Your [Cypher: Part V]

Posted on 13 Apr 2016 @ 3:25am by Ensign James Langley

346 words; about a 2 minute read

“THE FOURTH WORD YOU SEEK IS 'DRINK.' FOR THE NEXT ONE CHEMISTRY WILL LIGHT THE WAY AS CLEAR AS DAY.”

This one was a tough one for me. I had my hunches and I was almost certain they were right. The solution was easy but to get there would be tough. It had to be a chemical reaction that would emit some form of radiation. Visible light or perhaps something off towards the farther ends of the spectrum. It was probably going to be mostly ultraviolet, which I was correct about once I found it.

Now let me say this. Chemistry can be messy. Especially with brute force methods of investigation. You don't see the ugliness of brute force in other methods of code breaking like computers and cyphers, but in the physical world you really can get a feel for just why they call it brute force. I suppose the moral of this part of the puzzle's lesson was that sometimes knowledge only comes hard fought. You have to get down and dirty and sometimes the results aren't pretty. I felt guilty, but it had to be done.

Chemical baths. Sprays. Powder rubs. I tried almost every known combination. I guess it's a shame I didn't get it right on my first try, but it was the mixture I needed that did the most damage. In my quest for knowledge I had mutilated this beautiful work of art. Tortured it to the bone. When I was done that night, bottles and canisters of all sizes strewn about, the work of art was in shambles. The outer face of a lot of it's softer beauty. The inkings and the paintings marred and washed. Oxidized metals. It was a wreck, but there it was. The message I was looking for written out to me in a ultraviolet chemical emission for all of thirty seconds before it vanished with the rest of the art.

“THE FIFTH WORD YOU SEEK IS 'YOUR.' THERE IS NOTHING LEFT TO SEE. THE LAST WORD YOU SEEK LIES WITHIN THE THREES.”

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