Chapter 2: Take Two
It had been a week since their last game night. The case that they got called away on ended up sending them to Toronto for the last 5 days. Apparently the mass murderer thought he would run and hide in the country that is most known for being polite and nice. Finally the group was able to get another night off together and scheduled the continuation of their D&D game. Even Reade seemed to be trying to hide some excitement towards this next session.
"Ok, so tell me again, why did Rich have to make a Diplomacy check with that guard? What does that even mean?" Reade asks Patterson as they are putting up tonight's drink selection in the fridge.
"Well normally it is a diffusing the situation type of scenario that diplomacy is used, but I like to use it in my games for trying to get information out of an authority figure as well. I mean if you had to talk to the President and ask him questions about some FBI case in real life, you would be diplomatic in your approach, right?" Patterson smiles at Reade while pouring herself a Maker's on the rocks. "That is the great thing about D&D, you can customize it to whatever you want it to be. In situations like what we encountered with Rich last time, we could have used either persuasion or diplomacy, since there is a lot of overlap. For instance, persuasion would have been if Rich gave a compelling argument to the guard for why you guys should have that information - 'Your group has solved x many cases', 'You're the best investigators in the world', 'You want to help The Force out and put murderers away' etc; whereas I feel like diplomacy would have been used if Rich let the guard know that he was with the FBI and they were on the case as well, the guard probably would have just given the information freely with no flack or backtalk. Since Rich came off as more of a civilian asking questions, rather than a member of an FBI unit, it made the guard ill at ease with him; that is why I made him do a diplomacy check to basically get back on his good side."
"So, essentially in this case, it was used to smooth the waters that Rich had stirred up?" Reade says in a questioning tone.
"Exactly. See you're going to get into this after all. I told you D&D was for everyone." Patterson chuckles before turning to Tasha. "Hey babe, did you find my lucky die in the car?"
"No, and I don't know why you need it any ways. I thought dice were made to be random no matter what." Tasha says with an incredulous look towards her girlfriend.
"This one is different! It was one of my first ones and it ALWAYS rolls really well!" Patterson starts to look around the game table frantically.
"Well, kiss me if I'm wrong, but I am pretty sure that if it rolls well for you, then NONE of us should be helping you find it. The last thing we need is a DM rolling Natural 20s against us." Rich chimes in. "How about we help you after you don't kill us off tonight?"
"Did you take it? I saw you poking around my desk at work. If you took it, I promise not to hurt you… too much." Patterson tries to glare but fails miserably since there is no real malice behind it.
Rich raises his hands up in protest "I swear by my pretty floral bonnet that I had nothing to do with the theft of your golden die." Rich continues on by crossing his heart before play acting like he was dead.
Trying to psych herself back up, Patterson mumbles to herself, "Ok, it is probably just misplaced somewhere in the apartment but the juju should still be with me!"
"You are one with the die and the die is one with you" Rich bows as if in front of a sensei.
"Ok, this is just getting weird guys." Jane interrupts, turning to Patterson. "If this die is important then of course we will take the time to help you find it."
"Hey is this die you are looking for completely gold colored, and each number is surrounded in a circle, and is extremely hard to read?" Kurt squints at a die he found accidentally when he tried to sit on the couch.
Patterson quickly runs over to hug Kurt, "Yes that's it! Thank you, thank you, thank you! Where'd you find it?"
"Well, it kind of found me." Kurt says sheepishly. "I attempted to sit on the couch, and it was stuck between a couple of the cushions."
"Ok, now that we have found the most important marble, should we get started?" Tasha purposely calling the die the wrong name just to get a rise out of Patterson.
"You know what, I'm going to just let that slide because I'm so glad it was found safe and sound." Patterson states haughtily while stroking her good luck die. For good measure she sticks her tongue out at Tasha before continuing on to the rest of the group, "Yes let's go ahead and get started if everyone has their drinks and is ready."
After everyone gets gathered around the dining room table once more, drinks in hand, Patterson starts off the night with a recap of the previous game night. "Ok where we last left off, you guys had a case where a group of people were pulling off heists all across the country. The latest incident was at The Met and they had stolen Michelangelo's David. You went to the scene and talked to the detective there to find out that the only item the officers found at the scene was a hat. Upon further investigation by Reade and Zappata, you were able to find hidden messages using a blacklight." Patterson pauses for a moment before adding, "What would you guys like to do?"
"Now's your time to shine Reade. You've been holding it over us this past week that you know what the message means, so spill." Tasha leans towards Reade trying to pressure him to answer.
"Technically, I said I know what the clue was, not what it meant." Reade clarifies before continuing, "I think that it is a cipher. What I don't know is what it translates to." Reade looks over to Rich who has too much of a grin on his face. "What, do you know something we don't?"
Rich is caught off guard, as he did not realize he was smiling; at that moment he was just enjoying the sight of his friends starting to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Truth be told he had already figured out it was a cipher, what it meant, and where it was supposed to lead. He wanted the group to figure it out together though, not for him to railroad and just solve everything right off the bat. That was part of what made D&D fun, figuring clues out together. Rich knew he had to deflect, he did not think his friends would be too keen on him withholding such information even with his good intentions. "Can't a guy be happy that a stick in the mud like yourself has opened up to the nerdy world of D&D?" For the cherry on top he plasters on a huge smile. "I legitimately am happy to see us all here around the table having fun. As for the clue I think you're right about the cipher. It is the only thing that makes sense given the numbers provided. Now we just have to find the key to solving it."
"Ok, I'm assuming that Patterson can't help us since she's running this game?" Kurt looks over to Patterson who shakes her head at him. "Ok so it is just us five. I'm sure we can figure this thing out.
Jane hums to herself as she tries to process what information has been given. "Hey, for the numbers on the hat, do they appear exactly as on this card?" Jane asks staring intently at it.
"Yes, they appear exactly as on the card." Patterson tries to reign in her grin that has started to creep across her face. She wondered how long it would take until someone took a closer look at the notecard itself.
"Why Jane? What are you seeing?" Reade leans in to try and inspect the card as well.
"Well it may be nothing, but it seems like after certain numbers there's more of a space than the others…" Jane trails off as she tilts the card back and forth to see if it's just a trick of the light.
"Here." Tasha says as she hands Jane the ruler that Patterson had left on the table next to the pencils and a stack of blank gridded paper.
"Yeah, look here! After the numbers 25, 21, 13, 24, and the second 4 there is an extra couple of millimeters before the next number in the sequence. It's not much but it just throws your eye off just a smidge."
"Ok, give me the full sequence with the spaces." Tasha grabs a pencil and paper to write down what Jane is seeing.
"I think it is: 19, 24, 25, space 14, 3, 21, space 7, 6, 18, 7, 17, 21, 13 space 17, 24 space 4, 7, 20, 4 space 17, 21, and 14." Jane repeats as Tasha frantically transcribes the numbers down.
"This looks like it should make a sentence, so if Reade… and Rich… are correct, then this is the message we will be decoding!" Tasha excitedly announces. "Now just to figure out how to decode it. Too bad we can't just plug it into one of the super computers at work." Tasha glances up at Patterson wide eyed, "Wait, can we?!"
Patterson laughs warmly, "NO! You guys cannot cheat and use the computers at work, I see 5 computers right here in front of me. You can do this!" Patterson points one by one to each of her friend's head as she says this. "I believe in you guys, you can figure it out."
Quite a bit of time passed with everyone trying out different letters in all of the positions. Patterson and Rich exchanged glances, a couple times Patterson widening hers slightly with a head tilt as if to say 'Come on, jump in and help.' She knew he had already figured it out, he told her as much at work after they had been called away. She was surprised when he told her his plan to let the rest of the team figure it out though, it was a very touching notion from the guy that normally tries to rile everyone up. Rich responded with a hand wave that he tried to pass off as shoo-ing an insect when Reade had suddenly looked up at him.
He felt like something was going on with Rich but couldn't quite put his finger on it, so he just shook his head and turned to Kurt, "Hey remember last time there was that picture they painted with the backwards peace sign? You thought it stood for the Roman numeral 5, but what if it was just a letter 'V'. V - 18. There is an 18 in this sequence, so what if we put the letter V in that spot and see if that gives us direction for the others."
"That could actually be it." Jane says while scribbling above the numbers Tasha had written down. "Now we just need to try some common words that match up with the amount of numbers for each spot. Why don't we start with the smallest word and see what we can get, it looks like both the 17 and the 24 are used in multiple places."
After another fifteen minutes or so they finally got the correct combination. "'You are invited to high tea'? What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Tasha leans back in her chair exasperated.
"Elementary, my dear Tasha, it means that we've been invited for high tea." Rich smiling at his choice of words.
"So, you're saying that the next place is going to be somewhere in England?" Jane asks turning to Rich.
"Well, where else would 'high tea' be such a big deal at?" Rich innocently replies. He looks over to Kurt whose wheels seem to be turning.
"Wait, wait. Patterson, that hat you described… did it look like Sherlock Holmes' hat?" Kurt tries to keep his frustration under wraps, he thought he recognized the description of the hat but could not place it until England was mentioned.
"Why, yes, I suppose it does!" Patterson grins ecstatically. "You could most definitely see this hat on the well-known sleuth of London."
Kurt turns to Rich and fixes him with a stare that could freeze hell. "How long did you know?"
"I don't know to what you are referring. Once high tea was mentioned, it made the clue obviously lead to England - which when added with the hat and the 'backwards peace sign' that is not actually a backwards peace sign, it all just fit." Rich states simply, hoping no one asks him anything more about the clues.
"What do you mean a 'backwards peace sign' that isn't actually a backwards peace sign?" Kurt is genuinely baffled that it is not actually a backwards peace sign.
"Let's just say when you go to England do NOT throw up a backwards peace sign at someone unless you want to get punched in the face." Rich demonstrates the hand gesture before continuing, "Been there, done that. Thought it would be funny, and in the end I ended up with a bloody lip and a black eye. Zero out of ten, do not recommend doing. It's basically their version of 'the bird' but somehow worse."
"Why am I not surprised you thought it would be funny to flip someone off in a foreign country?" Reade jokes. "Did you even know the guy?"
"Actually, it was a girl. In my defense she was drunk and I was taught never to hit a lady." Rich points out before quickly adding, "Aren't we getting off subject here? We are supposed to be tracking the bad guys!"
"Oh, we will circle back around to this. Any scenario where you get your ass kicked by a chick is one I want to hear over and over again." Tasha chuckles as she takes another sip of her beer. "But yes we should probably figure out where we need to go in England, or London, or wherever."
"Well, we're about halfway through game night now. Why don't we take a break here? We can all get some food and some more drinks, and you guys can discuss where you think you need to go. Then we can pick back up with whatever place you guys would like to head to?" Patterson suggests as her stomach starts to growl. The pizza guy was supposed to be arriving soon with their order she placed ahead of time.
"Yes, pizza and beer sounds good to me! We can pick up after." Jane stands up to stretch. She didn't realize how much time had already flew by, guess you really could lose yourself in a game.
