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[Fan-fiction] The Iridium Wolf
Santiak
Member Posts: 130
Foreword: While I intend on writing more, I thought I'd start off with a little "introduction", and then add on as I get the "burst" of inspiration I need to not only put thought to .. "paper".., but swallow any lingering notion of pride and also post it. Don't worry, though, this doesn't mean I do not have an over-arching story in mind, and that it would inevitably end up as an incoherent mess as a result. Just that it'll be presented in "fun-size" chunks.
It started innocently enough – sudden, but innocently.
The first event, for the few who managed to notice, was brief – and he himself had been among those few. Lounging in his chair one evening, attempting to procrastinate on his studies as usual, he had been perusing the television for anything worth watching when it happened.
At first, deafened by the constant change of light from the changing channels, he didn't quite notice the lights starting to flicker. Quite rapidly, however, the frequency of the lights flickering began to rise; the intervals of light growing ever shorter.
Somewhat annoyed, he looked up at the lights just in time to see the frequency flatline into darkness without a sound. For a moment, something felt out of place. Shrugging, he turned back to the TV, only to find what had made everything feel so out of place.
The screen was hissing with interference, but the audio had completely gone. Not even the usual low, lingering cacaphonic hum of electronics seemed present in the room.
He had landed on an episode of QI, but perhaps even more interesting than the usual facts Stephen Fry would present, was the second image layered on top of the program. Had the flickering lights and lack of sound not brought his senses to attention, he might not had noticed it.
At first it appeared to be nothing but what might be caused by a poor signal somewhere; a faint hue of static ran across the screen. The interesting part, he noticed, were the vaguely defined shapes that seemed to linger in the static.
He strained his eyes and pushed his chair further away from the television, hoping to get a better view of the shapes.
It was people, definately, but due to the lack of detail, he had no way of guessing what they were doing.
Staring himself blind, it took him a few seconds to notice that the static – just like the light before it – slowly intensified. Profiles of people began to define themselves. Now and again, you would see a sliver of white, connected dots linger on the screen – amidst the people, as if they were researching it.
As the image finally appeared to step into some degree of distinguishable clarity, the sliver grew rapidly, bathing the figures in nothing but white, and for a brief second the monitor reverted to black, only to be followed soon after by a kind hearted joke at Alan Davies' cost by Stephen Fry, and the subsequent laughter of the audience.
Ever since then, at incongruent intervals, the second layer of signal seemed to leak in. While the following ”events” didn't have the same dramatic entrance as the first, they were dramatic in their own right: The shapes would appear on screen as clearly profiled black shadows, differing in opaqueness from each event to the next.
At first he had thought it was some faulty wiring picking up a signal it shouldn't, but neither the technician he eventually called could find any faults, nor did replacing almost every external wire seem to accomplish anything.
So, as always when in doubt of what to do next, he took to the internet.
He did find something, but not what he had expected.
A community of people who had the same story as him; the same initial event, at apparently the same time as him, followed by the random onsets of this ”layered” image.
For lack of a better term, the community had dubbed the interluding human shapes ”The Black Watchmen” - perhaps not the most inventive of names, but surely the most descriptive.
[To be continued]
Comments
It really is!
I thought about writing a fan-fic myself but the lack of game lore stopped me. It is hard to write something when so much is still unsure. Maybe I'll get around to do it but I will definitely keep an eye on yours.
Fubar over on TSW's forums. [Also in the German forums: Fubar]
For some while, that was that.
The Black Watchmen-signal continued to appear at random intervals. The only piece of interesting information gathered by the community so far, was that the signals seemed to be unique to specific areas. People had taken to recording the events. At first, they were identical; time, place and the animated shadows were all consistent with appearences elsewhere on the globe. Yet, as time passed, they began to differ.
The events started to disperse; at first, whole continents would receive unique events, events that never made their way anywhere else – like waves reversing on an epicenter. Soon, country-specific events began occuring, but despite the increased frequency of events, no explanation could be gleaned from what they were, or what they meant.
And so it was, for months.
He had taken to sleeping on the couch, both the television and computer turned on. The Black Watchmen had swallowed him; he was constantly keeping an eye on both monitors, severely limiting the amount of sleep he allowed himself.
Days and dreams blurred with minutes and reality – his mind wandered aimlessly among the plethora of theories that were propping up. He had completely opted out of any remnansce of healthy diet; caffeine and vitamin enhanced beverages was close to the only sustenance he had time for, if not allowed for.
That's why it took him so long to react.
Months after having experienced the “Souri Hassei” - the Prime Occurrence, as the japanese community had named it, a name that, thanks to the pre-existence of Japans soft-power, had stuck, he was roused from his dazed state by the sound of pulsing static.
Lifting his head from the stained couch, he glared at the television with one eye closed and the other firmly squinted – a practice he had been forced to employ after the long absence of sleep. Thinking he was half-dreaming, he was slow to respond, even hesitant.
Something close to telligble flashed across the screen. Then once more. Just like the light, the intensity and frequency increased.
Having become accustomed to the nigh-paranoiac state, he was willing to jot down notes, even if they would only ever exist in a dream – even if he had never had a reason to before, outside of his own ruminations.
Still staring with one eye, he hastily scribbled down the flashes; texts and digits.
The flashes of text increased in intensity – just like the light – only to drown the entire screen, and blink to black.
He fell back onto the couch, somehow content, and drifted away in the long-forgotten darkness of his room.
Hours later, he woke with a startle. Fumbling across the table in the dark, his fingers found the notepad. His mind still muddled and angry at the denial of sleep, he could only summon enough thought to repeat the maneuver, and grab his cellphone, turning on its screen and shining it onto the notepad.
It hadn't been a dream.
He quickly sat down at his computer, looking for any indication of others having seen the same event. Nothing.
Was someone playing tricks on him? It wouldn't be the first attempt by the low-lives of the internet.
He could not come to any explanation how they would have, however diminished his sleep-addled mind might be in the field of reasoning. Unsure of this was real or not, he posted the message on the forums:
“Where Oger sits; it rests next to Naught-twofold.
Find its number; 125.4412445540, -1.0225235440
You have our number. You only need one. Find us.”
Then, he began searching.
He had been working for days on that message, now. As had the community - well, some of it, others merely thought it was yet another troll mocking them.
Little headway had been made, but there was something oddly familiar about the first line; "Where Oger sits". Like a distant echo of something he had heard somewhere before. He couldn't, however, pin-point exactly what it was. Some people had pointed towards Oger in Marne, but that notion seemed to rebuke the echo he felt emanating from somewhere inside him.
The second line was also puzzling him. It was, at first glance, quite obviously a set of coordinates, but they yielded no result when looking them up.
Likewise, the final line made little sense; sure, they'd all seen the number "66" emblazoned on the Black Watchmens jackets during particular lucid events, but why did they only need one?
He started to feel as if he was missing an extraordinary oppertunity; something beyond his wildest imaginations - and considering how rampant that had run in the past weeks, that was quite a statement. That feeling kept him going, both in the positive sense, but also in the negative sense, as it kept him up at nights. He could very much feel how his acumen was starting to dull. Likewise, a number of members who had been working on it in the community had given up entirely, either in desperation, or mere resignation to their own limits.
But he was determined to find the message that had been conveyed. He just needed.. an epiphany.
It came exactly a week later.
The lights in his room flatlined without warning. At the same time, the television signal dissapeared entirely, leaving only static. The event seemed a lot sterner than usual, and it called him back to the times he had scolded by his father as a child.
As aggressive as the onset of the event was, the message itself faded serenely onto the screen. As he read the message - still carefully noting it down for posterity - he couldn't help but feel a weight set on his chest. Failure.
"Clearence level Green Rescinded - Yellow Enacted:"
The message hung tauntingly on the screen, far longer than he felt necessary - he had already written it down seconds before it began to fade and the next message toned onto the screen - which taunted him just as much. It was the same message as the first time, but this time, it highlighted key information, or downright errors, that he had glanced over all this time, or simply failed to jot down correctly the first time around in his sleep deprived state. Some letters - some of which he had missed the first time - seemed to stand out from the rest:
"Where Ogier sits, it rests next to Naught-twofold.
Find its number; 125.4412445540, -1.0225235440
You have our number. You only need one. Find us.”
He meticulously underscored the highlighted letters, and swallowed hard as the message began to fade - had he been too meticulous this time, and yet missed something?
Lost in thought, he caught a glimpse of text flashing on to the screen, just next to the all but faded second line.
"'AYB'?" He thought, unsure if that indeed was what he had seen. He noted it down regardless, determined not to leave anything to chance this time.
He hadn't missed anything this time.. Had he?
He banished the thought for now. It would seem he had another week to accomplish the task - whatever this clearence level entailed, he didn't want it lowered any further.
Kakum National Park, Ghana?
Still can't find any information about either Oger or Ogier.
A.K.A. nikel
I think I have found out who this Ogier is, and where he sits. ^^
But other than that...
My notes, they may help or not.
The most relevant Oger I found was a tennis player from Monaco. For Ogier, 2 seem most likely. Ogier the Dane who sits in Konenburg and Ogier the racer car driver in Monte Carlo.
For the second part of the first line, well naught can be nothing or zero and two-fold could can mean double which gives 00 but not sure if that is a correct step of logic as it could potentially be something else. Lead me to roulette wheels since two of the three are based in cities known for their gaming and Roulette was birthed, codified or whatever in Monte Carlo, but their wheels only have a single 0 so meh.
Not really sure on the second or last line, but was mentioned that if you remove the underlined numbers you get a nature reserve in Ghana. And now there is the new letters that tie in with the second line possibly. Possibly some significance to the underlined numbers haven't really pondered them a lot as yet.
He wasn't sure what it was, but it seemed to happen an awful lot when dealing with the obscure. Something would lay dorment only to flare into activity, as if encouraged by some unseen force. Most often, such a force would take the shape of a critical mass being reached; either in term of interest given, or interest taken.
The plethora of ideas and leads that were showing up was enough to stereotypically fill the clearest part of his wall with post-its. He wasn't exactly sure how he was supposed to tell The Black Watchmen when he'd found what he was looking for, or even if they would warn him, and how they would warn him, if he was on the wrong track.
They were overdue with their "update" - the last one had been more or less exactly a week after the first event.
Perhaps the silence was the same kind of silence, as the one found during mutual nods of agreement?
Of the leads so far proposed, he agreed that "Ogier" seemed to hint at "Ogier le Danois" - it would explain why he "sits", and why it was referencing a location. So, if he built on that; somewhere in Denmark.
The second and third line were still causing trouble. People didn't seem to have paid attention to the last part he had jotted down, the flashing segment just after the second line: "AYB".
It seemed silly, but a quick google search got him thinking.
The underscored numbers were sequential, and that quick google search - however silly it may have been - gave the pop-culture reference "All your base are belong to us".
On a hunch, linking the second and third line with the co-ordinates, he tried converting the numbers from base-6 - one of the two digits spotted on the Black Watchmen - to base-10, which would also fit with the fact that there were no digit higher than 6 in the original numbers.
After spending some time trying to find a reliable converter, he finally came up with the co-ordinates: 53.784571989, -1.0690149973
Jotting it into google maps, he came up at Finkle Street in the UK, apparently looking right at a clothes store. Looking around a bit in the street view, he couldn't help but wonder why that guy in the doorway was staring so cautiously over his shoulder.
He once more felt the exhilerating mixture of paranoia and insomnia overtake his consciousness, as he scrolled towards the nervous figure.
He swallowed an extra time.
He had tracked it down, he thought.
He had noticed the blue plaque next to the suspicious looking fellow on Finkle Street. He had identified the one the plaque was dedicated to as the discoverer of Iridium, and he had finally made the last connection in the puzzle.
He had been writing up the final clue, so the community might find him, should the clue lead ever deeper than before.
He was interrupted.
What had started as an intriguing pass-time had developed into a full-time obsession, which made the glaring image before him, this time across the monitor of his computer, all the more disheartening.
"Critical event frequency unmet.
Full-spectrum rescindment.
Calm seas make poor sailors. Strong roots hold trees through gale.
Please stand by."
And so he sat, answer in hand, waiting through what he hoped would be the eye of the storm that had been, and was yet to come.