Inali had spent most of her free time in the past week leafing through the reference sheets and collected ciphers of the Old Guard. While studying the collected work of her faction, she had discovered many techniques and tools that aided her work and helped her decode ciphers at a rate faster than she believed possible. Initially, she had used the digraph reference sheets exclusively and then used a mix of pattern recognition and trial and error to create keys. While she had never failed, it was painfully obvious that her techniques paled in comparison to those of the more experienced cryptographers. After countless breaks of trying to absorb all the disparate information, she swallowed her pride and asked another member of the Old Guard for help.
Meri Tanaor had spent most of her life in Athart where she was paid an exorbitant amount of money to decode the communications between rival merchants. While she had done an admirable job keeping her identity hidden, a particularly furious merchant had sold a large portion of his personal heirlooms and curios to hire a spy. The merchant was nearly bankrupt by the time the investigation was over and Meri was able to survive the ordeal by offering to pay more than the merchant to keep her identity secret as she fled the city. The spy was able to report back that the ‘mission’ had been completed and Meri left Athart that night. Her story was well known within the Old Guard. Her sheer brilliance in decoding all manners of ciphers demanded explanation – and a large measure of respect.
When they sat down together at one of the large tables, Meri addressed her with a sweeping gaze at the collected materials Inali had brought. Meri’s sharp gaze missed nothing, and it took an inordinate amount of willpower for the eidisi to remain quiet. Even though she desperately wanted to justify all of her shortcomings and flaws, it would take a half-break for Meri to find them out on her own.
Meri began the conversation with a simple,
“So, what do you know? What do you want to know?”
Inali sucked in a deep breath, recognizing the trap that was layered within simple question. Her professors had created entire exams around these infuriating questions – knowing that unprepared students would consider their work done after a single page of parchment was filled. The eidisi ran her hand across her forearm for a few trills before replying,
“I’ve worked with a variety of ciphers and had a brief introduction to stenography. I can recognize common digraphs and assess whether an encoded message uses a substation cipher within a few bits. Recently, I decoded the letter the Syroa worshippers used and I’ve gotten more exposure to messages that neglect pronouns, spaces, and punctuation.”
Inali frowned, suddenly realizing that her education in cryptography hadn’t been as thorough as she originally believed.
“I want to learn… more. I want to work with ciphers that eschew letters in place of numbers, I want to understand the methods behind flattering out the frequency curve and how we would solve such difficult ciphers. I also know multiple languages. At the start, I thought that might be a boon, but I worry that any cipher I create with disparate alphabets would be nearly impossible to decode, even with a detailed key.”
Meri nodded and scribbled a few notes on her own paper. Inali didn’t need to look down to know that they were unreadable, as they were written in Meri’s famous encoded shorthand. After tens of arcs working in the field, it was a wonder that Meri’s thoughts weren’t also encoded. When she was finished writing, the woman looked up at Inali and said,
“You’re going about this the wrong way. I almost don’t know where to start because you just…”
Meri glanced around the room as if the scrolls would provide the polite version of her intended reply.
“You’re thinking in terms of ciphers and particular methods used to generate strong coded messages. It’s a common error, but what will you do when someone comes up with a new type of cipher? You’ll work through each of your known ciphers and grow more frustrated – and waste valuable time that we’ll need to decode the cipher.”
Inali nodded glumly. It was true – she had employed that method multiple times in the past.
Meri continued,
“You need to look at the codes as they are – whether you’re looking at numbers, letters, symbols, or a mix of the three. There are numerous clues to be found in the code and the medium the cryptographer decides to use.”
Meri smiled ruefully,
“Have you heard the story of the code that I failed to crack? I lost my old employer many onyx nels for my failure. I was almost fired, in fact.”
Inali shook her head and frowned slightly. Meri had made a mistake? She was known as the woman who could simply glance at a key and provide at least ten reasons that made it insecure. Of course, she would find 10 reasons if your cipher was especially good. For those that simply relied on tried and true methods, Meri had far more criticisms to dole out.
“I was in a rush, per usual. Once my employer found out that I was competent, he gave me an entire stack of encoded messages that he had saved. The fourth one down was different – though he didn’t think to tell me so until after I had ruined the entire page.”
Meri glanced down at her notes, as if lost in the memory of that day,
“We had reports and prior evidence that some of the merchants in Athart liked using invisible ink as a crude form of stenography. Now, the merchants had gotten smart over the arcs prior – instead of writing whole messages in between the lines of their dummy letter, they would make minor tick marks next to important letters. Sometimes they would add invisible punctuation instead. I had gotten into the habit of dousing the entire page in lemon juice so I could find the tiny marks.”
Meri sighed and paused, clearly agitated by her failing,
“The merchant had developed an ink that dissolved when exposed to acidic liquids. There was no invisible ink on the entire page. The actual message held the clues that we needed, but the ink ran and dripped off the page.”
Without warning, Meri looked up and her sharp eyes met Inali’s,
“Now, what did you learn from that? Of course, you already know not to rush.”
Inali blinked and stammered for a moment before her brain caught up to the current trick question. She had been so engrossed in the story she hadn’t bothered to think about the lessons that should have been learned.
“Well, first off, you should always make copies of the initial message. Secondly, we shouldn’t underestimate our foes. Just as we gain skill in our craft, they learn more about the ciphers that we struggle to decode. They can use every cipher we make against us as cryptography works both ways. Lastly, patience”
Meri raised an eyebrow at this, clearly thinking that her pupil was simply trying to reword the lesson that she had expressly prohibited. Inali shook her head and continued,
“Not patience in decoding stacks of letters. I mean that you must be patient at the onset of the process and consider all the tactics known to the region and the merchant. I would assume the ink looked different, but you dismissed it because they used a different color parchment to cover the hue. You might have known that the letter writer had the most resources out of all your adversaries, had you done your research ahead of time.”
Meri clapped lightly and took a few notes. Inali couldn’t tell if the woman was genuinely pleased. Many in positions of power adopted these gestures over the arcs without realizing it. Their subordinates noticed immediately, not realizing that the tic denoted nothing at all.
Meri placed her pen on the table and leaned back,
“Now that you understand some of the basics, we can sketch out a rough list of the skills you’ll need to improve on before I can help you any further. First, I want you to memorize what place every letter in the common alphabet occupies. ‘A’ would be one, for example. You must be able to parse your missives and immediately see these numbers as clearly as you see the letters. Second, you need to practice working with symbols. I can provide you a list of the common ones. Get to know them intimately. Copy them and note the differences between them. Lastly, I’m going to give you a bundle of ciphers. You don’t need to decode them. Number each and list your approach to the initial cipher as well as your insights.”
Meri pivoted and pulled the requisite materials out of a large leather bag underneath the desk. I’ll meet with you in seven trials. Ensure that you have everything completed by then.
Inali nodded and grabbed the parchments before placing them in her bag. She uttered a quiet thank you before exiting the building and heading home. Meri had those papers in her bag before the lesson. Inali could hold onto the fact that Meri saw something in her as she worked through the difficult assignment that Meri had given her.
Meri Tanaor had spent most of her life in Athart where she was paid an exorbitant amount of money to decode the communications between rival merchants. While she had done an admirable job keeping her identity hidden, a particularly furious merchant had sold a large portion of his personal heirlooms and curios to hire a spy. The merchant was nearly bankrupt by the time the investigation was over and Meri was able to survive the ordeal by offering to pay more than the merchant to keep her identity secret as she fled the city. The spy was able to report back that the ‘mission’ had been completed and Meri left Athart that night. Her story was well known within the Old Guard. Her sheer brilliance in decoding all manners of ciphers demanded explanation – and a large measure of respect.
When they sat down together at one of the large tables, Meri addressed her with a sweeping gaze at the collected materials Inali had brought. Meri’s sharp gaze missed nothing, and it took an inordinate amount of willpower for the eidisi to remain quiet. Even though she desperately wanted to justify all of her shortcomings and flaws, it would take a half-break for Meri to find them out on her own.
Meri began the conversation with a simple,
“So, what do you know? What do you want to know?”
Inali sucked in a deep breath, recognizing the trap that was layered within simple question. Her professors had created entire exams around these infuriating questions – knowing that unprepared students would consider their work done after a single page of parchment was filled. The eidisi ran her hand across her forearm for a few trills before replying,
“I’ve worked with a variety of ciphers and had a brief introduction to stenography. I can recognize common digraphs and assess whether an encoded message uses a substation cipher within a few bits. Recently, I decoded the letter the Syroa worshippers used and I’ve gotten more exposure to messages that neglect pronouns, spaces, and punctuation.”
Inali frowned, suddenly realizing that her education in cryptography hadn’t been as thorough as she originally believed.
“I want to learn… more. I want to work with ciphers that eschew letters in place of numbers, I want to understand the methods behind flattering out the frequency curve and how we would solve such difficult ciphers. I also know multiple languages. At the start, I thought that might be a boon, but I worry that any cipher I create with disparate alphabets would be nearly impossible to decode, even with a detailed key.”
Meri nodded and scribbled a few notes on her own paper. Inali didn’t need to look down to know that they were unreadable, as they were written in Meri’s famous encoded shorthand. After tens of arcs working in the field, it was a wonder that Meri’s thoughts weren’t also encoded. When she was finished writing, the woman looked up at Inali and said,
“You’re going about this the wrong way. I almost don’t know where to start because you just…”
Meri glanced around the room as if the scrolls would provide the polite version of her intended reply.
“You’re thinking in terms of ciphers and particular methods used to generate strong coded messages. It’s a common error, but what will you do when someone comes up with a new type of cipher? You’ll work through each of your known ciphers and grow more frustrated – and waste valuable time that we’ll need to decode the cipher.”
Inali nodded glumly. It was true – she had employed that method multiple times in the past.
Meri continued,
“You need to look at the codes as they are – whether you’re looking at numbers, letters, symbols, or a mix of the three. There are numerous clues to be found in the code and the medium the cryptographer decides to use.”
Meri smiled ruefully,
“Have you heard the story of the code that I failed to crack? I lost my old employer many onyx nels for my failure. I was almost fired, in fact.”
Inali shook her head and frowned slightly. Meri had made a mistake? She was known as the woman who could simply glance at a key and provide at least ten reasons that made it insecure. Of course, she would find 10 reasons if your cipher was especially good. For those that simply relied on tried and true methods, Meri had far more criticisms to dole out.
“I was in a rush, per usual. Once my employer found out that I was competent, he gave me an entire stack of encoded messages that he had saved. The fourth one down was different – though he didn’t think to tell me so until after I had ruined the entire page.”
Meri glanced down at her notes, as if lost in the memory of that day,
“We had reports and prior evidence that some of the merchants in Athart liked using invisible ink as a crude form of stenography. Now, the merchants had gotten smart over the arcs prior – instead of writing whole messages in between the lines of their dummy letter, they would make minor tick marks next to important letters. Sometimes they would add invisible punctuation instead. I had gotten into the habit of dousing the entire page in lemon juice so I could find the tiny marks.”
Meri sighed and paused, clearly agitated by her failing,
“The merchant had developed an ink that dissolved when exposed to acidic liquids. There was no invisible ink on the entire page. The actual message held the clues that we needed, but the ink ran and dripped off the page.”
Without warning, Meri looked up and her sharp eyes met Inali’s,
“Now, what did you learn from that? Of course, you already know not to rush.”
Inali blinked and stammered for a moment before her brain caught up to the current trick question. She had been so engrossed in the story she hadn’t bothered to think about the lessons that should have been learned.
“Well, first off, you should always make copies of the initial message. Secondly, we shouldn’t underestimate our foes. Just as we gain skill in our craft, they learn more about the ciphers that we struggle to decode. They can use every cipher we make against us as cryptography works both ways. Lastly, patience”
Meri raised an eyebrow at this, clearly thinking that her pupil was simply trying to reword the lesson that she had expressly prohibited. Inali shook her head and continued,
“Not patience in decoding stacks of letters. I mean that you must be patient at the onset of the process and consider all the tactics known to the region and the merchant. I would assume the ink looked different, but you dismissed it because they used a different color parchment to cover the hue. You might have known that the letter writer had the most resources out of all your adversaries, had you done your research ahead of time.”
Meri clapped lightly and took a few notes. Inali couldn’t tell if the woman was genuinely pleased. Many in positions of power adopted these gestures over the arcs without realizing it. Their subordinates noticed immediately, not realizing that the tic denoted nothing at all.
Meri placed her pen on the table and leaned back,
“Now that you understand some of the basics, we can sketch out a rough list of the skills you’ll need to improve on before I can help you any further. First, I want you to memorize what place every letter in the common alphabet occupies. ‘A’ would be one, for example. You must be able to parse your missives and immediately see these numbers as clearly as you see the letters. Second, you need to practice working with symbols. I can provide you a list of the common ones. Get to know them intimately. Copy them and note the differences between them. Lastly, I’m going to give you a bundle of ciphers. You don’t need to decode them. Number each and list your approach to the initial cipher as well as your insights.”
Meri pivoted and pulled the requisite materials out of a large leather bag underneath the desk. I’ll meet with you in seven trials. Ensure that you have everything completed by then.
Inali nodded and grabbed the parchments before placing them in her bag. She uttered a quiet thank you before exiting the building and heading home. Meri had those papers in her bag before the lesson. Inali could hold onto the fact that Meri saw something in her as she worked through the difficult assignment that Meri had given her.
