[network] @jwatson; text [Night 367] [open/semi-open] [shadownet]

[jumpthegun]

[The second part of the message is OPEN. The first part is SEMI-CLOSED to anyone with access to the Shadownet - a text only app created by Winter. Winter is an NPC that you'll read about in the Survival Guide, but the basic primer is that she's a Russian AI who has been periodically contacting the Snowblind characters and trying to help them to some extent. She has been encountered in multiple events and aided characters in making private messages actually private.

Please see this post about Shadownet distribution. These are also characters who currently possess Shadownet. Anyone traveling with these characters will likely be able to read messages on Shadownet through their travel companions. We've found that a copy can be made for a character at the elementary school provided they have an existing copy and the keycard currently held by Ecks, which allows the characters to use the copy machine there.]


Shadownet Access Only
@dulcedeleche
Winter, it's John. I don't know what you did, but whatever it was, thank you. I honestly thought the Admin might be shutting everything down on us. I hope you can get back in contact with us soon and that you're okay. We did find Andromeda. Her body, at least. It's very likely there's a back-up of her elsewhere like you. I'm so sorry, but she was attacked and killed by the cultists. We downloaded some sort of program from her, though. We're trying to get it decrypted. Hopefully, that will happen soon. She gave this to us. Whatever happens when we make it through the bunker, she made it possible for us to keep going. We're going to make it to the center of Norfinbury and we're going to stop this for her and for you. I promise. Bullet points below covering Day 357 through Day 367.

Open to Everyone
This is Dr. Watson. Please find a summary update of recent happenings below. For anyone new, an archive of my previous summaries can be found HERE. I'm available for medical consultation as one of the medics here. Please let me know if you need anything. I'm running an on-again, off-again blood transfusion service for those with severe MN Poisoning. It's only a temporary reprieve from symptoms, but blood transfusions from healthy donors have proven to alleviate MN poisoning symptoms for up to two weeks.

• Every nine-to-eleven days we have new arrivals. The food situation remains stable, as far as I'm aware, but I'm afraid the medical personnel here are no longer able to prescribe medications. The pharmacy may still have repeat prescriptions, though. I have a supply of several varieties of painkillers. If you are in desperate need, please let me know, and I can see if I can get the Admin to deliver the supply to you. Otherwise, I'll need to arrange to leave it somewhere for you to find or meet up with you. If anyone else has medications available, please let us know. We're going to need to pool this resource now more than ever.
  
  
• Day 358, Junpei organized a meet-up for testing blood from a lot of different people under our shared microscope. The hope was that we might be able to see if there are any differences in the blood from people who have been affected by things like the red lines and the loss of their light. To my knowledge, there weren't any notable differences, but it may be a matter of the magnification power on the microscope being insufficient.
  
  
• Day 359, both Peter and Stephen came back from being killed with new memories. Years of them, by the sound of it. This has happened to me and Sherlock, as well as others. I don't know what to make of it. I gained five years the last time this happened and my body hasn't changed at all. It's like the memories just get downloaded into our heads, which, given what we know about how the nanomachines inside are basically us, that's not too far-fetched.
  
  In far less happy news, Ginger and her team found Andromeda's body in the cultist church. She was apparently killed and crucified by them, but I want to emphasize that we've heard from Andromeda before. There is some piece of her still out there, even if her physical body has been destroyed. She might be a back-up or she might well have escaped somehow, before she was killed. That's my sincere hope. Ginger was able to download a program from her body and we're working on getting it decrypted. If you have any programs or skills that could help with this, please let Ginger know.
  
  Also in the church, people found SD cards that show how Samantha, the Prophet, died. I've attached those at the end here. Please be aware that they're extremely brutal and that Samantha is a child.
  
  
• Day 360, Tess rescinded her request for blood sacrifice when she came back to herself. If anyone was taking this seriously, please look at this. That includes Brian Thomas. I'm sorry to report that he attempted to kill Rhys in an effort to sacrifice him for Tess. If you encounter Brian, please be very careful. He has been known to attack others previously while not under the influence of anything here in Norfinbury. I've attached his picture to the end of this message, but briefly, he's a young man in a mask and hoodie who's non-verbal and has some level of severe mental illness related to, I suspect, his physical seizure condition.
  
  In happier news, we also had Kunsel return. He was absent some memories as his death price. For anyone new, this is a fairly common one. When you die and get revived, you temporarily lose something. It might be memories, it might be one of your senses, but it's typically significant.
  
  Alfie also led everyone in a round of joke-telling. I'm sure he'd still be up for hearing some if you'd like to chime in. I think all of us could use a laugh.
  
  
• Day 363, Mr. Mycroft Holmes made an ass of himself asking who ate his finger when we were all trapped in the cells. On a more pertinent point, it does raise the question of what exactly happened down there. A lot of us are missing our memories.
  
  Which Dr. Hannibal Lecter has offered to assist with. Dr. Lecter is a trained psychiatrist who has practiced hypnotherapy before to try to bring out repressed memories. Recent events sidetracked his efforts, but if you'd like to have him attempt to hypnotize you to bring out the memories, please let him know.
  
  
• Day 364, the ADMIN sent out a message that resources were critically low. chaos noted later that day that we seemed to be having a communication issue. Whatever universal translator is in effect now broke. A lot of us speak English, but a number of people don't. I'm not sure what to do if we have this problem again. Maybe for those who don't know English, we can start teaching you now? At least some basic phrases.
  
  Later that night, the ADMIN sent out another message and the network shifted to text-only. I started tasting blood in the back of my throat.
  
  
• Day 365, all the power went out completely and the taste turned into actually coughing up blood.
  
  
• In the morning on Day 366, Winter sent out a message that we were in trouble and she was fixing something, not that any of us could see it at the time she sent it, I think. I don't know what she did, but we're back to where we were because of her.
  
  
• Earlier today (Day 367), Mr. Graham sort of announced that he's returned. To my understanding, he's down in the entrance area. He seems to be somewhat disoriented, so if anyone is in that area, please assist him, if you can. He'll be near the police station, as that's where people revive.
  
  Angel also informed us what was on with the galaxy app that downloaded onto everyone's tablets. Apparently that's from the program that was downloaded from Andromeda's body and it contains some sort of key. The key also downloaded a video file that showed Andromeda's death. That's been included as an attachment below.

New SD Cards

• Sam #1
  
• Sam #2
  
• Sam #3
  
• Sam #4
  
• Sam #5
  
• Sam #6
  
• Andromeda #1

Brian Thomas
[Attached to the end of the message is a photo of Brian that John obtained when he asked for photos of everyone during the red lines event. It shows a person in a hoodie with a black ski mask that has a red frowny face drawn on it.]

Comments

[deus_ex_phs]

Is that English? I didn't understand a word.

[Looks like they may have found the solution to the issue of translation.]

[jumpthegun]

[As with Kunsel, it takes a moment for John to pull himself out of thinking hard about his own language.]

Yeah, that's English which is what I'm writing now, technically, but trying not to think about that. Suppose this could work.

[deus_ex_phs]

[Enough gets through that Kunsel gets the gist of it, at least.]

It really could. Might be tricky until we get the hang of switching, but this definitely sounds like a solution. Maybe we can have nightly language sessions, or people can contribute phrases and translations to a file for anyone to study at their liesure.

[jumpthegun]

That seems like that fit nicely in with Flynn's library work.

@librarian
Are you around?

@librarian; text

[cahooted]

Yes! Hi. I'm here. I'm listening? Reading. That would be amazing?

I would be up for that, for the phrases, we could maybe devise phrasebooks with the most important things and we have a lot of polyglots, too, maybe we can do a language club, you know, courses, learning each others languages?

[Because that's totally something you can just do in a couple of weeks.

Honestly, he hasn't been this excited since he first got here and thought this was all one more big adventure.]

[jumpthegun]

[You... do your language geek thing, Flynn. It does make John smile to see him light up like that, even in text.]

Great! Fraid I haven't got much I can offer past English and some odd phrases in French and Pashto, but that sounds like it'd help a lot in case we run into a language breakdown again.

[cahooted]

Pashto? That's neat.

I can ask around on the network, see if people want to contribute. The library is in serious need of an update anyway.

[jumpthegun]

Picked up a bit of it when I was in Afghanistan. I liked to talk to some of the translators when I could, just to get to know them. I think I know more swears and different ways to tell you you're a beautiful woman than anything useful, honestly.

[cahooted]

[He almost asks about what he had been doing in Afghanistan before it comes back to him in a rush. Memories he shouldn't have, shouldn't know about, gunfire and frantic yelling and heat and--

Yeah, hitting the backspace wildly on that 'What did y']

I don't know. Sounds pretty useful to me.

[jumpthegun]

I'll give you, if the TARDIS' translation circuit breaks again, having swears that everyone understands might come in handy for sharing mutual frustrations.

[cahooted]

Absolutely. I'll devise a list, special interpersonal communication section.

The Norfinbury Guide to Tell Us How You Really Feel.

[jumpthegun]

[That gets an honest and quiet laugh out of him, which feels good.]

Perfect. Reckon that'll be the longest section, honestly.

[cahooted]

And the most visited, I presume.

[There's a pause before the next text comes in.]

Do you think I should just ask people for their phrases?

[jumpthegun]

That might be the easiest in a language breakdown situation, honestly. It'd be great to learn individual things and grammar for construction, but just rote memorization of a few key things'd probably work out best.

[cahooted]

I guess. Alright, I'll ask around on the network, see if I can devise us a language survival guide in case something like this happens again or decides to stick around. That would be bad.

[jumpthegun]

Yeah.

[That's about all that needs to be said on that front.]

Thanks, Flynn, and good luck!

[cahooted]

You too. Stay warm!