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 Forum index » Archive » Archive: Perplex City » PXC: General/Updates
[EMAIL] It's Scarlett from Perplex City (8/22/05)
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christopher
Boot

Joined: 12 Oct 2003
Posts: 20

 		[EMAIL] It's Scarlett from Perplex City (8/22/05)
Quote:
The story so far:

Hi. My name's Scarlett Kiteway, I'm 20 years old and I live in Perplex City. Last year the Cube - a very precious object - was stolen from the Academy where my dad (Sente) is the Master, and concealed somewhere on Earth. We need to find the Cube and get it back.

Some pretty weird things have been going on in my life. It all started last week, when I got a summer job working at The Sentinel, the main newspaper of Perplex City. My friend Kurt happened to mention that he'd done a search for something called a "Reynolds ionizer" using his key (a kind of computer) and had been tracked by a military trace. Then, when I went to look in the desk of Pietro Salk
- a Sentinel journalist who died a little while ago - I found a tiny note scribbled on the back of a file. The note said: "Reynolds ionizers. Viendenbourg."

There's a lot going on in Perplex City; maybe by sifting all the clues that are out there, you'd find out who stole the Cube. But I'm following my own lead. My story is here and you can follow it with me.

----------------------

Viendenbourg.

I stared at the file for a few minutes, just to convince myself that the faint pencil note was really there. Reynolds ionizers.
Viendenbourg. The word meant nothing to me, but I jotted it down on a scrap of paper, and then carefully put the file back in Pietro's desk drawer, where I'd found it. I left the office, smiling at the security guard on duty downstairs, feeling like I had the biggest secret in the world burning a hole in my brain. Pietro must have done research into Reynolds ionizers, must have found out more than that they're just "military tech". This was a lead.

Of course, the first thing I did when I got home was to check my key for anything about Viendenbourg. Nothing. It's not the name of a person, it's not the name of a place, it's not the name of a company.
I thought of putting out a request for information in a tech chatroom, but that seemed like it'd draw too much attention to me.
I'd have to be more sneaky.

I had a long think the next day. Clearly, I was looking for something that had *some* link to military technology. So perhaps someone who knew about military technology could help me. My key hadn't brought up any matches for the name Viendenbourg, but someone out there in the city must know what it meant. Unless, of course, Pietro Salk had just made it up. But something about the simple fact that I couldn't find any information on the word Viendenbourg convinced me that wasn't the case. If it were just a random word there'd be something, somewhere. This felt like a cover-up.

So I put on my walking shoes (in fact my sister Violet's stylish black leather kneeboots Smile) and went out to visit the Museum of Perplex City where I know they keep a lot of military records. I figured maybe Viendenbourg might be the name of some old general - something that someone might tell me if I wasn't asking about Reynolds ionizers in the same breath.

I love the Museum. It's clean and white, with high ceilings and lots of light. They have a special room dedicated to the military archives and there were about 20 people each sitting quietly next to a box full of old papers, looking through documents. I was the youngest person there by probably 40 years! I guess there are a lot of older people researching their family histories. One white-haired man was looking through a box of papers dated 5BC with tears rolling down his cheeks. Military history must make moving reading.

I asked one of the research assistants if she could help me find out anything about Viendenbourg. She was around 80 or 90 years old - lots of older people volunteer as docents and advisors at the museum. She was very sweet, but completely useless. She checked the museum key system but found nothing, so we went meticulously through every record in her physical index system. I felt terrible, because we were talking pretty loudly and the room was really quiet. Everyone must have heard what we were saying.

After about an hour, we'd exhausted the physical records and it didn't look as if we'd got anywhere. So I thanked her for her time, and she started to put the records away. As she walked off, I started to gather my belongings together, so didn't notice the old man from the 5BC box until he was right next to me. Up close, he didn't look as old as I'd thought - maybe only 60. His eyes were very pale blue, translucent as if their colour had been worn away over the years.

He said: "I think you dropped this" and put a tiny data-button into my hand.

"Oh no, I didn't have one."

The elderly man looked up. The research assistant came closer. He closed my fingers over the data-button and smiled:

"Yes," he said, "I think it belongs to you."

And as I was standing there, puzzled, he walked off. Surprisingly fast for an old man.

I have to confess, I thought he must have put his contact details onto that button, or some weird key virus, so I wasn't in a hurry to open it up. When I got home, I set up an "airlock" function to protect my data and opened it up. But it wasn't some old man's details, but a map. Of an area near the Tanraga mountains. With what looked like a small village marked with an x, and a little, scribbled note. "Viendenbourg. Before everything changed."




--
I'm planning to send you an email once a week about my investigations, but I won't be offended if you want to unsubscribe. If you really don't want to hear about my adventures, just send an email to newsletter-unsubscribeSPLATthescarlettkite.com.

If you think your friends would be interested in my emails, then you can send them to www.scarlettkite.com and there's a signup box on the sidebar.

Until next week.

Scarlett

scarlettSPLATthescarlettkite.com
http://thescarlettkite.com




Edit: Added email date to topic. -SpaceBass
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 22, 2005 5:11 pm
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Incitatus
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Joined: 01 Oct 2004
Posts: 487
Location: Austin, Texas

 		just got the same email
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 22, 2005 5:17 pm
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Spankit
Decorated


Joined: 22 Apr 2005
Posts: 219
Location: Hooville....Wahoowa!
Quote:
I felt terrible, because we were talking pretty loudly and the room was really quiet. Everyone must have heard what we were saying.


Goodbye, Scarlett. It was nice knowing you.
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"A facility for quotation covers the absence of original thought." - Lord Peter Wimsey
232/333

PostPosted: Mon Aug 22, 2005 5:18 pm
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Fido
Greenhorn

Joined: 01 Aug 2005
Posts: 9
Location: Dallas, TX

 		ditto. Tanraga Mountains?

--Woof

PostPosted: Mon Aug 22, 2005 5:20 pm
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cassandra
Entrenched


Joined: 25 Mar 2005
Posts: 831

 		How convenient that she was already planning a trip to Tanraga Wink

PostPosted: Mon Aug 22, 2005 5:23 pm
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tanner
Entrenched


Joined: 21 May 2003
Posts: 875
Location: (x,y,z,t,i, ...)+

 		"by sifting all the clues that are out there, you'd find out who stole the Cube"

so we should have enough maybe

and

"and X marks the spot before it all changed" -- scary stuff Smile


a metamorphis weapon must have been used
cos its all changed Laughing Laughing
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tanner³ -- Join the PXC team on SETI@home
"And the princess and the prince discuss what's real and what is not,
But it doesn't matter inside the Gates of Eden" - BD

PostPosted: Mon Aug 22, 2005 5:23 pm
Last edited by tanner on Mon Aug 22, 2005 5:27 pm; edited 1 time in total
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christopher
Boot

Joined: 12 Oct 2003
Posts: 20

 		Do you think they're getting annoyed somewhat with our (possible) lack of progress then? Very Happy
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Never overlook the obvious, no matter how obvious it may seem.

PostPosted: Mon Aug 22, 2005 5:25 pm
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Shockt
Boot


Joined: 19 Feb 2005
Posts: 36
christopher wrote:
Do you think they're getting annoyed somewhat with our (possible) lack of progress then? Very Happy

Considering the longer it takes, the more money they roll in from cards.. I doubt it Wink
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16/100=7

PostPosted: Mon Aug 22, 2005 5:47 pm
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oliverkeers13
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Joined: 23 May 2005
Posts: 917
Location: London, UK

 		Also, this is new info, we didn't have the map. But what is significant about 5CB? Wasn't that around the time the cube was discovered? (IT wasn't discovered in the year 0 btw)
_________________
"You're talking last ditch, I need top drawer" V
"To be in opposition is not to be a nihilist" CH
"im iver an idiot or a genus" Dekuprince
Perplex City Video

PostPosted: Mon Aug 22, 2005 5:50 pm
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ParityBit
Decorated


Joined: 17 Oct 2003
Posts: 168
Location: London Above
christopher wrote:
Do you think they're getting annoyed somewhat with our (possible) lack of progress then? Very Happy


Nah, well I hope not anyway! Scarlett's Tanraga trip is 'a few weeks' from her 19th Aug update, so I don't think we're particularly lagging behind on anything.

But we need to make sure that she is going to be fully prepared for what could be out there.

PostPosted: Mon Aug 22, 2005 5:51 pm
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GuyP
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Joined: 15 Sep 2004
Posts: 584
Location: London, UK
Quote:
Goodbye, Scarlett. It was nice knowing you.


But without Scarlett, for the love of god, how will we know about the scintillating Earth-articles promoting Perplex City? The horror, the horror...

PostPosted: Mon Aug 22, 2005 5:52 pm
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zoombini
Boot

Joined: 19 Aug 2005
Posts: 24

 		Talking points:

1) what did he mean by "changed?" Was it a physical change (i.e. cube energies blasted the village from the earth), or social change (new government, weird sci-fi project starting), or something else?

2) 5BC? Do we know of anything important that happened then? That's 12 years before the cube was found.

Also, here's my paranoia theory - she was wearing Violet's kneeboots, right? What if someone uses that as an ID and Violet gets whacked for something Scarlett did?

PostPosted: Mon Aug 22, 2005 5:54 pm
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Scott
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Joined: 11 Sep 2004
Posts: 1140
Location: 390 Chestnut Ridge Rd, Rochester NY, 14624, USA
cassandra wrote:
How convenient that she was already planning a trip to Tanraga Wink
mm, not quite. she announced her trip on the 19th, and this all happened on uhm, say, the 13th. So she got all this info, then managed to talk some fFriends into going with her to the spooky mountains.

by the way, i started a wiki entry to collect emails here:
http://wiki.incognitus.net/ppc/index.php/Letters_from_Scarlett
_________________
Perplex City is a game whose only rule is: There must be a party.
Balance of Powers is a game whose only rule is: There must be a political party.

PostPosted: Mon Aug 22, 2005 6:08 pm
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mupdan
Boot

Joined: 04 Aug 2005
Posts: 22
Location: Bath, UK

 		I take it she hasn't posted the map anywhere yet?
Damn all this suspense nonsense. Maybe we do have the map... Elucidate, anyone? Razz
DAn

PostPosted: Mon Aug 22, 2005 6:12 pm
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cassandra
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Joined: 25 Mar 2005
Posts: 831
Scott wrote:
cassandra wrote:
How convenient that she was already planning a trip to Tanraga Wink
mm, not quite. she announced her trip on the 19th, and this all happened on uhm, say, the 13th. So she got all this info, then managed to talk some fFriends into going with her to the spooky mountains.


ah, right. I failed to properly read the email's chronological info.

Tanraga /= Catbite, so I don't think it's Cube-related. I always hoped that the "turmoil and confusion" mentioned on the Academy site referred to invasion or somesuch by an outside/foreign/alien/technologically superior race. Perhaps some epidemic disease/creative DNA mutation as well, who knows? Razz Something had to happen to create such an insular society.

PS. Viendenbourg is a very Luxembourg/Dutch name. Possibly associated with vinden.

PostPosted: Mon Aug 22, 2005 6:20 pm
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