A.Journal

Checks

1,044 checks

Easy

There it is, the missing half.

Trivial

Half a cipher. The language of spies. You've carried papers like this, folded up and hidden away in secret pockets and compartments.

Medium

No accident. This is functional invisibility -- the wearer would have no choice but to blend in to a crowd.

Easy

HOLD ON, OPERANT. This is the phone Yana mentioned. The one even you now know is tapped.

Easy

Aren't you looking for someone who's missing, too?

Trivial

Sock merchant. One of the Opera's most battle-tested covers.

Trivial

Who he is doesn't matter to EMTERR. It's what he did...

Trivial

Also known to you as VIRTUE, your former asset and friend. Now confirmed dead, mostly for associating with you.

Easy

That's not 'no'.

Easy

Local law enforcement is far beneath you in effectiveness and influence. No need to lower yourself, operant.

Trivial

Also known to you as VIRTUE. Your former asset. Currently out there somewhere, waiting for you to realign once more.

Formidable

If you don't get back on track, there's a chance you'll both end up in an EMTERR work camp.

Easy

Anonymity is your most precious asset. Salvage what you can of its ruin.

Legendary

Easy

No security seals. No surprises.

Easy

The Weeping Eye may have relied on the sound of animal cries to cover the interrogation.

Medium

You'd rather ask for permission?

Easy

The wards have been broken...

Easy

An invitation is always implied for those who know how to spot it.

Easy

You're not a part of civilization. Business hours only apply to you if you let them.

Medium

This is unlikely to be a member of the Weeping Eye.

Trivial

'Director MALA FIDE until extraction. Beware Small Controller.'

Easy

'MALA FIDE': Bad faith, standard espionage parlance for contaminated, compromised or treacherous.

Heroic

Crack the cipher.

Medium

This... is an entirely different beast than the Rezeda cipher PSEUDOPOD left you.

Medium

An elite art form, a lesson from the old school of espionage -- though now sadly half-obsolete in the face of ever-improving codebreaking machinery.

Trivial

Bigrams, trigrams, character frequency, index of coincidence analysis. Tables, tables, and more tables.

Trivial

Ruling out a simple transposition or affine shift cipher. Probably polyalphabetic.

Trivial

The Opera have a machine dedicated to this -- if you want to capitulate, just take it to your controller and make it her problem.

Challenging

Columns! You need to rewrite the cipher in columns and search for the amount of letters in the keyword.

Challenging

When all other training abandons you, return to Opera's foundational tenet: make it up as you go along!

Easy

Through it a shadow text is threaded, one which may rise to legibility at any moment.

Easy

The crudeness of it points toward a sick joke by the Weeping Eye.

Medium

A set of implements arrayed upon a work bench.

Medium

The goal difference after the previous outing: ENEMIES: 7. CASCADE: 0.

Trivial

The window to your right. Did someone see you come in here?

Trivial

That is one way to get to Gonza, operant. Look at the size of the cavity -- large enough for a cricket.

Easy

Be fleet of foot, operant. Your enemies are on to you.

Easy

Operant CYLINDER (Status: LOST) was convinced EMTERR were behind it -- though he could not ultimately prove it.

Trivial

Your old asset, ESTOC. Still draped in the same cover you left her in. With one new styling...

Medium

They should have been spread out to cover off potential threats.

Trivial

Don't forget the trigger. The song.

Medium

They're all fine friends, obviously. Enjoying their day out.

Medium

Ignatz was right. The idiot was hiding gold in that hideous coat all along.

Challenging

Unbelievable. Enlisting this child was a serious miscalculation.

Trivial

It wouldn't take much to break into it and set your own music. At best a distraction... at worst a war cry.

Challenging

Not pro. Deeply amateur.

Challenging

Double. The mirror. A conjuror's trick.

Medium

Calm. The prisoner must've been a body double. The favoured anti-assassination technique of the Illuminated Empire.

Challenging

Actually not... a bad plan. Oh well.