Note: Hey sorry for the lateish shlapter that contains some infodumpage. Hope you guys are poppin rockin, as always!

[H] Cue Luau

While Jade continued to toil in the Harley laboratory, Rose devoted herself to researching the linguistics of the wall-scrawl. After weighing the pros and cons of sharing what they'd found with the rest of the planet, she went ahead posted her progress and analyses on a website Dave helped her maintain. They did leave the guns out of it, and focused exclusively on the less imposing artifacts and scriptures, posting photographs and designing a typeface for use on-site to mimic the letters inscribed on the walls.

John lived up to his promise of writing an alien apocalypse survival guide, writing it diligently, post by post, in a side-blog that he insisted they link to from the website just in case, no matter how absurd they swore it was. To his credit as a friend and flawless designer of webpages, Dave dedicated a whole page to John's link, coloring it pink and yellow and titling it: Errything Else Explointed Extraturtlestially, in horribly artifact-riddled, lurid-blue Comic Sans.

A gently ironic result of this setup was this: John's blog appeared to lose credibility from its association with Rose and Dave's research. Those who found it linked from their site would flame his posts like a blowtorch, whereas most others would reblog with such insightful comments such as "lol" and "omg great stuff this is gonna be so useful" and "now I feel truly prepared thx"and "for all of my followers stay safe guys" #alien invasion #survival guide #inevitable extinction #obey submit consume #NOT #they won't take me alive #headshot.

"Got a new troll today," Dave noted, opening up a browser to Rose's site, "an anonymous guy posted on the cue ball article, and then all of the others, wow. Language, buddy. You kiss your body pillow with that mouth?"

Dave wrote a comment as such and received a livid retort upon the refresh.

John hijacked the browser and opened a tab to check his blog.

"Oh my gosh, he followed the link to my place, geez. Trashing it all up, haha! I love how confused everyone gets when you send me a troll."

"This person's asking you why you let yourself associate with our crackpot site," Dave noted.

A pesterchum window opened up before them, chiming gently.

- tentacleTherapist [TT] started trolling turntechGodhead [TG] -

TT: Would the two of you finish fooling about and assist me with the deciphering?

TG: dude youre sitting right here why are you bothering to send a message newsflash theres this thing called speaking
TG: wow really swoon swoon mister strider i had no idea
TG: thanks for shitting this delicious heap of knowlegde upon my ignorant blank slate freudian philosophical brambly tentabrain

TT: Thank you kind sir.
TT: You cannot fathom the enormity of my gratitude.
TT: Why, look at that, it seems to be concentrating itself in my left hand.

Dave and John glanced up. From across the table Rose sent them a princess wave, and then flipped them off. John princess-waved back.

TT: My left middle finger to be precise.
TT: To be truthful I've somewhat missed communicating with you in the textual medium.
TT: There is a sort of dry, delicate impression of pure sincerity that I can only truly express through the written word.

TG: preach it sis

"Seems like a waste off meeting up face to face, though," John commented, "And kind of a waste of the really nice weather outside? How about we go for a swim or something today? We only have like another week together, you know."

TG: john calling that boiler room of sweat slurping foulness out there
TG: "nice weather"
TG: is a bit much even for you

TT: Dave you are once again confabulating beyond our ability to suspend our disbelief. By anyone's objective measure the weather is lovely.

TG: if anyone is a goddamned ignoramus who lives in the suns sweaty asshole then yeah ill give you that

"So it's decided! We'll decipher with you for one more hour and then we go have fun outside! I'll go tell Jade."

TG: john no please no i beg of you
TG: my vaporous complexion cannot take any more i am not built for this latitude like you are

"That is a lie. You are a liar! You are a lying liar who lies! A lot!"

TT: If you are so concerned about suffering the effects of sunburn then might I suggest this little thing called:
TT: …

TG: sunscreen shut up

TT: …

TG: shut up

TT: Sunscreen.
TT: Also I order the two of you to reposition yourselves over here, I discovered something interesting.

- tentacleTherapist [TT] ceased trolling turntechGodhead [TG] -

Dave snapped his laptop shut and slid around the table, palm skimming the mahogany. John followed, bracing himself for the impending monologue.

On her side of the table Rose had spread out printings of every photograph containing images of the VolcanoscriptTM from Jade's VolcanoTM. She'd also gone through the trouble of printing out the Daedric alphabet from the Elder Scrolls games that Dave had suggested. The jagged and slashing typeface of the letters were in fact reminiscent of what they'd found in the cave, but at a glance you could tell that the cave's was somewhat more complex. They had extra checks and spikes and whorls, and none of the base letters looked exactly alike.

Rose smoothed a sheet of paper onto which she'd spent the past hour meticulously copying a chunk of volcanoscript. She regarded it silently for a moment, eyelashes shielding her gaze, and then glanced up at her two friends.

"I haven't been able to discover any known language that directly corresponds to what was written in the volcano. But since there is a decided resemblance that Dave pointed out, I decided to research the Daedra and Bethesda's development of their game language."

Dave nodded, as though this were perfectly reasonable. John rolled his head back and stared out the window across the room. It was letting in a bright spill of sunlight that burned across the marble floor but didn't quite reach the table. He sighed.

"The search was fruitless, unless you would like to hear about the powerful ancestor spirits that the Daedra supposedly were in the gameverse."

"We can skip that," John said hastily.

She smirked a little, black-painted lips quirked. "Indeed. All we can know is that this is probably a cipher of some sort, designed by someone who may have a relation to fantasy video games, but that is all.

So I decided to examine the text on my own, just to search for repeating patterns and telltale punctuation. There is none that I can pick out – no spaces between letters at all, and the many quirks and tick marks wedged into them could mean anything. There is one letter that seems to arise repeatedly however, and in greater frequency when the letters are painted larger than the others around it."

Leaning forward, she pulled a photograph across the table that took a close-up of one of the walls of texts. She drew a circle around one of the shimmery-blue letters with a fingernail. It was shaped like a barbed 8, shardlike and flecked with eight hastily-drawn little legs around the edge. John half-expected it to pop out of the photograph and skitter across the table.

"There is no way to tell the significance, although clearly it is significant."

"Letter E, maybe," Dave said, "It's like the most commonly used letter in the English language."

She shook her head. "I doubt it. There are far more individual letters here than we have in English. Although…" She pulled a sheet of loose-leaf paper forward, "So far I have identified six of what I call A-type characters, twelve B-types, and fifty-two C-type letters."

"Oh my gawwwd," John groaned, "Rose, you're gonna get nearsighted from all that. How do you even have the patience?"

"What he means to ask is: what's the diff between A, B and C. School us on the alphabet, we're all ears all up in this learning establishment."

"A-type characters are never written as a whole letter on their own. They're only ever inscribed in tandem with a C-type character. B-types in turn, appear to modify both A's and C's. C-types can stand with or without A's and B's. They are occasionally combined with other C-types. I would think A-types to be punctuation, if they didn't appear with such an alarming frequency."

Dave whistled lowly.

"Quite. If phonetic, this would be a similar approach taken by Korean or Thai. But I am starting to wonder at just how complex this really is. Is it code, or is it language?"

"If somebody's going through this much effort we might as well just call it a language and give them the you tried really really hard sticker."

They sat there for a while, staring, engrossed with the letters, looking to see if Rose's analysis on how the components were written did indeed hold true, when John interrupted with a loud whisper.

"Aliiiieeeeennnnsssss….."

Dave shoved him. "For the love of fuck."

"More like the love of fuck you!"

"Not now Johnny, the grown-ups are busy."

Rose cleared her throat.

"To say this were alien would make it ridiculously complicated. Infinitely more so than it already is," she said, a touch of irritation to her voice, "What makes you think aliens would write their language in this manner, anyhow? It would require acuity in the visual light spectrum, for one thing. And if they did, these markings could describe anything from phonetics to clouds of smell released in the form of sentences."

"Haha, good one Rose, scentences, get it? As in-"

Rose held her finger up. "We get it, John."

"What you got so far sounds like enough for a post," Dave commented, "Maybe do a comparison shtick with Thailandese… Hey did you do the thing with the Daedra, make that it's own article."

"Thank you for your advice," she said, voice sugar-sweet in a way that screamed SPARE ME YOUR ANTICS, MORTAL.

If Rose had succeeded in translating all of the text, she would have been able to read this on one of the walls. But come on, let's get real. There's no realistic way she'd be able to do that. So instead of straining your suspension of disbelief, let's do this instead. We shall pretend we're all fluent in Traditional Alternian of the Eastern Incensic Ocean, and take a quick peek over Rose's shoulder. If you'll forgive my transgression against the fourth wall.

One of my most valua8le treasures is undoubtedly my psionite or8. I plundered it from a hidden undersea cache of royal swag, which I assumed at the time was the imperial 8ooty of the Condescension herself, if the ludicrous amount of Tyrian ornamentation adorning the cavern walls were anything to 8ase my assumptions upon.

Curiously enough, the loot was entirely unguarded, leading me to reconsider in later sweeps and think that I had not stolen the goods of the Condesce proper, 8ut rather an ancient predecessor of the Tyrian line. The cavern had, of course, 8een filled with all manner of lavish items – I had never seen, nor will I ever again see, so much coral and gold gathered in one place – 8ut it was also filled with all manner of fascin8ting technological peculiarities. The psionite ball was a prize among them.

I have heard talk of psionite before, and heard of chips of it installed in the helms8locks of the fastest, most notorious imperial ships. I have stolen and 8artered with it, 8ut in all my experience I have seen more than what would fill a small teaspoon.

Despite all our technological advancement in the past few centuries, we have 8een hard-pressed to manufacture the stuff synthetically. The costs of research are astronomical, to say the least. The primary source of psionite has 8een, and will continue to 8e for a long while yet, the trace psionite found in the horns of powerful pure-teletemporal psychics. Lime8loods, most commonly, and the Empire has 8egun to take pains to preserve this particular hemostrata from overharvesting when it realized that there are few altern8 options when it comes to the afforda8le harvesting of psionite.

Not to mention, when Her Imperious Condescension made the first leap out of the galaxy, she did so only thanks to the com8ined efforts of a legendary psychic (the ex-revolutionary of the Sufferer's Infidels themselves), a healthy and expensive installation rig studded with psionite, and an even healthier portion of luck. Clearly if we are to expand our conquests 8eyond our home galaxy, we are going to need such psionite, and a lot of it.

Now, this or8. If you, my Descendent, have managed to decode my journal and find this place, you will inherit this most valua8le item. It is powerful in ways few inanimate o8jects can 8e. In its raw form psionite enhances and magnifies psychic energy 8eautifully, 8ut this purified, perfect sphere, carved on the inside into a flawless rever8eration pattern 8y a troll no dou8t possessing legendary psychic skill… This or8 is deadly.

I, possessing the vanishingly rare a8ility of foggy, emotive clairvoyance, have used this or8 to view the future with crystal clarity. I have used it to read the emotions and intentions of my enemies with immaculate accuracy. I have used it to control legions, to turn them against their commanders without so much as a flicker of resistance.

Take care how you use this or8, Descendant. I pray that you heed my warnings, that you learn from the mistakes I've made, that you understand the repercussions of careless arrogance. And you must 8e careful not to damage yourself in the process of using it.

Take care, and you will 8uild and li8erate where I have 8roken and enslaved.

It was over a healthy bonfire later that night that John Egbert and Dave Strider played THINK FAST with a near-priceless alien artifact under the guise of a simple cue ball.

"Guys! I'm trying to tell you a thing!" Jade said irritably, chasing and kicking sand after them.

"Jade, think fast!" John shouted gleefully, and threw the cue ball at her face. She caught it with her left hand because she was just that much of a badass. Wow.

And then she threw the ball in the sand at her feet and covered it up because she was feeling like a party pooper.

"Jaaade! Stop being so evil!"

Jade ignored him and sat down on the sand, right over the cue ball, with legs and arms crossed. She scooted around a bit to face the fire better. With no more balls to use as a conduit of general jackassery, John and Dave followed suit with only a little grumbling.

"I have news to announce!" Jade proclaimed, gesticulating wildly at the fire, then the starry sky above, grinning all the while.

She struck the pose for a good thirty seconds of wordless enthusiasm before Rose finally interrupted with a dry:

"Which is?"

Jade nodded and lowered her arms. "Thank you, Rose! My news is that I'm totally going to reverse-engineer some awesome doohickeys for all of you guys! My other news is that our time is almost out. Doo-eee-doo! So I'm going to throw an island party. Everybody's invited!"

"Will there be hula girls?" John asked.

Dave frowned at him. "John. Where the hell would would we conjure up hula girls. We're in the oceanic middle of fuckall nowhere."

John shrugged. Rose did not miss his glancing in her general direction.

She raised her hand. "I for one would not object. John and Dave would look absolutely fetching in coconut bras and matching grass skirts."

Dave shrugged. "Can't argue there."

Jade, in turn, was delighted. "We have a theme! Yessss! There will be a dress code, guys. No bras, no skirt, no service!"

The expression on John's face could be described as simultaneously confused and

It occurred to the non-Jades much later that she had mentioned doohickies.

End [H] Cue Luau

thxx 4 readin. we're actually starting to come into the home stretch for this installation of the story, WHOOP WHOOP

reviews are much looveddd. ;3