audio;

[armoured]

Good morning, everyone!

[Al has a very young sounding voice, but it's bursting with warmth and enthusiasm. Far too chipper for first thing in the morning, which is when he's sending this out.]

I've found a book, and I was hoping people might be able to help me with what it means. Oh-- and I don't mean that book about cheese, though I don't really understand what that's about either.

[One of the more bizarre things he's received. He clears his throat a little awkwardly and then gets down to business.]

I'm sure everyone remembers going home, or-- to some places that looked like our homes not long ago. Well, on the last day I went back, I found a journal, one of those books that woman was always writing in. I've been trying to decipher what was written in there, but it's not of a language that I understand and it's not in a code that I'm familiar with.

I'd be more than willing to show it to anyone who wanted to help, I'm sure there must be some clues as to how that version of the Ingress worked inside it, and that might help us all to get home a little faster. Anyway, if you're interested, my name is Alphonse Elric and my rooms are on the Moro Deck.

Comments

[audio]

[ryuuzaki]

Can you show me an image of a page? That might be the easiest way to establish who can or can't help you.

[armoured]

Um.

[There's a long pause and the sound of metal scraping along the touch screen.]

I can't figure out how, sorry. I'm still not really used to this sort of technology.

[ryuuzaki]

[That didn't sound good.]

All right. Can you meet me in the coffee shop?

[armoured]

Sure! I can be there in about fifteen minutes, is that okay?

[Thank goodness, he can do this without too much technology.]

[ryuuzaki]

Yes.

[When Alphonse reaches the coffee shop, he finds a thin, dark-haired man in his late twenties leaning precariously back in a chair, balancing it on its two rear legs. He's lucky he hasn't fallen.

L raises his hand to wave as Alphonse enters the area, but when he takes in the suit of armor, his expression briefly falters, curiosity flickering over it. The front legs of the chair hit the floor, and he sits up straighter -- but that in itself might be explained by the fact that his appointment has arrived.

Well, he thinks, that explains the scraping.]

You're Alphonse?

[armoured]

[He's used to people staring at him, even on the Moira where there are so many different kinds of people, and so he doesn't react outwardly when his new companion's expression flickers in confusion.]

Right!

[He waves like a dork, despite being right in front of him, and then carefully takes a seat.]

But I'm afraid I don't know your name yet.

[audio]

[devilofohara]

[Did somebody say deciphering? That is precisely Robin's jam.]

I know a lot of dead languages, I was taught how to break some ciphers. I can help if you want.

[She's trying to hide the excitement in her voice, with... only marginal success.]

[armoured]

I'd love some help, thank you!

[Al doesn't even try and hide the excitement in his voice, it's awesome meeting others who are into this kind of thing.]

When are you free?

[devilofohara]

I'm free now. I'm the ship's historian - if this tells us about this woman or the planet she was on, this is part of my job anyway.

[And honestly deciphering cryptic messages sounds a lot more fun than what she's doing right now.]

I'm Robin, by the way!

[armoured]

Great, it's nice to meet you, Robin.

[She is immediately cooler for being a historian and interested in research.]

Do you want me to come and meet you somewhere? The library, maybe?

[devilofohara]

It's nice to meet you too, Alphonse.

[Robin pauses. As much as she loves libraries, she's always a bit hesitant to spend a lot of time in the ship's library, within view of the first mate, but she eventually concedes. It's a good place for such a meeting, whether she likes it or not.]

The library works. I can meet you there in a bit.

[armoured]

Great, I'll be there in a little while.

[It actually takes him longer than he thought it would to gather up all his notes and sort them into some semblance of reasonable order. So he enters the library at a job, book and notes under one arm, and looks around.]

Hello?

[Trying to call out without being too loud, because it's a library.]

It's Alphonse, I've brought the book!

action;

[forfeits]

[ Ed doesn't even bother replying to the message on the network. He has to see this in person, and to see his brother, of course. He knocks on the door and walks in only seconds apart. ]

Hey, Al! You found a notebook? [ He looks interested, bright eyed. It's certainly a better look than when they last spoke, looking dark and wary of the Ingress technology. ] Maybe we can crack the code together, huh? Or at least give it a shot. It's gotta have a key, and if anyone can figure it out, it's gonna be us.

[ He smiles a little, leaning in the doorway. ] Who knows what's in that thing -- it could get us home!

[armoured]

Brother!

[Al is so happy to see Ed, he's the one person that Al immediately wanted to help with this puzzle. He waves the book in his direction, before opening it to a random page.

The writing is all hand-written and in a language that makes no sense.]

I've tried a few of the different codes we might use to hide ciphers as alchemists, but nothing has worked so far.

[forfeits]

Whoa, this is pretty weird, huh?

[ He sits beside his brother and looks at the notebook, curious. ] Where'd you find it, Al?

[ He reaches out to touch one of the pages, dipping to look at its cover before his eyes go back to the text. ] Maybe it'll help us find a way back home, do you think?

[armoured]

I'm absolutely sure it will.

[There's no doubt in his voice at all, only pure excitement. Any hesitation or weariness over the last few weeks have been pushed away.]

I found it where that woman was before, the one who showed us how to visit-- what looked like home. [It wasn't home, he knows that now.] Remember? She was always writing in it, but she left it behind for some reason. I'm sure it has to contain the clues of her research.

[forfeits]

That's great.

[ He likes hearing his brother so pleased, so confident, especially after their worry over the false Ingress. It's nice to think they could really have something to work on, now. ]

It has to have clues, or maybe her notes about different worlds, at the very least. Maybe we should try to find words that look like articles and stuff. Like 'the' and 'a' and words like that. We might be able to see if they correspond to our alphabet that way. [ He makes a face. ] But I guess they probably spoke another language, too, huh?

[armoured]

That's a really good idea. I've been writing out all the different characters I can find, seeing how many there are because that might give us a clue to what kind of base language we're dealing with.

[It's taking a long time, though, going through the book and checking these things one at a time.]

I guess a good way to find articles might be to look for words that are capitalised but not the start of a sentence, the word before it is most likely to be an article, right?

[forfeits]

Yeah, the base language is gonna be the important part. I can get some books from the library, maybe. Ask Elizabeth if there is anything on foreign languages out here. But I'm guessing there are tons of them, huh?

[ Ed sighs a little, looking over the notebook. It's both exciting and frustrating to know they have the ability to get more information, but that there are so many steps to acquire it. ]

Yeah, beginnings of sentences. And well, in English at least, the articles are all shorter words. Like 'a' and 'the'. But I guess that's assuming the base language even uses them. Hmm.

[armoured]

We don't need to know the base language immediately to figure out some of it, we can treat it like an alchemical cipher. All we need are a few points of reference and I just know we can figure the rest out from there.

[Besides, this is what they're good at. Obsessing over something difficult for days or weeks until it gets done.

A moment or two passes in silence as they study the book, before Al chuckles quietly.]

It's weird, I've missed this. Having something real to focus on. I know we're trying to get back home, and I've not given up, but it feels kind of-- nebulous. Like we can't do much until the Ingress gets fixed, all we have is worry over the people back home. But with this? Maybe we have the key to finally doing something that can make a difference to achieving that.

[forfeits]

You're right. We can look at it like building arrays, I guess, it's got the same idea. It's made of parts, so once we figure those out we'll get going on it.

[ Ed smiles to his brother, feeling energized about the project. ] It's been a while since we've had stuff to do, huh? It's kind of nice, you're right. I want more answers and it seems like we finally have a way to do that, Al. Or at least get one step closer. We'll find a way to get it fixed, and we'll find a way back home soon. I just know it.

[armoured]

Mm.

[He lays a hand over the page, head tilting to look at Ed.]

Though all of this has made me think about what we're going to do when we get home. I mean-- after we fight Father. After we get our original bodies back.

[Not 'if' but 'after', because he has to believe it will happen one day.]

What do you think we'll do?