Post by littlekreen on Jan 2, 2020 20:07:54 GMT -6
Some puzzles were challenging by their complexity. Others because of a certain requirement of ingenuity. Then there were jigsaw puzzles that were problems because they had lots of pieces. This particular puzzle was a gigantic pain in the venn diagram in that it sat right in the middle. Tyrus' house explosion or at least what was left of it. Several times she'd started over even after making new puzzle pieces and finding the image was different than she thought it was. It helped once she'd gotten the permission to borrow some processing power from R&D to brute force some pattern matching of his densely networked spell etchings. Clusters of little AI as fireflies for a fae spirit with a diaphanous long-forgotten face but lacking no interest in puzzles. A monitor shifting through an inexhaustible grid of weights and potentials. The electrocapacitive touch screen reacting to someone invisible worked just fine for spirits when properly calibrated. A bit of rule-bending but it wasn't necromancy if she didn't compel spirits as much as negotiated with one. A muse was an impartial end for the forces of imagination. It spared no one the advent of thought, not even the dead, as this her only real bargaining chip with the deceased.
A furtive little puzzler's psyche weighed heavily on her own as poltergeist it was though. On the cusp of some answer pressing at her forehead from the inside but couldn't get a fist on it to pull the idea out. Chrystanta tried to clear her mind off of her other problems of errant cultists following Ivor then getting obliterated by who knows what. Security just took everything from the cabinet and stashed it away who knows where. Probably another email to the council about the situation that nobody would read. It worried her and didn't help her focus any.
Chrysanta sighed then looked over at her diligent little contractor. A friendly sort named after a puzzle for lack of a better option. Bits and pieces of scanned evidence moved as a touch sensor indicated a finger of someone who wasn't there. The marks stopped and she could feel them returning her stare.
Though that notion of their name on its own surfaced a bit of idea flotsam, "Himitsu-Bako, do you have any more than just these two pieces of the northeast A1 apparatus that seem to fit?"
Chrysanta tapped her glasses on the worktable the bronze eyes working under the attentions of invisible ones, "The small shards of aluminum oxide and metal. I think that might not be sapphire. If that's a human thing called 'gorilla glass' it might mean something blew up on top of of the puzzle. One that wasn't a part of the puzzle but fire that put a shadow across the pieces."
She shook a finger and reorganized a bit of the apparatus and the thought to one the spirit could understand, "Some of the parts seem to me that they pushed back for a moment then shot like a fuse. Some of the rows of puzzle pieces may be from a different portion of a different larger whole. Not wholly a sapphire but a manmade one more flat than beauty. If we find what numbers fit better with each other on a different puzzle maybe I can infer more related parts in reverse. Like sodoku."
The pens on the other work desk shot upright in excitement. The only better thing than a difficult puzzle was an avenue to solve a portion that stalled. Chrysanta smiled as pens launch upward to stick in the false ceiling. The screen writ with activity instead. Groups of interrelated parts started to arrive on her console. A silent elation in the swirls of windows from an excited finger moving them on its own workspace. Quick work made of the new solution saw at first interlinked flat spars which on close inspection Chrysanta returned a fracture pattern back. Small melted peaks and valleys of sub-micron fractures on the inner surfaces but just melt or warping on two sides. Chrysanta sent a picture of broken gorilla glass and the small crystal ladders connected at the ends until Himitsu-Bako understood. Shards of a flat plane emerged as it started building a brand new puzzle. Chrysanta watched as her hunch proved right and his efforts stopped just below the capacitance layer exactly where a battery would start. There was pounding on the desk near her as Himitsu-Bako ran out of pieces again.
"Sssh, my friend, " Soothed Chrysanta low and unfocused by implications but trying to direct their thought process with her own, "They're not missing. They're still there. So where are they now? The leads went off like a fuse from the force of the spell misfiring. At power levels able to disturb the fabric of space-time and causality according to Ivor."
A flashbulb finally fired with the raise of the brow on her gleaming bronze eyes, "The wake of chaos and ordered magic interfering sucked the damn thing into superposition with the paver! Your edge piece is two pieces, Himitsu-Bako! Ivor gave me emergency reconciliation anchors guess I'll have to find a box to blow them apart!"
She stood up and rummaged through the large space she'd dedicated to physical evidence from the Mazar ranch explosion chatting to her helper, "I'm afraid you'll have to stay here but you've helped me solved one part of our frustrating puzzle, good work! I can spread an edge piece for another to begin their part. I'll be back soon."
As Chrysanta left the room she was careful to step over bricks of salt that kept the poltergeist in her lab. As she left for R&D with a bit of marble and a silvery post with a crank ran off to R&D. A smaller Jigsaw puzzle set on one of the tables slowly moved pieces together. A set of tea on a warmer raising to a teacup.
One of many explosions noted by those at the Dallas branch shortly saw a secure MMS message sent to the two specialists assigned to this particular case, Xiao, Molly, and Catherine to keep her in the loop. A picture of a white sim card and Chrysanta's hand above half a phone embedded into the exploded surface of a fancy marble paver like some natural inclusion. The interior paradox the spatial weakness permitted had made the damn thing a tank as far as the explosion was concerned.
The text was curt and to the point, "SIM card found. 081911113022640402, Device IMEI 494641388649109. Does not match ranch owner's recorded devices or that of proximal staff."
The R&D staff was quite overjoyed at getting to see a paradox reconciliation and producing a fountain of ideas for studying the remains. Chrysanta just wanted to get back to her lab and have tea because they were rapidly exhausting a Muse on little sleep and long hours. Despite cajoling and begging she left them to their own devices retreating to her small lab opposite a small children's puzzle now fully asssembled. A small teacup slid across the table around it to Crysanta who took it with a bow of her head and relaxed for the moment.
A furtive little puzzler's psyche weighed heavily on her own as poltergeist it was though. On the cusp of some answer pressing at her forehead from the inside but couldn't get a fist on it to pull the idea out. Chrystanta tried to clear her mind off of her other problems of errant cultists following Ivor then getting obliterated by who knows what. Security just took everything from the cabinet and stashed it away who knows where. Probably another email to the council about the situation that nobody would read. It worried her and didn't help her focus any.
Chrysanta sighed then looked over at her diligent little contractor. A friendly sort named after a puzzle for lack of a better option. Bits and pieces of scanned evidence moved as a touch sensor indicated a finger of someone who wasn't there. The marks stopped and she could feel them returning her stare.
Though that notion of their name on its own surfaced a bit of idea flotsam, "Himitsu-Bako, do you have any more than just these two pieces of the northeast A1 apparatus that seem to fit?"
Chrysanta tapped her glasses on the worktable the bronze eyes working under the attentions of invisible ones, "The small shards of aluminum oxide and metal. I think that might not be sapphire. If that's a human thing called 'gorilla glass' it might mean something blew up on top of of the puzzle. One that wasn't a part of the puzzle but fire that put a shadow across the pieces."
She shook a finger and reorganized a bit of the apparatus and the thought to one the spirit could understand, "Some of the parts seem to me that they pushed back for a moment then shot like a fuse. Some of the rows of puzzle pieces may be from a different portion of a different larger whole. Not wholly a sapphire but a manmade one more flat than beauty. If we find what numbers fit better with each other on a different puzzle maybe I can infer more related parts in reverse. Like sodoku."
The pens on the other work desk shot upright in excitement. The only better thing than a difficult puzzle was an avenue to solve a portion that stalled. Chrysanta smiled as pens launch upward to stick in the false ceiling. The screen writ with activity instead. Groups of interrelated parts started to arrive on her console. A silent elation in the swirls of windows from an excited finger moving them on its own workspace. Quick work made of the new solution saw at first interlinked flat spars which on close inspection Chrysanta returned a fracture pattern back. Small melted peaks and valleys of sub-micron fractures on the inner surfaces but just melt or warping on two sides. Chrysanta sent a picture of broken gorilla glass and the small crystal ladders connected at the ends until Himitsu-Bako understood. Shards of a flat plane emerged as it started building a brand new puzzle. Chrysanta watched as her hunch proved right and his efforts stopped just below the capacitance layer exactly where a battery would start. There was pounding on the desk near her as Himitsu-Bako ran out of pieces again.
"Sssh, my friend, " Soothed Chrysanta low and unfocused by implications but trying to direct their thought process with her own, "They're not missing. They're still there. So where are they now? The leads went off like a fuse from the force of the spell misfiring. At power levels able to disturb the fabric of space-time and causality according to Ivor."
A flashbulb finally fired with the raise of the brow on her gleaming bronze eyes, "The wake of chaos and ordered magic interfering sucked the damn thing into superposition with the paver! Your edge piece is two pieces, Himitsu-Bako! Ivor gave me emergency reconciliation anchors guess I'll have to find a box to blow them apart!"
She stood up and rummaged through the large space she'd dedicated to physical evidence from the Mazar ranch explosion chatting to her helper, "I'm afraid you'll have to stay here but you've helped me solved one part of our frustrating puzzle, good work! I can spread an edge piece for another to begin their part. I'll be back soon."
As Chrysanta left the room she was careful to step over bricks of salt that kept the poltergeist in her lab. As she left for R&D with a bit of marble and a silvery post with a crank ran off to R&D. A smaller Jigsaw puzzle set on one of the tables slowly moved pieces together. A set of tea on a warmer raising to a teacup.
One of many explosions noted by those at the Dallas branch shortly saw a secure MMS message sent to the two specialists assigned to this particular case, Xiao, Molly, and Catherine to keep her in the loop. A picture of a white sim card and Chrysanta's hand above half a phone embedded into the exploded surface of a fancy marble paver like some natural inclusion. The interior paradox the spatial weakness permitted had made the damn thing a tank as far as the explosion was concerned.
The text was curt and to the point, "SIM card found. 081911113022640402, Device IMEI 494641388649109. Does not match ranch owner's recorded devices or that of proximal staff."
The R&D staff was quite overjoyed at getting to see a paradox reconciliation and producing a fountain of ideas for studying the remains. Chrysanta just wanted to get back to her lab and have tea because they were rapidly exhausting a Muse on little sleep and long hours. Despite cajoling and begging she left them to their own devices retreating to her small lab opposite a small children's puzzle now fully asssembled. A small teacup slid across the table around it to Crysanta who took it with a bow of her head and relaxed for the moment.