A meeting of LOONS

In the present, Uta is off dealing with her Strange Mood. But a few days before she entered her unusual state, something else of interest happened. Our story begins...

It's a few days after the end of the Shadow Festival. Uta is uncharacteristically elegant: instead of her signature white martial-arts-gi/nurse's-uniform getup, she's all spruced up in a white cheongsam dress with light blue floral embrodiery.

"Hello, everyone, and welcome to our irregular meeting of our Loosely Organized Open Network of Students, until we find a better name. The first thing I think it is important to establish is-" She sighs, pinches the bridge of her nose as if she was about to do something that was going to /hurt/ a lot, and then, all of a sudden, puts up her best showtime smile and declares, in her best broadcaster's enunciation: "This meeting is brought to you by the Chainmail Bikini Plus One, the number one fashion store in Alne!" She strikes a modeling pose, weight on one leg, hand on one hip, and pointing at herself with the open palm of her other hand, she sweeps the air from top to bottom to draw attention to her figure. "The crafting skills of a MOONLIGHT TAILOR at affordable prices!" As she speaks, she paces to and fro, as if she was on a catwalk. Over the clacking of her heeled sandals and the jingling of her pendant earrings, she continues, "Don't hesitate, run there today! The CHAINMAIL BIKINI PLUS ONE, in Alne's main square!", and finishes with a wink over her shouler.

One second to let that sink in, and her shoulders drop and she exhales. "NOW!", she starts again, turning to face the duo and trying to hide her blushing. "After this contractually mandated message, it's time to address the topics at hand. I am supposed to report my progress with deciphering the runes on the teleporter circle. June and Bob...", she trails off, looking at each of them in turn. Their cue to continue.

SpritesHero is dutifully present. Sprites is dutifully dressed. Which is to say that he's presentable, and not covered in a thin layer of dust or mud or slime...or any of the other day-to-day hazards an Adventurer might be exposed to. He's certainly not dressed up, though, instead having opted for his standard Adventurer wear. Which, perhaps, is why Uta's announcement is regarded with mixed emotions. There's a certain wide-eyed skepticism, gaze flickering from Uta's spiffy outfit to his own. And yes, the durability of his clothes isn't quite what it used to be. There's also a confused, mystified sort of general scanning of his surroundings that had been prefaced by an anticipatory sparking in his dark eyes. But no. Disappointment registers. And for a brief, awkward moment, his stomach loudly complains about false advertising.

He clears his throat, awkwardly, and after suppressing the long-trained movement in his right hand, opts instead for a formal bow to each. "The pleasure is entirely mine," he answers, if a little stiffly. His stomach complains again.

    June sighs "Honestly, things have kind of come to a halt for me, I haven't managed yet to work out more than I did." she looks a bit dejected about it. "I finally have a chance at a language that doesn't translate and I know one word... one... and even then it's only two phonemes and two graphemes, and one contextually complete concept... after all the reasearch I've done." she grumbles "And it doesn't even seem to be anything I've worked out that others haven't..." the middle aged woman in her barbarian queen finery pacing back and forth. "I've started working on something else a bit... conceptually still linked, I'm trying to get grapheme tied magic to function in our written languages to see if it is a process that is exclusive to the Alvian language or something inherent in the world and systems."

Uta replies, "No, the pleasure is ours, Bob. Welcome to our little group."

Uta listens with interest at June's explanation. "That, that is most definitely an interesting approach, and one I had not thought of. I definitely encourage pursuing it, whatever the answer is -- we'll have learnt something important."

She inhales. "As for me..."

A short pause.

"I have been singing /all/ the songs I have been able to collect. Which is not many songs. But still, I sang /all/ of them at the runes. And the outcome is..."

Pause for a drum roll.

The drum roll never comes.

Instead, Uta spins on one foot (almost losing her balance -- she's evidently not used to that kind of heels), and after she steadies herself again, she clasps her hands together, closes her eyes, lifts her face a little bit, opens her eyes again, and sings,

"num rre lof enne enter"

The song is a bit strange -- based on what she's just said, she's probably created a sort of ransom letter by stitching together the bits of song that contained the corresponding words.

As she pronounces a word, the corresponding rune light up on the portal.

When she's done, the bystanders will notice that ALL the words have lit up (not necessarily in order)...

...except /one/.

SpritesHero strains to follow what June says. But he's clearly out of his depth on this one, and can do little more than affect an air of polite interest. Linguistics is, regrettably, something utterly foreign to him. And for all his efforts, this ignorance is not particularly well hidden.

Uta's explanation is apparently easier for him to understand. Or at least the basic idea of it is easier for him to understand. One word, one rune. One rune unlit, one word missing. "Does it matter how the words are sung?" he queries, biting down on his lip as he surveys the almost-lit portal. "Do they need to be sung?"

     Pela was totally here. She'd been here the whole time, mixed in with the crowd and watching. She had seen Uta's silly parade of silliness. She had witnessed the activation of the portal almost kind of sort of maybe. And so she was watching and waiting, her hands clasped together to see if anything HAPPENED. And then looking to the non-glowing portal entry. So, most likely, that was what they had to figure out. Tch. How frustrating. So close and yet so far. She soon begins to slip out of said crowd, over to Uta's side. Pulling out a small piece of paper and some charcoal, the small cat climbs the thing and starts to do a rubbing of the one missing symbol. Before hopping back down and folding it up into her backpack. "...This is way more and faster progress than I expected... good job, Uta."

    June produces a box from her inventory and drops to the ground heedless of any injury she might sustain, her paper comes out and she's writting. "How long before they power down? Can you sing in a different order? Do they light up in the order sung? Does tonality matter? Is it pronunciation? Is there a difference in where you form the phonemes? If you rr your ll do you run into issues? Is your accent important to what is lighting up? If you sing in order to light them around the circle is the unlit first or last?" her words seem to just flow out of her without concern for getting answers in any particular order or time, however she is sketching out the runes and flagging them in the order they lit when Uta sang.

"Oh, uh, well, what I've found out is that each word lights up when sung. Look." She sings the words in a random order, and it's like a light switch. Sing word, word lights up. "That's how I figured it out. I've sung all the songs, and when a rune would light up, I'd stop and re-sing that bit, until I narrowed down the exact word that triggered it."

She lets out a deep sigh. "I've /tried/ breaking down the phonemes and seeing if I could reverse engineer or brute force the last word. Zero traction there. Seems like it's one rune, one word." To both June and Bob, her reply is, "I... I don't know if it's necessary to sing them, to be fair. I just know that singing them /works/... but, oh! Two things are of interest. The word 'enter' appears multiple times in the same song, and 'num' appears in two different songs. The word lights up each time. And even more interesting! If you try playing the songs with a phonograph, the words /don't light up/."

"...Thanks, Pela! I was surprised myself, to be honest. Want to hear the funny thing? All the words were only in /two/ songs."

She returns to address the audience. "So, what I think we need to do next is..." She turns to June. "...one, try to see if we can figure out the meaning of those words. Or anything else about them. Two," she turns to Pela, but glances at June and Bob as well. "Find more songs. Right now, we have Alv lyrics from the First, Fifth, and Sixth. We need more. Third-" She turns to SpritesHero. "...you wanted to share something as well, didn't you?"

     Pela glances towards June, watching her do her work... and actually falling silent as she watches her work, her ears twitching as she moves to peek over her shoulder curiously. She shifts a little bit as she watches her sketch out and flag the order. It was nice to watch someone who actually had linguistics work. Her own writing tend to look... almost as child-like as people assume her body is when they see how short she is sometimes. "Hmm." She murmurs softly, sitting next to June. "Good questions." That she is just... the facilitator. She doesn't have any help really, beyond that she spread information. Ugh. She looks back up towards Uta, thinking on her words. Hmm. "...When I'm done with them, I'll make sure to give you Mellowing Melonpan whenever I can." She says softly. "If I do it right it should help with focus and might help crack things." She nods a little.
     One rune. One word. And some brilliant minds working on them. Surely they would be able to figure it out sooner than later!

Confusion registers. The bug-eyed look Robert offers Uta is an unambiguous declaration of 'Did I?' A few moments tick by before enlightenment dawns.

"Ah. Yes. Thank you," he answers at length. "Well, it's not quite so grand as what you all have been doing. Not even really in the same category, but I've been interested in, uh..." He trails off, rapidly blinking a few times, "...better understanding Landers. I figure even two cats in a burlap sack have to learn how to get along. So I talked to a bunch of them to get a sense for their personal histories and the like. Found out some remember more than others. They'll tell you all about their wedding. The crowd. The dress. The sun. The wind, you name it. While the others barely remember more than being born, having grown up, and whatever they do now. Also checked in on body language. Especially under stress, and especially paying attention to body language derived from biological principles. For example, if you're afraid or under pressure, does your mouth dry out. Similar results. Some show indications. Some don't. And in both examinations, it's not an on-off. There's shades of grey. Different populations, so hard to compare, but the more responsive Landers seem to have been around Adventurers more."

    June humms and check the runes. "If you run them in order do you get a different effect Uta?" she asks "Ooh uhmmm... Bob? You should also note that the higher ranking in society or more important they were prior to the Black Wave, the more they react as expected."

"And songs. Pela, don't forget. If you hear about any Lander song, make sure to let me know where to find it. I'll go there and try to learn it- wait, did you say melonpan?" Uta, probably unlike a low level lander, begins to salivate.

She swallows, taps her lips in concentration, and then moves her finger in the air in the general direction of SpritesHero. "That... Bob, don't sell yourself short. That /is/ a grand, a truly /grand/ discovery. The biological reactions in particular." She turns to June when she chimes in. "Oh, you knew that as well?" She begins to pace around, leaning forward, scratching her chin. "What... what could that mean." She stops, and stands straight. She looks over her shoulder at the rest of the team. "Any hypotheses?" Again, to June. "Did... did any Landers change rank before the Apocalypse?"

Uta adds, somewhere in there, "The order doesn't seem to matter, but I didn't try /all/ orders..."

     "Keep an ear out for songs. God it." Pela responds with a small nod. "And yes. Melonpan. I've almost got the recipe right to balance flavor and effectiveness to make it taste good /and/ have its effect." Pela says with a grin. Yep. Melonpan. She pauses, thinking on BOb's words though. Hmm. "...It's better than me. I had some information to spread and that was... about all I could do. I'll help with whatever I can and if I find any more information, but it's fine." Pela says with a small nod. Hmm. "...Anyway I'm going to slip back off again, more melonpan to work on." She nods... and then slips back off into the crowd. Poof!

"I did not observe correlations with social class per se," Robert opines, hands coming to rest against his waist as he cricks his neck from one side to the other, as though to sort out a momentary cramp. "Though it should be noted that I excluded the aristocracy due to accessibility reasons." He pauses, his gaze tracking Pela's retreat, then continues. "But thanks for the tip. I'll see if I can't look into it more." And with that he falls silent, gaze flickering from Uta to June, then back again.

    June shrugs "I just noticed it when talking to higher ranked Landers, even ones who usually spend their time locked in magic towers and whatnot... if they were monsters they'd be boss level... they give more complete answers. I didn't know about autonomic reponses just written and vocalized interaction." she says.

"Don't sell yourself short, Pela- wait, was that insensitive?! I'm sorry, I'm sorry!", she apologizes to the smol Cait Sith, kowtowing and all. "...I meant... Pela, it's all /thanks to you/ if I got this far. Merek pretty much taught me the trick of singing a song to the runes to make them light up. It was just one song, one rune, with him. I just added to that by throwing all the songs I knew at the thing, is all!" She gestures at the teleportation circle.

Hands behind her back, she looks at June and Bob, "So, I think this concludes my session for today. I have nothing to add, really. We should probably agree on what I'll be working on next. I think I am going to focus on trying to find more songs." She turns to June, "If your linguistic knowledge can help us understand more about those words, that would be a notable breakthrough... but I will let you decide what the best next step on the subject of decoding the Alv language is. You are the expert here." And finally, she alternates looking between June and Bob. "I think I might also run some medical tests on low level landers versus high level landers. See if a trained physical examination brings up more information. If you two want to continue this discussion, I can leave you to it. I, unfortunately, have to leave now."

"Prophylaxis said he hadn't seen any irregularities in medical exams," Robert offers. "But I don't know how deeply he's looked into it." He lifts his hand, then, scratching at the back of his head. He'll leave the linguistic stuff to the experts. "Thank you for hosting the meeting, Uta." June gets a polite nod. "And pleased to meet you."