You pick out the latest issue of 'The Noscorrentes Review' and feel its hefty weight once again.

You pick out the latest issue of 'The Noscorrentes Review' and feel its hefty weight once again.

Look at the cover.

Two greyhounds frozen in mid-gallop against a field of blue. Around them, the titles of a few major poems and contributors.

There's no logical connection between any of these things.

Boring! Lame! Derivative!

Mega-boring.

Run. Ditch. Throw!

Come on, I should give poetry a chance.

Fuck off.

Scan the contents page.

The table of contents lists dozens of names you don't recognise. Unusual for a poetry magazine, this appears to contain a section devoted to 'cryptograms'.

Pages filled with heart, with soul -- attempting to put into words the inscrutable feelings unique to these modern times.

That cryptograms page is the only one worth bothering with.

Flip randomly through the pages.

Nothing you turn to has any appeal. It's just page after page of forced rhymes and mixed metaphors.

You've hit your limit when it comes to encounters with the human condition.

You turn the magazine back to its cover.

You alight on a double-page spread of poems. The first is about an ungrown hawthorn tree, another tries to force 'razor' to rhyme with 'demisemiquaver', while one is simply blank -- a non-poem.

THIS ONLY SERVES THE PEOPLE AS AN EXAMPLE OF THE MEDIOCRITY THEY SHOULD AVOID.

Experimentation inside a given medium is the only way its boundaries can be discovered and transgressed.

What is a non-poem?

Despite containing no words, the non-poem comes with extensive footnotes.

There's at least one of these in every issue.

It's claimed that a non-poem draws attention to our need for poetry by forcing us to embrace its non-existence.

Desire from absence.

Maybe that's why you were taken out of action for five years. The non-Hershel highlights the need for the real-Hershel.

Now starting to question the quality of my own poem...

That is not for you to do. Those who accepted your work are the purveyors of quality.

You are the nib from which life spills, captured across the page.

Glad my own work will be showcased alongside this kind of writing.

The thrill of being published in a journal you can respect nourishes you, inside and out.

I can do so much better than this.

A conclusion not shared by the editors of this very magazine.

Easy to say when you don't share your poetic efforts with anyone but yourself.

Easy to say when you've never even tried to write a poem yourself.

We are better off for things like this existing.

Humans are constantly looking for new ways to express themselves. Without that, there can be no spiritual progression.

Is this secretly brilliant, or is it just shit?

The question that's hovered around poetry since time immemorial.

There must be some pictures or photographs or something. (Flick through more pages.)

Nothing so vulgar, just more fastidious arrangements of words, all without illustration, bars and bars of it. The literariness of the magazine really comes through.

Focusing on the relentless black on white of the pages make your eyes strain with effort.

How many pages are there? (Keep going.)

It is no longer a magazine you look at, but a blurry carousel of monochromatic scenes.

I'm done here. (Go back.)

Find the 'cryptogram' section.

Asymmetrical grids and empty boxes, a jumble of letters listed alongside them. Every inch of the page has been used meticulously.

How does it compare with HOLOCENE's work? (Pull out the strange cipher.)

Similar in format, but you don't have the expertise to determine the signature marks of each design.

Both showcase a serious passion for cryptography -- done purely for the love of it.

Hopefully the Editor-in-Chief will have made a dent in HOLOCENE's work soon.

The Editor-in-Chief said she's responsible for this page. Perhaps she could help you decode HOLOCENE's work.

Whoever made the magazine's cryptograms page could help you decode HOLOCENE's work.

Does it say who the author is somewhere?

No name appears on this page at all.

The person in charge of the magazine should know -- the Editor-in-Chief.

Hopefully she's still hanging out near the Honour Book Stall in Party Alley.

She should. Though you can hardly show up at the offices again and pretend like nothing happened.

Someone from the magazine must deliver each of the issues to the Honour Book Stall...

Whoever the Editor-in-Chief of the magazine is should know.

The Editor-in-Chief should know.

Am I capable of solving these cryptograms?

They are intended for the general public, if a niche section, so should be way below the level of cryptography you encounter in-theatre.

You've already solved two ciphers since you've returned, so they should be child's play.

No need to waste time on anything that doesn't directly help with your assignment. You can't start doing cryptograms for fun.

You've already solved HOLOCENE's cipher since you returned, so they should be child's play.

Don't waste time on anything that doesn't directly help with your assignment. You still haven't solved the cipher left behind by PSEUDOPOD.

You've already solved Tempo's cipher since you returned, so you've had a little practice, at least.

If you want something to solve, you still have HOLCENE's cipher to decode.

Though you are yet to solve a single cipher since you've returned. You may be a little rusty.

Don't waste time on anything that doesn't directly help with your assignment. You still haven't solved the cipher left behind by PSEUDOPOD.

Or you have the one that HOLOCENE made up, for that matter.

Look at something else.

HOLOCENE would have loved this section. Cryptograms were his thing.

Oof. I don't want to think about that just now.

This is simply a fact pulled from your own memory. What you do with it is up to you.

May he rest in peace.

He's moved onto the next great big puzzle.

Death won't have kept him from his obsessions.

HOLOCENE would love this section. Cryptograms are his thing.

Turn to the back page.

'For interest in obtaining a subscription, to purchase in bulk, or to make a submission, please write care of H. Gottschlich, Quisach Roundabout Este, 93221.'

Anything else back here?

A gold embossed logotype at the bottom of the page. Unfortunately, part of it has smeared during the printing process.

It is only possible to make out the words 'MADE', 'THANKS', and 'TRUST'.

Must be the acknowledgement that the Civilisation Trust demands from the cultural products it funds.

CLAW MARKS LEFT BEHIND BY THE VULTURE OF CAPITAL.

Seems like an acknowledgement of some kind.

Thanking someone or something that helps to make the magazine possible.

All I need to see. (Go back.)

That's the building where the Luzian prisoner is being held. The site of your interrogation.

That's the building where the Luzian prisoner is being held. The place you managed to escape from before being caught...

That's the place with the shiny new intercom near the roundabout. So it's a poetry magazine...

That's near the roundabout, east of the Bazaar. This poetry magazine must have its office there.

Done here. (Put the magazine away.)

The latest issue of a literary periodical called 'The Noscorrentes Review'. It's weighty, as if promising to be a tome of great import.

First impressions matter -- the person responsible for the design of this journal knows that.