Right Hand to the Boss

Let's start on the day I left, one more time.

There were black leaves scattered over the stairway, leading to a door marked ROOF ACCESS. It was facing the east side of KRAKEN's base, so theoretically it would provide cover from the snipers on the western building. I opened the door, and found myself standing in the middle of a grove of trees, their leaves prematurely reddened. There was a cellphone sitting on a bench, not new but not too old, right in the center of the clearing.

As I stepped towards them, I heard the door lock behind me, and the phone going off. Despite what it sounded like (a high-pitched "Dorh-ru-ru-ru-ru-ru. Dorh-ru-ru-ru-ru-ru.") it was heralding the arrival of text messages.

I picked up the phone - which lacked a password - and started reading.

--pharmaciasPharmakon (PP) started pestering silvertonguedPharmakeus (SP)--
PP: As I foresaw, here you are. 

PP: Approaching the sound of my 'voice,' like a mongrel who abandons the hunt to heed the call of its master.

PP: ...

PP: ok this speech is p goddamn long lmao 

PP: lemme make this easier 4 evryone n just 

PP: [Link Redacted]

I tilted my head in a few different directions, as if to alleviate the effect of that sheer tonal whiplash.

SP: ...well, this is the first time someone's delivered me a villainous monologue through pastebin.

I noted that my response didn't set off a notification noise. Either the other person was out of earshot, or they simply turned their device's volume down to nil.

PP: ur welcome

PP: the boss originally wanted me to c/p the whole thing bit by bit 

PP: talkin's a free action n all but for half an hour???

PP: neither of us wants that bullshit

SP: You've got me there.

I opened the link, reading through at a much faster clip than probably intended.

SP: ..."and you will lead me to the arc."

SP: Interesting choice of words. 

PP: yea he was p sure about usin "arc" over "ark"

PP: said it's a lot more punny that way

PP: u skimmin or r u just that fast of a reader

SP: Under the right pressure, yes.

SP: I wanted to read the last updates live, so I read all of Homestuck within two weeks.

PP: dam dude 

PP: respect

SP: It's mutual.  

SP: A surprising amount of people in these circles are fine going for that full anime flex.  

SP: The melodramatics, the measuring of you-knows. 

PP: lmao you can say dick around me 

SP: It's refreshing to see someone instinctively avoid that. 

PP: thanks 

SP: ...is this a custom chat client? 

PP: made it myself :P 

SP: The respect dial has been turned up. 

SP: Not only were you trusted enough to deliver The Monologue, but with your own program. 

SP: How high are you?SP: In your group that is. 

PP: bout as high as you *wink 

PP: oh u mean rank 

PP: i mean 

PP: we dont really do 

PP: ranks??? 

PP: ive been workin for him for a while tho 

PP: why 

PP: r u trying to seduce the bbeg's right hand lady 

SP: That wasn't my original intention. 

PP: "original" 

PP: thats not a no 

SP: I mean. People are getting shot at downstairs. And that's not even getting into the literal magic that's flying about. 

SP: It'd be kind of fucked up if I was actively trying to flirt at a time like this? 

SP: Though what I say doesn't negate how you interpret my words. I could be obfuscating my real thoughts/intentions for all sorts of reasons, like plausible deniability.

SP: On my end, all I have to go on RE your relationship to your boss here is your word. 

SP: On their own, each of the three perspectives gives an incomplete version of what's really going on here.

PP: 3?

PP: urs mine and ??? 

SP: Whoever might read this conversation later.

SP: For all anyone reading this conversation knows, we're also carrying out an entirely different conversation out loud.

PP: whos to say there isnt any1 else here 

SP: Fair enough. But that just ties back into my limited perspective - as far as I know, it's just you and me here.

SP: Without getting into metafictional possibilities, your boss could even be somewhere nearby, a fourth perspective observing this conversation. Possibly reading over your shoulder.

SP: Maybe I'm just talking to him and I don't know it.

SP: Again, for all I know, either one of you doesn't actually 'exist' - maybe you're actually 'your boss,' or you're someone entirely different from that AND who you say you are. 

SP: ...for the sake of keeping it simple, though, I'm just going to roll with the original context. That in this moment it's a conversation, it's me talking to "the bbeg's right hand lady"  

SP: Hey speaking of your boss. 

SP: If you're actually handling this conversation by yourself...  

SP: Why IS he not doing this himself? 

PP: hes kinda busy atm 

PP: "preparing the arc"

I considered that for a moment. And then, epiphany. Downstairs, there was a small army of ARC agents. People who, given the chance, would gladly kill a Fear. It was well-established to the point where the idea'd be taken for granted.

And that dagger could destroy a lot more than just a summoning circle.

I considered whether I could alert anyone in time. My radio would be the fastest way to get the message out... if it hadn't been shattered by bullets on the way into the building. Texting someone was a gamble as well. I might get someone's attention, but unless they were out of the line of fire the distraction could get them killed. And that's if I didn't manage to tip off PP or her boss in the process.

Unless...

I pulled out one of my own phones and texted a number attached to the one group I believed could not be compromised - a cell belonging to one of GENOME's Towerborn, or at least they person they used to be. I belatedly wondered if GENOME would even try to stop what was about to happen, but I was low on options.

I had the nagging feeling that my involvement would be periphery at best.

PP: u brought ur cell to an eldritch clusterfuck 

PP: you kno the track record of those things 

SP: You also left one for me to talk to you. 

PP: tru

I was about to reply back when a thought occurred to me. I turned abruptly, jumped up onto the bench, and crouched into a deep dab the second I landed. I also bent both sets of fingers into 'okay' symbols for good measure.

pP: nmkiop

Just a little bit of stifled laughter, coming from up a nearby tree.

Aha.

Before I could decide what to do with this information, the building shook like God was using it to mix martinis. I flopped off of the bench with all the grace of an ice cube. A good deal of leaves fell to the roof, but none of the snipers seemed interested in shooting at my exposed form. In fact, they'd stopped shooting altogether.

Everyone had.

I picked myself up, and by that point the Tower had burst through of the roof.

I heard the sound of wood shifting and groaning, but it wasn't coming from the Tower. At least, not yet. The trees around me were beginning to bleed. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that they resumed bleeding.

And the Tower avoided the grove like it was radioactive.

"Thanks," I said out loud.

"You're welcome," came the voice from behind me.

I turned, and saw her stepping out of the trees. Literally. The assorted flesh, bone, and viscera started reassembling themselves like so many LEGO blocks. Her right hand, still holding a cell phone, slid down from the top boughs to reattach itself to her wrist. I caught a glimpse of the custom chat client, open to our conversation, on the screen.

Her outfit - where it was bloodstained or just already dyed red - has so many zippers that it looked like Tetsuya Nomura designed it during a bender. Though they were a lot more practical, considering she could apparently dissemble and reassemble it on the fly.

I recognized it immediately, and I tried to downplay it at the time.

"Nice to meet you in the flesh," I said.

I didn't hear most of her replies - probably on account of the unholy mechanical grinding noises the Tower was now making behind me - but I did notice her mouth moving. And, unfortunately, I'm not very good at reading lips. (All I recognized for certain was "WHAT? WHAT DID YOU SAY?")

The Tower froze mid-writhe, and I remembered thinking it was almost like a YouTube video trying to buffer after the wifi cuts out.

Then it started screaming.

No, that really doesn't do that ungodly nightmare fuel justice. Let me try again.

Remember the sound that AOL made back in the early 2000's? When modems were using dial-up to connect people to the Internet? Imagine that sound.

Now layer it over the sound of television static.

Layer over that with the audio of "the sound of ultimate suffering" from the Princess Bride, after running that soundbite through a MIDI converter.

Sprinkle in that one voice line from Monster Ock, penultimate 'boss' of the Spider-Man 2000 videogame: the one where he screeches wordlessly before spitting out a distorted "DIE."

A metaphorical Billy Mays manifests from the beyond to tell you "but wait, there's more;" just audible enough to be heard amidst the auditory slurry, the electronic crackling of a broken speaker.

Now imagine that those weren't the only sounds it made, but the only ones with a discernible, earthly component.

And the entire Tower is blaring this, from every component of its amalgamated form, at a volume just shy of destroying your hearing the second it starts. A sound emitted at just the right level so that you never forget it, wants you to never forget it, in a vain attempt to cling to the immortality of memory in that one last moment. This moment that even this Fear Feared, in which this being of eternal technological hunger is consumed by oblivion. No, not even something as comforting as an abyss.

To be consumed by a foreign, living entity, in an act of dramatic irony.

Its world ending not with a whimper, but the biggest crash ever amassed.

I was thankful for the fact that I wore sunglasses. It hid my watery, wide-eyed stare. Probably dulled the full effect of the strange blossoms flowering up from the quivering corpse. Come to think of it, that wasn't the only sense that received protection.

Unlike the majority of the people in the area, we at least had the auditory buffer of those bleeding trees, and the benefit of being outside. Down below, those who were still alive experienced this in an enclosed space.

Speaking of those trees...

I turned to face her. "...do you think this'll hold up?"

By this time, it had quieted down enough for us to hear each other. Considering why that was the case, it wasn't all that comforting.

"Against whatever hell pollen is coming down on us?" Zipper Woman looked... really concerned. "Well, since a buncha trees aren't exactly airtight..."

I'd actually thought that they might be able to divert their path, much like it had done with the Tower. "Do you have a way out of here?"

"Already on it," she said, before I'd even finished speaking.

Black leaves flew off of the trees, completely obscuring my vision for a moment, before they parted to reveal a forest of black leaved trees around us. My brows raised up over my top of my shades, like confused soldiers peering out of a trench when everything's abruptly silent.

Many people called this place "The Path of Black Leaves." Most believed it died with its ruler. In a way, maybe the silence reflected that. No wind. No rustling of leaves.

The only sounds were the ones we made.

Compared to what we'd just heard, THAT was deafening in itself.

The ground beneath us, within the circle of trees, had made the shift with us. I wondered if that meant an equal section of ground/arrangement of black-leaved trees had been shunted over to the other side. I put that to the back of my mind when I noticed where we'd arrived in this forest - at the edge of a very, very familiar clearing.

There are many names for it, that endlessly bleeding tree. Some people call it "the Bleeding Tree," which is... practical, if nothing else. The sheer size of the thing instantly set it apart from the ones surrounding us, but I noticed something odd about it. Most accounts I've encountered described the tree as having the image of faces in the bark. While I viewed it with my own two eyes, I didn't see any at all. And then there was the more obvious detail.

There's a massive chunk of it missing. Not in the right shape or size to be the one used to carve the dagger, even though we already learned where that wood had actually come from. No, this hole was large enough for someone to step inside.

Or rather, for someone to step out from.

Without turning my head, I looked at her from behind my shades.

"Listen..." she said, oddly hesitant. "I've only got enough juice to get myself out. Sorry dude." She stood in front of the Bleeding Tree, and paused. Then turned back to me. "I can. Uh. Call your ride for you?"

I considered my options for a moment.

Doctor Ferris was right out, especially since I wasn't sure if he'd survived the raid.

Collector Delta was a bit more promising, partly because Archive security had already been breached by Roxanne and her boss... but I wasn't sure if she actually *could* reach this place if she wanted to.

Those from the Black Garden might be better specialized for the job, but then there was the matter of trust.

Which left...

I made up my mind.

"You want me to call your florist?"

It was a gamble. But the only thing I could really bet on with the odds in my favor.

From my perspective, Roxanne had only been gone for a minute.

My "florist," when we had returned, told me that it had been over a month since the raid.

Peisistratos

A consensus has been reached on what exactly is going into this post. And yes, I recognize that posting this may have taken more time than necessary considering the final word count. That said, we weren't just sitting down for coffee and discussing this. We've been... busy. Considering the reasons why everyone's converging on Seattle hasn't really been kept a secret, this shouldn't really come as a surprise.

But, I've finally gotten the time to sit down to share (most of) the details of the micro-adventure I went on with the translation team. Speaking of which...

=====================

Dramatis Personae - The Translation Team

Doctor Eiffel - Head of the translation team, and headed the one responsible for finding and acquiring the tablets. Due to having to plan the assault, she did not accompany us for the investigation.

Myself - The most recent volunteer member of the team.

Jonas - Formerly the rookie of the team, more due to how long he'd been working with them rather than skill. A peppy guy with a big heart. Really into the Weather Channel, and meteorology in general.

Megido - A graduate student at AMU studying archeology. She's doing work with the lab while pursuing her doctorate.

Jonathan - A gentle giant of an AMU alumni, who had done (one of) his thesis papers on the involvement of Fossils in ancient South American cultures.

Hershel - Another archeology professor, one who's as much of a gentleman as Jonathan. Though he has considerably less muscle mass, he likes to joke that his hat makes up the difference. Fond of puzzles and tea.

=====================

August 2nd, 2019

"So this is the new member of the translation team."

An older man had entered our lab around lunch time, looking like the kind of man who had a full tank of gas and half a pack of cigarettes. I was the only one in the room when he arrived. Since we'd discovered the missing time (and the existence of the missing volume) we'd agreed not to leave the lab unsupervised, and it had been my turn to stand watch. I had been working on recovering more of the progress still left as gaps in Jonas' notes.

"You must be Cimbrius Tviblindi," I said, getting up from my chair.

He looked pleasantly surprised. "I see that my reputation precedes me."

"That, or some well-dressed scoundrel took his lanyard."

He chuckled at that. "These are about the only things they seem to give out like candy around here."

Tviblindi looked down at my lanyard which, like his, was currently little more than a headshot glued haphazardly to a 'hello my name is' sticker. "'Doctor Jackson.'" He gave me a knowing smile. "Pleasure to meet you."

"Likewise," I said. "Though something tells me this isn't a social call."

He nodded. "I'd heard the news about the missing third volume, and the lack of memories regarding it. Apart from that, however, I wasn't briefed on that subject."

"Well, Jonas can tell you more about the contents of his notes than I can," I admitted. "Thanks to his eidetic memory. Though they're all out getting lunch right now..."

"I can wait for them to return."

=====================

"My notes only cover so much," Jonas explained, after swallowing a good chunk of lettuce, tomato, bread, and tuna salad. "We've been able to gain back a lot of lost ground with the translations because of them, but unfortunately there are some sections missing. We were working as a team, after all, dividing the content into more manageable chunks. I'd made references to sections that the others had translated, but the thief must have taken those notes along with our memories." Jonas sighed. "Oh, but we have a rough idea of when our memories were taken."

Tviblindi paused, his BLT hanging in front of his face."Oh? And when would that have been?"

"My notes ended at May the 8th. Our best guess is that the thief took our memories sometime within 24 hours after I finished storing the copy for my lockbox."

"And the rest of you make copies of your notes?"

Jonathan looked down at his ham on rye sandwich. "I do, but unfortunately I just kept them in a separate drawer of my desk."

Hershel adjusted the brim of his hat. "Suffice to say, not all of us thought of hiding them. Or rather, in places the thief wasn't able to discover for themselves." He took a small sip of his tea. "At this point, since we still have the source materials to work with, our work on the translations wasn't irreparably damaged. But somehow, I doubt that was the only thing that they had taken. I only wish that we could know for certain."

"Actually, I think there is a way to figure out what the memory thief stole," Megido said. "We find and read the team's Books."

You couldn't see what was behind Tviblindi's sunglasses, but you could almost sense that they were sparkling. "...you're not talking about the translations, are you."

Megido nodded, then looked around at the others. "AMU is part of the Archive, after all. If anyone has the opportunity to check our Books of Memories out from that library, it's those closest to the librarian."

"But if the thief took our memories, then how could we find what we're looking for in there?" Jonathan asked. "Wouldn't they still have them?"

Hershel looked thoughtful. "According to research regarding the Fears, souls of the dead are inexorably drawn to the Archangel unless another Fear was the direct cause, and it has been hypothesized that a similar exception exists for the Blind Man and memories."

"The way I see it, either way it still helps us narrow down our suspect." Megido held out one hand, palm up. "If there are blank sections in the books, then according to that logic the memory thief was a Fear." She extended the other hand, holding it palm up as well. "If the Books don't work that way, or if the culprit wasn't a Fear, then we'll learn more about that missing time or the culprit. Preferably both."

Jonathan put his sandwich down on his plate. "Hold on. What if it also omits memories erased by those who aren't Fears? What happens then?"

"...we'll call that our worst case scenario, since we don't really have a way of testing that," she admitted.

Jonas put a hand to his chin. "But the library contains the books of everyone who has ever lived, right? Say that we find 'our' books, but they're not from this world. How would we know we've found the correct ones?"

Tviblindi was quiet for a moment. "...I might be able to help."

All eyes turned to him.

"I can't take you there. But," he said. "I do know someone who can help you do so." He handed me a business card, the front of which was blank... save for a single email address and the Greek letter Δ. "Tell her the phrase on the back of this card. She'll grant you safe passage, and help you find the right Books."

We all thanked him as he got up to leave.

"Best of luck to you all," he said.

=====================

For the sake of brevity, I won't go into detail about the maze of largely identical-looking tunnels of the Catacombs that we went through to reach our destination, nor about all of the bone spiders that eyed us curiously as we passed them. Just as well, really, since we didn't really talk during that trek. 

She asked me not to talk about her appearance in depth - she has to maintain some level of secrecy for her own sake, given her calling - but I can say that Collector Delta was... surprisingly young.

"We're here," she said. She was standing before what looked to be a solid wall that covered the path ahead, a wall that only looked smooth at first glance. If you viewed it from the right angle, you could see that it was marked by the faint outline of seven separate circles.

Collector Delta asked me not to discuss the design of the door any further, nor what she had done to open it. But I can talk about what happened when she was finished.

The wall slid away, and light poured into the tunnel.

The six of us walked forwards into the Blind Man's Library, and I couldn't help feeling the strangest sense of nostalgia as I took it all in. Row after row of shelving that stretched inexorably higher, all neatly filled with books bound in a dizzying vast spectrum of color. Even the floor beneath us housed books, though we quickly discovered it was impossible to actually tread on them - it was a very faint margin, but we were standing on something flat that was protecting those spines from foot traffic.

We took a moment to simply take in this sight.

Then Megido looked at Collector Delta. "How are we going to find our Books in all of this?"

A bone spider popped out from her lowered hood, looking carefully at the five of us. It then dove into my pocket, and stole the card that Tviblindi had given me. The bone spider studied it carefully, then jabbed each of us with the end of one of its ivory legs, before weaving the blood in with its colorful silk. When it was done, it had left us with five honest to God library cards with each of our real names on them, before diving back into Collector Delta's hoodie.

"Just follow the cards," she said. "When you're done, hold them up with both hands, and I'll come to collect you."

Then she sat down to wait.

So we began to walk.

[To Be Continued...]

So.

Apparently we - that is to say, myself and (with the exception of Doctor Eiffel) the rest of the translation team - have effectively lost 25 days.

On our end, we've only been away for eight hours.

I'm going to have to write up a longer post to go over everything we found after we get everyone else up to speed, but the bottom line is this: the memory thief took a lot more than just the translations, they were not working alone, and they left something behind before they fled the AMU.

Not Dead

Figured I'd say it, in light of recent events.

A few days ago, about 35 agents of KRAKEN attacked AMU. They didn't expect much resistance, since they keep up with Avie's blog and realized that the Martyrs were away. They had one armored car, a few agents with powers, and a lot of pistols.

I got my hands on one of their 9mm Glocks.

Those who went in had cheap, PASGT kevlar vests, and that was if they were wearing armor at all.

And, unfortunately, those doesn't hold up well to closely spaced shots at a very close range.

That's all I have to say on the matter.

Someone's been stealing more than books from AMU...

I mentioned that there was a photo in my last post, one with Doctor Eiffel holding a printed copy of the first volume of the tablet translations. The one that, if you've paid attention to Avie's blog, shouldn't have actually existed.

See, that's the strange thing. Everyone assumed that there was only one, handwritten copy of each volume of the translations, or at least fully up-to-date versions. As the most recent members of the team, Jonas and I'd considered the possibility that it could actually a printing of the e-book, since that's the only digitized copy available, but it didn't get a wider print release because it wasn't fully up-to-date. A prototype of how a wider release would have looked, both for the formatting and for the design of the cover sleeves. Until Doctor Eiffel noticed the photo, and asked where it had come from.

She has no memory of ever having that photo taken, and none of the other team members remembered taking it.

Now, that was strange, but didn't conclusively prove any shenanigans. For instance, someone could have used an image editing program like Photoshop to create it. We'd still be unsure as to the why until we could find who had made it, but it was one possibility. One that got a little harder to believe we found there were several more photos of the other team members with the volume, all in different poses and angles. Not all of them showed this volume open, but there were enough shots with legible text for us to start cross-referenced Avie's e-book version with the excerpts in the photos.

Several of them were from sections that they hadn't digitized. Sections that the rest of the team is fairly sure are part of their translations.

Given the fact that it was accessible in the campus library for some time, it's still possible that the photos were doctored, and that they were working with the handwritten copy as a reference an not the e-book version. It would still leave the question of why someone would go to all of that trouble to create those photos and then just leave them scattered throughout random files.

...but, at the same time, it was possible that the photos hadn't been doctored at all.

I mean, think about it. The power to erase memories isn't unique to the Blind Man - some of the people I know for sure had that ability are dead, like redlight, but that doesn't rule out the possibility of others cropping up. Doctors Ferris and Grave might have created their Extractors, and thus hypothetically have access to that ability, but at a bare minimum that also includes members of the SMSC.

Or people who worked with them in the past, and removed the memories of ever working with them to gain those powers in the first place.

Of course, that doesn't mean this hypothetical memory thief would even have to have gotten their powers from an Extractor or an Enhancer.

Speculation about where this hypothetical memory thief came from aside, it's possible that actually had been a completed version of a print volume, but both it and the memories of its existence were gone. And that implies someone erased memories of that knowledge, but didn't want to erase every copy of that research altogether. Which, when you have the power to erase memories, it's a lot easier to make things disappear altogether.

Maybe not to the extent of, say, a small town... but several cuneiform tablets wouldn't be as much of an issue. Or these photos, for that matter. So either they were hidden in the event that the team lost their memories, or whoever took the memories wanted them to be found.

So. Tl;dr, we needed to check absolutely everything we had on the project, in case our hypothetical memory thief made off with more than just the team's memories. Some of the tablets, for example. And considering the fact that Doctor Eiffel's team brought back hundreds of them intact...

Or, perhaps even more likely, that complete printed version of the translations. So yet another copy could be out in the wind. Potentially a set of copies, even.

What's worse is that Jonas' notes suggest that the team was even further along in the translation process at some point after he had joined. Because remember how I mentioned those referenced a third volume? The second volume, at the time of the break-in, was only about a third of the first volume's size.

Suffice to say, after we explained our hypothesis to the others, it was met with understandable skepticism. Until we showed them the point where Jonas' "third volume" notes actually matched one of the tablets. And they were, in fact, at the point where the team would have ended the second volume. Ones that had only one copy, in that document lock-box where he keeps his backup copies. Ones that Jonas didn't remember writing.

Notes were dated six months ago.

The rest of the translation team was pissed.

I realize that I've been quiet for the past few weeks.

And despite the fact that I've been at AMU for the vast majority of that time, there's a good reason why I din't immediately post about arriving there. Or, for that matter, how I got the job.

See, I managed to arrive in town a few hours before the break-in.

So I spent a good two weeks under investigation. I understand that they wanted to make sure that I wasn't the one who'd done it. But at the same time, what kind of idiot would steal from an organization the night before their job interview at the same place they was just robbed? Even better, for a position in which they would have been given inside access to the very information that they just stole?

Then again, the thieves weren't particularly bright. They stole the physical copies of the tablet translations, or at least the volumes that had been made. On the one hand, it made it painfully obvious how much the contents of those books meant to them. On the other... based on photographs, both volumes are individually thick enough to stop low-caliber bullets.

Of course, it's just as bizarre that AMU only had one copy of each book put out by the project so far. Given their lack of funding, though, maybe those were the only printings that they could afford.
I am being provided with food and board, so there's at least enough funding for that.
I did ask around about the manuscripts, and any ways that could help figure out what those translations actually contained, and why anyone would steal them. For a start, what happened to the copy of the translations they used for the printings? See, one of those photographs I mentioned earlier in this post had Doctor Eiffel posing for the camera while reading one of the volumes.

And it was printed. Not handwritten.

So we're trying to track down what happened to the files that were actually used for those editions. In the meantime, I've been going through what notes that were left behind on the subject of those translations. Though they didn't grab everything, they did manage to grab some of the notes that would have made it into the third volume.

Fortunately, they were Jonas' notes, and he actually keeps several copies of his work. We've been using those for cross-referencing which pages were actually taken.

...I've also been catching up with the blogosphere the past few days. Apparently the ARC has both volumes of the books, so at least we know that they're intact.

Considering that KRAKEN had their hands on them for over a month, it's likely that at least one of them thought to make copies. Even if they didn't have access to a photocopier in their safehouses, or couldn't spend time and money doing so at a library... at a bare minimum? All they would have to do is keep a steady hand and use a camera. Then they'd have digital copies of the text, and so long as that was safe then they wouldn't have to worry about losing the physical version.

But, again, see the note about the thickness of the books.

I admit, for the other three weeks, I was just caught up in trying to sort all of this out with the rest of the team. But hopefully I can explain a little more about what's been happening here soon.

On the Wings Of Eagles

After paying my respects, I didn't have many reasons to stick around in Florida. I uploaded my last post was with the airport Wifi moments before I boarded a flight west. I was able to get some more translation work done over the eight hour flight, far further along in the text than I've shared on this blog so far.

Speaking of that text, I might as well offer some more context regarding the previous post. Seeing as Dr. Ferris is the only one actively commenting on this blog at the moment, I might as well address you directly. There's a reason the previous post's title was "cmjbka.iwlt" - in actuality, it was the untranslated version of the first "line" of that text, as well as it's title.

Needless to say, that post contains only a small fraction of the full text. And even then, the translation's meaning still requires interpretation - both to establish a conventionally readable syntax, as well as to understand what the text is actually referencing. It's one of the most diabolical puzzles he left behind.

Regarding the abrupt location change... I have something I need to check. Three somethings, actually. One of which is because Dr. Ferris decided to go hunting for more samples. While it wasn't originally a priority, it's come to my attention that the Black Garden is going to get a few visitors. In any event, I might as well do so myself while I'm in the state. If nothing else, this will be an interesting point of contrast to the more radiant garden I originally came out to visit.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a phone call to make.