Zelda Art Recko Alloy

[MikauIncarnate]

What I'm confused about is how it would be possible to burn that post by The_Green in a way that would cause only those letters to show. Maybe there's a reason for it being those letters, other than just the fact that it's confirming that post.

 

[Locke]

[OoC]Whoops mandy, you bolded the wrong "ed t" -- that string also occurs directly beneath "ch: 'please'" within "linked to". That should satisfy MikauIncarnate's curiosity. But that's just what the character was able to make out by squinting. The only decipherable part of that note was 'please'.[/OoC]

CHAPTER 2 PART 5​

Unfortunately, I had no idea how to convert binary into a readable message. I asked the fairy, who was still hovering by my side watching me intently, if it could understand what it said. At that moment, box number 13, right next to the one I first examined, flew open. This one was extremely helpful. It appeared that I wasn’t alone in trying to solve this puzzle. It also was burned around the edges and the last bit was unreadable, but it did fully answer my question.

“After about 3 seconds, I've discovered that it says 'reveal Recko Alloy,' which just so happens to be the name of this story. Hmmm. Mysterious. I'm going to see”

Story? I didn’t know of any story, but it was comforting to see that someone was just as confused as I was, and just as intent on finding the answer. I added this to the notes on my laptop. At this point, I had:

---

“Let Cyphixus Drwg bevvare”
-perhaps a warning
-key to something
-handwritten

“Please reveal Recko Alloy”
-some person or thing to discover
--unlock?
-partly typed, partly handwritten/encoded

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
[note: anagrams aren’t working…try other ciphers]

---

I wondered if there was anything important about the numbers of the mailboxes that were distributing these clues.

 

[Fraxinus]

Cyphers? Ooh... I love deciphering stuff....
And the mailboxes numbers... that must mean...

Spoiler

a-1
b-2
c-3
d-4
e-5
f-6
g-7
h-8
i-9
j-10
k-11
l-12
m-13
n-14
o-15
P-16
q-17
r-18
s-19
t-20
u-21
v-22
w-23
x-24
y-25
z-26

12,4,7,13
LDGM

...LDGM??? Eh... that's as far as I'm willing my brain to think until I get my little ciphering dial from my room. *goes to get it from bulletin board*

 

[MikauIncarnate]

I'm pretty sure I've figured out that it's not a viginere cipher (meaning using a key phrase) I tried it with a lot of things (Reveal recko alloy, please reveal recko alloy, recko alloy, key) and they all came up as gibberish. Mandym, what do you mean by "ciphering dial?"

 

[Locke]

THE FINAL HOUR​

The door to mailbox number 12 slammed shut. It opened again, violently. My heart jumped. I checked to see if there was another message, but it was empty. “Hey!” exclaimed the fairy, through my laptop. “Watch out!”

The wall that the mailboxes were on was ripped away from the corridor and disappeared into a vast expanse of swirling purple and black mist. My foot gave out from under me as the floor started to tear away as well. In fact, the entire corridor seemed to slowly disappear into the void. I quickly found solid footing and regained my balance. The fairy had already begun to fly toward the end of the corridor we had come from, and I followed close behind. The destruction wasn’t advancing very fast, but the shock of the sudden change of atmosphere along with the terrible howling, creaking, and tearing sounds of the walls being torn apart by some mysterious and powerful force elicited a sense of urgency to our escape.

The corridor was twisted in the opposite direction as it was when we first came through it. We reached the door to the stairwell and opened it. There was nothing on the other side! Only the purple-streaked void! There were no stairs to the other floors. Floor 12 was the only thing that remained within the expanse, and it wouldn’t be there long. I sat down in the corridor and urgently continued to decipher the clues. My world was shrinking. The clock on my laptop said “11:00 PM,” even though it should be around 3 by now. Underneath that was a countdown. It seemed I had only one hour left to solve this puzzle…

 

[Fraxinus]

Uhhh... I'm totally stumped now... :hmm:

Oh, and MikauIncarnate, this is what I was talking about when I said ciphering dial...

So... after this puzzle gets solved... Actually, I shouldn't get too ahead... now...

(Now I'm just thinking aloud--or in text, as it would be on a forum)
I know that there is something along the lines of "Please, Dark One, beware," and then there's "Reveal Recko Alloy," the key-shaped paper, and "LDGM". :thinking:

...Maybe the key-shaped paper means that the content of that message represents that you're supposed to use the messages as log-in information? Weird to include spaces, but they do work... (I'm running out of ideas) Umm... no... I don't know anything about Command Prompt or batch files or whatever, but maybe that is where this is going. Something silly like, Reveal: recko alloy in whatever coding command prompt even uses... I have a feeling that your laptop is needed for something, but can't wrap my head around what, quite yet... :hmm:

Okay, so I hate double-posting, but the last time I edited a post with my phone, I ended up just reposting the entire thing... Locke said I'm forgetting one thing... all I can see right now was a mention of BEN in the first chapter. Actually, makes a little sense becuase BEN is technically an alloy of Link. So... um... yeah.

 

[Locke]

(the bad ending)​

Having found no solution in time, I found myself pulled into the void, and any adventure I had hoped to experience was quite disappointedly cut short.


[OoC]Well that's it...the character's dead... =( If it weren't for the special circumstances that you'll soon discover, I would have left some chance to save him, or give extra time to solve the puzzle. Unfortunately, the ZD fanart board doesn't have enough readers to make a story like this effective. So I guess some explaining's in order. If you still want to solve the puzzle on your own, stop reading here and go back to look for anything you've missed.

Spoiler

If someone had realized that the numbers of the mailboxes corresponded directly to the reply numbers (mandym's was #4, thegreen's was #7, mikau's was #13), then that would have led to the mysterious post #12, which as Mikau noticed appeared and disappeared, with only the note "Message sent. Awaiting reply." This of course corresponds to box 12, where the first message with the key was found.

I was very happy that you had started using ciphers, but you were using the wrong ones! In THE FINAL HOUR, I had the mysterious (underdeveloped) author of the 'warning' attempt to send guidance. Post #12 was edited. Box #12 shut and reopened (which should have alerted readers to check that post if they had discovered the importance of the numbers). But the message failed to go through. Perhaps if you read the message you can find the solution. I also reminded the readers of what floor this was taking place on to stress the importance of the number 12.

And if that isn't enough, I'll lay it out for you:

Spoiler

Post number 12, the final message to the character that never reached him, suggests using a caesar cipher (Mikau was close with his viginere cipher!) "Let Cyphixus Drwg bevvare" was written on the key. Floor 12 is twisted, or "shifted" (also the first mailbox adds to the number's importance). You are to reveal "Recko Alloy."

[/OoC]

 

[Fraxinus]

I actually feel bad for not catching that whole mailbox thing. I mean, I was already halfway there when I knew which posts were the letters, but never thought any more of it...

As for the cipher...I should have tried more of it... I mean, I even brought my little cipher wheel from my room to my computer, but I got distracted by something else and forgot to even try deciphering anything else with it. Silly ADHD of mine...

Oh, but this style you used in this fic was pretty interesting as far as how the readers had some interaction... you should totally recycle that for another story, and hopefully, you'll have more readers to help save the character.

 

[MikauIncarnate]

I still don't get it... I tried the caesar cipher to shift from 1 to 25 letters, I tried them all, but none worked. I agree with mandy, it was an awesome idea, and you should continue it sometime. I definitely never would have thought for him to have to send a message back through #12, but I guess that's what was supposed to happen? How much more did you have planned on this fic? Was it only going to be two chapters or was there a lot more?

 

[Locke]

I actually had only planned the first chapter and was going to just post the key and the shift, but I kept thinking of interesting ways of presenting them within the context of the story so I gradually built the second chapter.

You need to do a keyed caesar shift, shift=12, key="let cyphixus drwg bevvare", decrypt "recko alloy"

I was saying in the sb that I had discovered an interesting method of inventing names, and this is it. I had the answer in mind, and needed to disguise it. "Recko Alloy" was the first phrase I came up with that sorta made sense while playing with shifts and using random letters as keys. Then I took the random letter key and played around with anagrams until I came up with "let cyphixus drwg bv" and since you can repeat characters in the key I made the last word bevvare to make the sentence have meaning. I was pretty happy when I googled Cyphixus and only got one result, another fanfic (which I did not incorporate at all into this one). At first I got Cyphus but it turns out that's pretty common so I switched around a few letters.

 

[OcarinaSword]

That was quite good ^_^

It started off slow, but the situation was so familiar it had me hooked. So far the character is very relatable, and I'll admit I wasn't ready for the twist in there.

I look forward to reading more!

I agree it did start off slow but yea it got me really hooked! (this is for chapter 1)

 

[Kybyrian]

I wish I would have caught this when you first made the thread. Then I might have been a bit more interested in it. Good ole April Fools.

 

[MikauIncarnate]

What were you planning on doing when we finally did get the answer. Hm?

 

[Locke]

I was just gonna go "lol April Fools... I don't write fanfics! I have no plans for developing this story more."

 

[MikauIncarnate]

You should write fanfics though! This was really cool.