Press/Release Press Release

* * * SOME TIME BEFORE * * *

A few days have passed since Schneider, Uta, and Erufu have experimented with the device Schneider has found in the Tower as part of his research for the Loosely Organized Open Network of Students (yes, they need a better name). Uta has sent an invite to Schneider to discuss their discovery, and which steps to take next.

Uta is s already standing in the area, surveying the curious devices that look like broken workbenches. In particular, she rubs her chin at the one that looks like it has a phonograph embedded in it.

Schneider is less clueful on this than he probably ought to should be, and his blank expression as Uta surveys the devices perhaps conveys his state of knowledge. Uta and Erufu have done most of the actual investigation, Schneider was mainly responsible for the actual location of the site and passing the knowledge to the others. He's still interested in what will be learned from it, but he's not clear on how that might happen. "So, now we've got a bit more wreckage than we had before," he summarizes. "And a few new bits. But we still don't have anything we might use, do we?"

"Not yet," Uta says, one hand resting in the other behind her back.

She turns her head to face Schneider. "But I might have a couple of ideas of what to do next. They're very vague and nebulous, so I'll need to sort out a few things, research others, and talk to a few people, so it will take some time."

She returns her attention to the device. "I'm not trying to keep secrets from you, don't worry. I just prefer to have a clearer idea of what might work and what not before I share. Not waste your time with dead ends."

She snaps her fingers, and pivots her foot to turn towards Schneider, this time with her whole body. "Which reminds me. I promised I would tell you how we mapped Alv writing to their pronunciation if you found us something interesting. You went far beyond the call of duty, so you earned your full membership in the team."

Uta inhales. "So, remember how, when I sang the words we know, the corresponding symbols lit up on the teleporting device?" She subconsciously points to where the runes would be if she were standing next to the Chaos Gates or the Fort Ouph teleporter.

Schneider nods to Uta as she describes her ideas as nebulous. "Best to go forward with our best focus," he agrees, continuing to listen. The facing maneuver makes her look a bit like a military officer doing a briefing, which is mostly lost on Schneider, who's just seen things like that in movies, but then a briefing is often important information, so she has his full attention.

He smiles as she mentions granting him full membership, that's a big boon, though and now his curiosity is piqued. "Yes?" he asks in reply to her question, his tone clearly urging her to go on. He thinks back to the Chaos Gates, and muses, "If we can figure out how to get those going, it will be amazing."

Uta's standing pose kind of gives at the next step. Her head kind of sinks a little, and she gets a bit of grin, which could be either apologetic or playful. Or both.

"Well, when Merek showed me that when they sang the only word they knew it would light up, I just stood in front of the teleporter and sang all the songs I knew." She bites her lower lip, and scratches the back of her head. "Which might explain why I've specifically asked you to find more songs or Alv devices. I was hoping for more words to throw at the telporters we have, or more devices we could throw songs at."

"I agree with you, though, that would be amazing. I hope we'll unlock it soon. But until then-"

Uta looks away in the distance, and taps her lips. "...I'm now wondering if or how we should share what we found. We should definitely share it among us researchers. That's how open research works. But should we try to responsibly disclose knowledge to only other people who also research the Alv language, or similar lore? Or should we spread the knowledge among the general population with the risk of unsavory individuals might learn how to make relics while nobody else does?"

Uta hesitates, then, as if suddenly realizing something, she asks a casual, "Oh, have you told anyone?" There's no accusation or judgement in her tone. Just curiosity and interest.

Schneider nods about the words lighting up as they're sung, and he's got to wonder, "What about the idols that are trapped in the game with us? Do they know more songs? Or do they know them better than we do as researchers?"

He nods about finding more songs or devices. "Rearranging the words we know at random may lead somewhere - have you tried that in any organized way? Like making a table and just listing every possible combination?"

As far as sharing, he shakes his head, "No, I haven't mentioned it to anyone. Nor do I really have any idea who ought to know. I don't know that we've got enough to share, yet? We've got enough going on in Scale that this probably isn't on the radar. Oh, one thing /I/ have on the radar, I'm working on a stealth thing that I'm hoping will let us sneak into the libraries of the Landers who wouldn't let us look at their books. The idea is that we could read them anyhow. Or maybe copy them. Or steal them, but they might notice that."

Uta shrugs. "We can arrange the words any way we want, but what then? How will we know whether or not we arranged them right? Up to now we got words to light up in any order, but we're missing one. We could try all orders, -I guess-, but it'd take some time and I seriously doubt it'll lead to much. If you want to try yourself, you're welcome. I -think- that just saying the words should work, so you don't need to be a trained musician. And in any case, you'll see soon enough."

Uta then sinks her head in her shoulders. "Reika is the only Idol I know of, and I haven't seen her in a while. Wait, no, there's Tae too." Uta taps her chin. "I don't know if she knows more Songs, to be honest, but I suppose it's worth asking."

At the suggestion of sneaking into the Landers' houses, Uta replies with something nobody has probably seen from her, yet: a stern look. "Don't you dare," she says. Slow. Pointed.

"I -still- need a lot of permission from nobles to access the good stuff. And for them to support our projects. We need to be on their good side if we want this to continue. Fall out of their graces, and not only we're cut off from the political fabric of this world, but we've made some of the most powerful enemies we can."

She takes a steps towards Schneider, and raises a finger, "Now that you mention it, however... I should speak with Setsuna. I might be able to somehow... ah... help in... that direction, without angering the Nobles." She glances at Schneider with a knowing grin. "Remember: I'm not saying we shouldn't play power games with the nobles. That's what they do all the time, after all. Just that we shouldn't -anger- them."

That said, Uta continues, "Still, there's a lot of things we can do even without the good books. For instance, you're a pretty good appraiser." The last words are underlined by Uta raising her hand to point at Schneider, limp and relaxed. "Have you ever tried being super aggressive in appraising hings? Like... has anyone ever appraised -Aincrad tower-? Has any expert Herbologist done an appraisal/analysis of the tree associated with it?"

Schneider hrms about missing words. "I was wondering how we knew if we were missing words if we hadn't tried all the ones we had," he explains. But he will see soon enough, it seems.

He knows Reika vaguely, and Tae by reputation only, so he can only shrug as far as that goes. "Was Tae an actual idol for the game company?" he wonders. Because he seems to remember that Reika was, which is why he's thinking she might know more songs.

"If they're not going to cooperate, why should we?" Shneider asks in references to Landers. But he looks amused at Uta's stern look and injunction not to break into Lander's houses. "Sure, OK. It was just an idea." But that's probably one of the main differences between Scale and the other Alliances. He arches a brow at still needing permission, and has to wonder, "What are we doing that we need their permission for?"

The bit about playing power games with the nobles, alas, takes this right out of his skillset. "Ooooookay?" And then ... "Appraising the Tower? What for? But ... I guess I could try?"

"That's the whole point," Uta explains with a smile, leaning in and spreading her arms. "We don't know! But we'll know once you appraise it!" Uta begins pacing around. "For instance, take the Sonograph," she says, and gestures towards it. "It's your appraisal that gave us most of the information we have, and the juicy bits at that." Uta says this with a clear tone of admiration in her voice. "I have recently used my power on the Babel Tower in the Palace Lands, and discovered that it was built by the Alv to protect the Babylon Device. That's what I got. That's pretty interesting, it doesn't mention bosses, or Keys of Twilight, or anything like that. Just... protect the 'Babylon Device.'" She chintaps. "I wonder what doing the same to Aincrad will lead to..."

She shakes her head. "Anyway, that's a proposal I'd have. Let's find the best herbalist we can. Let's go there, you, I, and this Herbalist, and find out as much as we can about the Tower. It might reveal something your Alliance might be interested in. And, well," Her face turns down a bit, and she mumbles, "...it might help us all understand better exactly -what- happened to us."

There is some hesitation. "...by the way, feel free to share this information about the Babel Tower."

Schneider nods slowly. He would have to agree that we won't know until we find out. "That's easy enough to do," he says. "I'll appraise it next time I exit the Tower, and I'll let you know what I find out." He seems surprised that it's useful. Who knew? He thought it was just one of the fluff skills that he had to make a 'complete' character. After all, he, as a character, really just exists as a mobility system to bring FIRE to a battle.

"Wait, Babylon device? What's that?" He might have been told, a while back, but the lore here is like drinking from a firehose, and he hasn't had the time to digest most of it. He nods about the herbalist, though he wonders, "What did we need the Herbalist for again?"

As for understanding what happened to us, he can only shrug. "Well, they're not making any money off of us, so I have no idea what else the company would gain. Unless they're doing research in turning the world into The Matrix, like in that American movie." He nods about sharing, but says, "I'm not sure who'd be interested, but I will let Scale leadership know."

"The Babylon device seems to be what allows Adventurers to understand each other despite language differences, and all of them to understand the Landers' language," Uta explains. "It must be locate somewhere in, or near, the Babel Tower in the Palace Lands. You might remember that last year there was a disruption in the translation system, right? April, 11, to be exact. It probably was someone or something messing with the Babylon device," Uta explains.

Uta blinks at Schneider. "I don't know, the tower kind of looks like a tree? Worth a shot, I suppose. Maybe it -is- a tree of some sort. Worst that happens is that our attempt fizzles out."

Uta sighs. "In any case, I think it's decided. At least for now, we share the information about the Sonograph, but only with trusted people, and we tell them to do likewise. Disseminate, but carefully. Oh, make sure you keep Doctor Prophylaxis in the loop. I trust him, and I think it's only fair that someone with such responsibility should know. With the usual caveats about responsibility." She looks away and taps her chin. "Maybe we could just disseminate information that we're starting to make headway into the process of making Relics, and ask interested researchers to contact us. We'd then vet them." She turns towards Schneider. "How about that?"

Schneider ohs about the Babylon device. "Like the opposite of a Tower of Babel, thing," he says, just something to help him remember it. He doesn't remember ... no wait, he does, vaguely. His face shifts as he thinks about it. "Huh, yeah, that makes sense..."

He nods about taking an herbalist to the Tower to check it out. "We have a few in Scale, should be easy enough to manage."

He nods again about sharing the Sonograph information only with trusted people. He muses, "I wonder if any Landers have old treasures they don't understand that might be the disks the sonograph wants?" As far as Proph goes, he says, "I'll tell him." And then it will be /his/ problem to figure all this out.

As far as recruiting people and making headway into relics, he looks very skeptical. "Maybe? I don't think we're far enough along for that. If we're recuiting anyone, I'd bring them on to search out more Alv sites."

Uta sucks her lips in. She takes some time to think. "So... you're pretty much suggesting we wait before posting at least the basic information that we've found information on a step of making relics on Alliance boards, without specifying anything more?" Uta shifts her weight on one leg, and scratches her leg. "I suppose that's fair. Very well then. Speak privately with people it will be. I can go with that for now. I might put up an alliance board asking if people know who this 'Helba' who apparently created the device is, though. Maybe you could do the same."

There is more pause, perhaps a bit awkward at this point. Uta lowers her head a little, and looks up, way up at the much taller Schneider. "Soooo.... we done here?"

Schneider nods about suggesting we wait, though he says, "I ... understand that we've found a step, but I don't know that we've got anyting usable to share, but thousands of people fooling around with the devices trying to make them work seem more likely to break them further than to achieve positive results. It'd be like monkeys and a football, as my dad used to say." He nods to Uta about being done. "Yeah, thank you for telling me all this. I'll get the info to Prophylaxis, and we'll see where we can go."