just in case she's been infected by the equation too. I'm not sure what Wei means by subtract 24, but I think it's a math thing. Subtract it from what, though? The address number? From the 99 in the sequence he sprayed, the only numbers in there we don't the purpose of yet? That would yield 75, but I don't know what significance that would have. After we take care of those immediate concerns, then we should take care of the evidence tonight if Blanet is available."
OOC,INT x 5 roll (55% stat) to try to figure out what "subtract 24" means:
[dice]0[/dice]
Vanessa can't discern what Wei could have meant by the note. But he had left a lot of them in his unhinged state, and it was possible this one may have been one as well.
The agents can call the post office, though they're unlikely to get through to anyone at the office the box was sent from until tomorrow.
As Vanessa mentions altering the evidence, both agents recall that McRay had asked them to construct a link between Wei and Dinah Ridgeway implying there was an affair between them. If they wished to do this, it should be a fairly easy matter to write a brief letter implying a love affair gone wrong, and submit it to evidence when they head to the Alliance PD. It would even provide them with an excuse to visit local law enforcement. But did they want to go forward with it?
ooc,It takes no time at all to construct a forgery if that's what you guys want to do. In this case, I would roll int*5 for you, as your agents could not realistically know how good a job at constructing a forgery they've done. You'd only really risk detection on a fumble however.
So the next move is going to see Tia Markell, then?
