Miranda Investigation

Year: 307 CE - tba

A small fishing boat named 'Miranda' was found drifting along Polsk's shore without an owner on board nor any registration within any nearby harbours, thus it was towed into harbour and boarded by port authoritiees to figure out where the crew had gone and if there were any documents explaining where the boat came from.

Course of Events The boat is about 10 meters in length making it one of the smaller fishing vessels. It was probably crewed by at least 4 people. Going on board the officers find that it is quite run down meaning it most certainly was drifting on the sea for a few weeks. An almost unbearable smell of moldy fish, rotten wood and old fuel lies in the air. The planks bend slightly under each step and make creaking noises as the team moves towards the wheelhouse. Through the partially open door they can already see chaos. Going inside confirms there definitely was some kind of struggle in here. The steering wheel is battered and the navigational equipment is extremely damaged as if something big had been tossed into it. Investigating the equipment reveals that the GPS tracker issued to such vessels was likely removed a long time ago. 2 officers go outside again to look for further clues taking the damaged navigational computer with them. The other three step down into the kitchen and living spaces. The picture here is no different, plates broken on the ground and the table is cracked in the middle. A few splatters of blood are on the ground. Inspecting the sleeping cabin with its 4 bunks they discover some ordinary clothes, and other small items that likely belonged to the crew, however, no kind of pictures are found. The door to the captain's cabin is jammed. Outside the 2 officers discover the probable cause of death for at least one of the crew members. A piece of railing on the backboard side of the vessel is missing, along with its supports and part of the deck. Police Officers and detective board the boat and begin take fingerprint samples. They force the door to the captains cabin and take the DNA from the blood spatter and check it against their records. All 4 crew are reported missing and probably dead. As they break the door down a gust of decay comes from the cabin. There on the bed lies a corpse. It's a man probably in his thirties with a brown beard. The cause of death is quite clear as the knife in his chest is hard to miss. Drowned red from blood the clothing still gives away that this was most likely the captain. Other than the bed there is also a desk with a drawer and a yellow jacket hanging on a fishing hook style clothing rig. A plaque on the desk reads “Captain's patent: Tyson Graham”. Besides it lies an open book from which pages have been torn out. checking it reveals that it is the log book of the “Miranda”. The DNA test results point toward two people, one called “Mathew Flynn” and the other “Loran Hebert”, the second was reported missing 2 weeks ago in a small village on the west coast of “Isernotaria”. Checking with the local authorities there confirms that a vessel named “Miranda” was registered there. However there are no further records found other than its registration. From the crew cabin an officer discovers something hidden in one of the mattresses. It's a small brown book sealed with a lock. From the deck another officer shouts, “Found another one of the fellows!”. Lying under many of the fish crates in the bow of the ship is another corpse. He seems younger than the captain wearing the same type of yellow jacket over rugged and warm clothes. A facial scan reveals that this must be “Loran Hebert”. The corpse has 2 bloodied stab wounds in the belly. An additional officer is dispatched to the case. They pick the lock and open the book. On the first page there's a single sentence in polish and two others in different languages. After getting a translator they discover that the three sentences say all the same thing. Page 1: “Should you find this, don’t talk to anyone about it, for they could be amongst them, no matter what position they might hold.”. The following pages are all written in the second language and it will take some time for them to be translated. One of the detectives contracts food poisoning at home, the new case appointed officer, “Lucas Ash” takes over his work for now. The presumably last crew member is identified as "Justin Barrett" since he was reported missing just a few days after "Loran Hebert" in the same village. Translation Page 2: I think I did it, I did the impossible. I managed to escape their watch, their influence. But I can never hold myself safe now, as I would certainly be killed should they find me. For the Order doesn’t like to be discovered. My name is Mathew Flynn. I am, I mean I was a security agent for the CSIS. Don’t try to inquire about me, I made sure to erase every possible data on my background. This includes my real name, for how else should I have escaped? My old personality doesn’t matter now. Just what I've discovered is important. In this book I hope to comprise my findings and preserve them for a time when the order is weak. For only then will it have an impact and a chance of revealing them. It all started with the Acolyte Incident. More specifically it had something to do with the messages that were sent before the craft arrived. Investigations at that time pointed towards no point of origin, that it just seemingly appeared. But how could that work? I myself couldn't believe what the investigations were claiming. So I started my own search, completely from scratch. I went over it multiple times but I couldn’t find it, until I looked at it from a different angle. The message had nothing that could point towards its origin but it did have something which it was directed at. Of course its primary goal was probably to inform us about the coming intrusion but what about its secondary? The translator appointed to the case is injured in a car accident and has to be hospitalized. A new one is arranged to continue the translations. The following day as the new translator skims over the book before starting his work, they discover that from the third fourth page on, the briefly translated text seems to make no sense at all. The assumption is that up from there the pages are written in a sort of cipher. Decryption experts are therefor appointed to help on the following translations. DCAE took over the investigation from the Polskan Police and seized all related assets (corpses, documents, and the Miranda), and began decrypting all documents it could using artificial intelligences. The food poisoning of one of the chief investigators and now the car crash makes the DCAE extremely suspicious that someone or something is trying to prevent Polsk from figuring this out. Polsk authorities are now looking for spies or any anomalies with DCAE experts to see if there's something going on that's causing these events to chief investigators. Translation Page 3: Have I gone mad? I hope not. Have they found me? It was today that I spotted something while out on the ocean, just for a brief second I thought there was something metallic floating in the water. But I mean, how would they know. Did I forget something? I should probably not write these things in plain text as to make it harder for them to detect it. But then again, would it matter what my mind can produce as encryption in comparison to what they are capable of? I have to try and then just hope that this book falls into the right hands. Maybe if? Ok, whoever is reading this I hope you have not contacted anyone else about it. I am begging you. I mean if this is publicized on any kind of network I guess I have failed. But even if it has come to their attention, it might still take some time till they can do something about it. This is the only hope I have for this. Ok, in order to read the following pages you will need to travel to ██████████. Look for ██████████. Dig there and you will find a chest with everything you will need for decrypting. The small selected team secretly travels to the location before the new entry is even uploaded in the DCAE database and they find a box hidden there containing a small cipher book and instructions with which to get the corresponding cipher and code for each page. While investigating the two incidents again which took the two officers out of work for a while, DCAE discovers that the food poisoning is likely to go back to a manufacturing error resulting in a faulty expiration date. Several other items of the same product with this flaw are also discovered and called back. The car crash is traced back to a bad mixture of oil which clogged the motor. The team almost wants to close the investigations with those results, however, one of the chemical experts suggests another possibility based on a small technical report found in the investigations. Based on this the same selected group inquire further and re-examine the old parts. They indeed find faint traces of another chemical which lead them to believe it was more likely sabotage. However, this other report is kept silent and instead the first cause is released to put, whoever wanted it to look normal, at ease. Due to this turn of events the first case is secretly reopened by the same group and after lengthy analysis it is found that the product the victim ingested was possibly swapped out in their house for the one with the faulty expiration date. Another strange thing discovered in the process is that, even though the officers were harmed, a lot of thought went into the attacks to make them non-lethal, especially in the case of the car accident