Schneider learns a thing

Schneider has been working on this Alvish word on the Chaos Gate like a cyptography puzzle for some weeks now, with frequest questions to the Musical Kung Fu Nurse, because he couldn't hold a tune in a bucket. How do you sing this? How do you sing that? The Alvish language is musical, which adds another layer, both of complexity and of required skill, to the task of doing anything useful regarding it.

But he's close to the end, he thinks. He looks kind of a wreck, having skipped meals and sleep on multiple occasions, and working basically camped out at the Chaos Gate for immediate access if anything needs closer research.

But today, he has something final. His portable laptop desk is covered with pages full of cramped writing, but at the bottom of the page that's on top of the stack, he has the words that are supposed to start the gate that are known, plus one additional word, with all the diacritical marks and pitc cues so it can be sung properly. He has asked Uta to come by, letting her know that he beleives he's found the solution.

Uta wouldn't miss this for all the gold in the world. Uncharacteristically for her, she's standing here, clipboard in hand, writing implement in the other, ready to take in anything that might happen. Take notes. This, ladies and gentlement, is history in the making.

Also geography.

There was a lot and to and fro, indeed, considering the amount and complexity of Song involved in this whole endeavour -- something beyond the grasp of even rather competent musicians, something which required exceptionally skilled Songsters.

Uta was one of those who helped, and was more personally invested in this whole endeavour. Passages, scales, intervals, melodic contours, rhythm, everything had to be assessed, and lacking herself the expertise in cryptography needed to identify the mathematical nuts and bolts that make up the machinery of communication, there was a lot of to and from with Schneider in order to nail down and converge on relevant aspects of the Alvish Songs.

But now, as said, it is done. Her hands twitch imperceptibly, and without noticing, she licks her lips in anticipation.

This is going to be big.

Schneider will hand the paper to Uta, with one sentence marked at the bottom of the page of notes with a circle aroud it. "That should be the right phrase," he says. "And I'm pretty sure I've got the pitches and tones right." Schneider has had to learn musical notation, at a basic level at least, to write the words and pitches together, and the page contains the familiar words on the Chaos Gate, plus oone new word. That seems to have been the entire result of the last several weeks' work. It doesn't seem like much, maybe, but it took a lot of doing!

"That should be it," he says. "I can't sing it, myself, but I think if you do, we shall see a result." And he's now watching the Gate like a hawk.

Uta accepts the sheet.

She tries not to make a big deal of it, but keen eyes might notice that her hands are trembling as she secures the proffered material to her clipboard. She swallows, inhales, and looks down.

"Well, I suppose it's time to try..."

Her voice follows the notation, melodious and clear, as befits a Sage of Song; the sung words shimmer crystalline through the air, a haunting a cappella performance, each word seeming to carry within itself the Power of the mysterious ancient race who once used them.

"num ...", Uta begins to sing. Much like before, at each word, the corresponding section of the Chaos Gate lights up. The first one was known. The lighting up was expected. But now comes the next one. That's the big unknown. The missing word.

"... cexm ...", Uta sings, and lo, the corresponding rune on the gate lights up without a hitch! Uta falters: her heart must have skipped a beat at that point, but she pressed on, exhilarated and nervous.

"... rre lof enne enter", continues the song, in a powerful crescendo, still clear, but there's emotion in her words. She's blown past the big obstacle. She's rushing towards the goal, each word, lighting up, a checkpoint that is cleared. She can barely contain excitement.

The symbols around the gate light up and glow. There is a strange sound that rushes through the area and then... the chaos gate goes dark again. Schneider, watching eagerly, slumps back and breathes out a sigh. "Was that a ... a boot-up beep?" he asks.

The exhaustion of weeks drops om his shoulders at once, but he's smiling widely. Eyes widening at a display that's visible only to him, he accepts the quest to become a Sage of Cryptography. He yawns and looks at the Gate, now dark again, and has to wonder, "Was that it? I was hoping for more, I guess? Still, the beep, by itself, was pretty spectacular." He looks to Uta and grins.

Stunned.

If there is one word to describe Uta right this moment, that's it: eyes staring ahead, jaw left unattended, waiting for someone to push it back up, frozen in whatever position she was when the whole thing started.

She stays that way, even a few seconds after Schneider is done speaking, then she turns towards him.

Her smile widens. "That. Was. AMAZING!", she beams. "IT DID THE THING!", she exclaims, bouncing from foot to foot while her clipboard-holding arm, extended straight, gestures frantically towards the gate. "I mean...", she mutters, now more serious, scratching her chin and furrowing her brow. "I have -no idea of what the thing is, but-" She beams again, thrusting her face towards Schneider. "IT DID THE THING!"

She begins to bounce around schneider, laughing, skipping, dancing. "IT. DID. THE. THING!"

Schneider looks at Uta, then back at the Gate, now silent again. He would probably be more visibly excited if he were less exhausted, but it's been a very hard last few weeks. As if going without food and sleep for far too long, there's the war with the Palace Lands. But he /is/ pretty happy. Though maybe not as happy as Uta. A dog with two tails is not as happy as Uta, just now.

"It did indeed do the thing," he agrees with her. "But it /only/ did the thing. It didn't do anything else. I guess that's the next task. But not just at this moment," he adds quickly. It's about three days sleep, and waking up only to eat. He admits, "It /was/ pretty cool, though. But does anyone have any idea how to get it to select a destination? Or maybe we should do this same thing to another gate?" Do we know where other Chaos Gates are? He's never asked.

Uta may not be a dog with two tails, but she's a Spriggan with four wings, and, in her excitement, she's fluttering them like there's no tomorrow as she twirls, skips, and pirouettes all around.

"I mean, I don't know? I joined just in time for the Apocalypse," she continues, without stopping her celebratory interpretive dancing. "We should ask an experienced gamer."

She finally lets herself fall down on the grass, back first. "I suppose it might work like a telephone, yes... perhaps we need to plug more of them into the network or something. It's worth a try!", she hazards, while she moves as if for making snow angels. Except there's no snow.

Grass Spriggans?

Schneider nods to Uta. "That's about when I joined, as well," he admits. And then, it took him a lot longer to get past the newbie content. "I'll ask Prophylaxis. He's usually our go-to for game stuff." He nods.

Schneider smirks as Uta lays back on the grass, still squirming. "Yes," he agrees. "Opening another Gate is probably our next task. WIth two gates open, we may be able to work out how to get from one to the next. That's what they're for, I understood."

It takes Uta some time to reply: she has some urgent things to attend to, like lying on the grass, frantic pedaling in the air, shaking her fists, while rolls from side to side, then on her back again, and/or emitting excited squeals through her teeth, currently biting down on her lower lip.

But when she does reply (after a deep sigh of happiness), what she says is, "Good plan... who knows. Maybe we'll manage to re-activate the network!"

She sits up. "Good job, Schneider!"

Schneider grins widely, then yawns. "I'm suddenly tired," he says. Which is hardly surprising given the number of late nights and short sleeps he's done these last few weeks. "But tomorrow, I think," he says. "I should probably rest." The game is quite detailed, and it denotes his Tired sttaus with dark circles under his eyes.

"Yes," Schneider agrees, "Re-activating the Gates would be spectacular. Scale would love it, we could do the Floor Boss -and- the wave rather than having to pick one or the other."

"Yes, and the Root Cities-"

A pause.

"Hm. We'll have to be careful about which gates we activate, first, though. If we activate them too far and wide, we risk having the Palace Landers be able to move around freely. We should do so carefully, maybe starting with two, and perhaps we could draw up a plan where we set up some sort of guard around all the ones we activate. We should probably System Protect the event of activating them, lest the Palace Landers learn how to do it themselves and-"

Uta, at this point, has turned towards Schneider. Will he have listened to anything that is going on? Is he asleep already?

Even in the best case scenario, he's probably tired, so she moves towards him, and shimmers a blanket (or sheet, depending on temperature) and a slime-shaped cushion into existence. "But we'll think of this later. You can sleep if you want, I'll keep watch."

Schneider isn't asleep yet. Though he yawns tiredly. "Well, we're on the First Floor, that was the safest gate I could think of, with Tolbana closeby." On the same floor, anyhow. "Karluin's pretty safe, I think, apart for the Palace Landers that snuck in and released some creature. Prophylaxis has some plan to beat it, I think, that's basically knocking off a small chunk of HP and running away when the party's taken too much abuse. But the White Whale from the Fourth Floor ate it, and so we've had a bit of reprieve. I'm still inclined to use Floor Five's pretty safe, though, I think, the monster notwithstanding."

Uta pinches the bridge of her nose, while furrowing her brow. "W...wait, what? Eaten by a whale? Reprieve?! I... I think I'll need an explanation here."

Schneider's explanation is probably confusing and takes a bit of brainworking to make sense of. He doesn't have it down 100%, himself, and he was there.