"A drink?" the well-groomed pegasus offered his guest. "Juice? Or perhaps something with some kick?"
"Oh, no thank you," she declined. "I'm good."
"Yes, you are," the pegasus said wistfully.
The unicorn mare across from him cocked her head. "Pardon?"
The white pegasus poured himself a drink from a wine bottle under his desk. It wasn't wine. "Nothing. Just an old soul's rambling, I suppose."
The unicorn seated across the mahogany desk leaned in. "How old are you, anyway? I can never tell with you bloodsuckers."
He smiled. "Old for a pony, young for a vampire."
"Is that so?" She leaned back in her chair. A green aura blossomed from her horn, bringing a small cigar and lighter to her mouth. As the roll caught fire, a strange odor filled the room, smelling nothing like any tobacco the pegasus had ever smelled. "Well, I don't have all day, and I'd assume you don't, either. Shall we get this show on the road?"
"I am afrait zat zis meetink vill hafe to vait for now," a colt's voice said, coming from the stallion's immediate left.
He jumped, certain that he had been alone with the mare in his office. Furthermore, from where he was seated, he could see the only door to his office, and it hadn't been opened.
The vampire looked left. "Kätzchen, hasn't anypony ever told you not to sneak up on ponies like that?"
The earth pony colt put on his best innocent look. "Zey have, yes, but I didn't lischten." He reached a gold-colored hoof into his saddle bags. "Guy, Mama Bear needs you back at zee headquarters for a time."
"It's Dreamweaver," the unicorn insisted. "Don't call me Guy."
"You are Guy under zat mask you vear. Guy zee unicorn, Guy zee changeling, same difference," Kätzchen replied, still digging through his saddle bags. "Ah, here it is." The oddly feline-looking colt glanced at the envelope. "Nope, zat is for Battery and Boura. Ah ha! Zis one's for you, Kart Gambit. Mama Bear vants you to rekruit zis mare at any kost, vat efer it takes. Sche is - how do you say? - mission kritikal. You have a veek."
Card Gambit accepted the envelope from the Germane colt. As he opened it, he said, "I will see to it." His eyes glanced at the name on the page. "Wait, this might be-"
He looked up.
Kätzchen was gone.
"-a problem. Now how in the world does an earth pony even vanish like that?"
"Beats me," Dreamweaver replied. "I've got a sister in Ponyville who says a mare there is prone to popping out of the strangest of places."
"Except that there are at least two dozen guards between here and the doors to the building," Card gambit replied, irritated. “The kitten shouldn’t have gotten in.”
The false unicorn raised an eyebrow. "Anyway, I mustn't keep Ursa waiting; sorry that we couldn't get anything done."
"Don't be. It wasn't your fault. What Ursa Major wants, Ursa Major gets. Go; I'll see you eventually."
"Thanks," Dreamweaver said as she stood.
Once the door to his office had clicked shut, Card Gambit slumped down in his seat. "Did you know about this, Mama Bear?" He looked back at the envelope. "How in Tartarus am I going to get you to work for her?"
It had taken him an afternoon to track her down and twenty minutes to fly with his vampiric bodyguards to her apartment building; that was the easy part.
Now came the hard part.
Card Gambit shrugged; no time like the present, he supposed. Reaching out a hoof, he knocked thrice on the apartment door.
“Coming!” A muffled voice shouted from the other side. The door swung open. “Can I- Gambit.” She glared at him. “Well, there goes my mood. So... How can I help you?” she said in a faux-cheerful voice. “You’re looking a bit dead on your feet; should I help you with that?”
“Perhaps you can,” Card replied. “But perhaps I can help you more.”
“I don’t need any help from the likes of you.”
“I’m sure you don’t. However, there is a difference between need and want.” He smirked. “I’m sure you’ll want what I’m offering.”
She looked at him hard. “If it involves killing, I’m out.”
“If we need something dead, we have ponies for that,” the criminal assured. “No, Dusk, the group I’m representing, has other goals for you. Nopony is going to make you kill anypony, although you certainly can if you want.”
Sparkle considered. Whatever he was offering wasn’t immediately too harsh to stomach, and he claimed to be representing something called “Dusk.” Knowing that he was an ambitious crime boss willing to go to great lengths to support his power - including taking on vampirism, apparently - the fact that he placed something above himself caught her attention.
“Come in. Have a seat. I’ll get you something to drink.”
Card Gambit and his two guards trotted into the apartment. Contrary to his expectations, the apartment was decorated in bright colors, rich golds, and ornately crafted decorum. On the wall lay a carving of a six-pointed star over a spiral, upon which were a set of unicornian words, written in their glyphs, that the pegasus couldn’t read. He did recognize the symbol, however, as it belonged to the House of Twilight.
He searched his memory. The House of Twilight was a branch house of the Noble House of Dawn. He’d heard that the House of Twilight and the House of Dawn were both practically extinct, and that the latter had severed all ties with the former almost ten years ago. If this mare was a member of that defunct house, both the timing and the reasons of such an action now made sense.
Sparkle returned three mugs in her magic. The scent wafting from each reminded him of blood, but not exactly. She passed a mug to Card and each of his bodyguards.
He took a sip, shuddering as the delectable liquid rolled down his throat. His eyes widened.
There was magic in it.
“It’s blood wine diluted in tea, one part in a thousand.” Card smiled at the unexpected treat, and took another sip. “If I don’t like what you have to say, the amount you’ve already ingested will instantly turn into a poison strong enough to dissolve your brain, permanently. Start talking.”
One of the guards did a spit-take. “What!”
“I’m waiting.”
He hummed. “Well played, Ms. Sparkle. You would have done well in business with an attitude like that. Now, as I said, I am here on behalf of Dusk. We want to offer you a research position. Provided you produce practical results from time to time, you have free rein to study anything you desire, and will have the full resources of Dusk to back you up, no questions asked. So really, just like any other research position, just with a blank check and no pesky regulations stopping you.”
“Interesting,” Sparkle said. “But what is Dusk, what are their goals, and what sort of ‘practical results’ are they asking for?”
“Ah, you see, Dusk is not a what, but a who. We are a conglomeration of vampire covens and other supernatural beings who have allied together under our leader. We call her Mama Bear. As for what we want, like any large group, we want many things. But what unites us is power, and our drive to acquire it.”
Jackpot.
“And how do I fit into this?” Sparke questioned.
“We need your magic. It costs you nothing but time and effort to help us become stronger. Whatever you need for your rituals, we can provide. In return, we’ll give you whatever you need to further your own skills. Need cadavers? Done. Need blood? Done. Gems, metals, secret texts, test subjects? Done, all of it.
“Furthermore, we will pay you generously. Not to the same extent as our last dealing*, of course, but well enough that you won’t ever yearn for money again,” Card explained.
“And what are we talking, number-wise?”
“Oh, three million bits annually, plus commission work, and a sizeable research budget,” the vampire pegasus replied.
Sparkle thought. She rubbed her mechanical hoof up against her lips, idly exploring the contours of the machine as she pondered. “Meh, why not. Just leave my brother, son, and apprentice alone, and we’ll have no problems.”
Gambit blinked. “Really?” His confused expression rapidly morphed into a beaming grin. ‘“Fantastic. Welcome aboard, then.” From the envelope that Kätzchen had given him, he withdrew a letter to Sparkle that Mama Bear had written for her. “Mama Bear will love meeting you; I think you’ll have much in common.”
Sparkle raised an eyebrow as she grasped the letter in her magic. The mare skimmed its contents quickly. “This works. Tell her I’ll be there.”
“That I can do.”
Sparkle smiled. “Now, would you kindly show yourselves out of my apartment?”
Card Gambit found himself standing and then walking to the door straight away. He’d later miss-remember the moment as him walking away normally, still unaware of the compulsions she’d placed on him all those months ago. The moment he crossed the threshold of her door, he paused and looked back over his shoulder. “Thank you for the body, by the way. It feels better than my old one.”
“Fourteen hundred hoof-lengths, Gambit. That’s how far I can reach with significant precision, and how far you have to go before I can’t liquefy you and your grunt’s brains,” Sparkle replied.
They broke into a dead sprint.
“Good boy.” Sparkle shut the door and picked up the three mostly-full mugs. Eyeing it for a second, she shrugged. “Meh, it was my blood anyway. And no sense in wasting good tea,” she muttered before downing the rest of the drinks.
“Thorn,” she said over the link. She’d opened it when she’d gone to get the drinks, and as such, he’d seen everything and had been privy to her every thought.
“Finally,” the dracolich replied. “I didn’t expect that to just fall into our laps, but there’s no way we’re wasting this opportunity.”
The mugs went under the faucet’s stream, cleaning them out. “You’re right. It’s a shame; I was looking forwards to working with Squad Six. Hey, how long do you think it will take us to take over?”
“Dusk, or Canterlot? ‘Cause you know some of those vampires are in some really high places.”
“Both. Either,” Sparkle thought back. She quickly dried the mugs and put them on her shelf.
Thorn pondered for a moment, holding his musings private from his mother. “A month before you’re irreplaceable and they’re eating out of your hooves. Maybe two before you could seriously take over without any complaint. By March, I think you could rival some of the nobles in power.”
Sparkle hummed.
“So, zee mission vas a success, Kart Gambit?” Kätzchen asked, peering over his dark sunglasses.
Card jumped. “Please don’t startle me like that,” he said as he turned around. While looking at the messenger through similar lenses, he answered, “Yes. It was. She’ll be there.”
Kätzchen stood leaning against the sun-warmed stone of the building’s walls. The messenger clicked his tongue. “Fantaschtik! Ursa Major vill be pleaset.”
“Is that all?” Card asked.
The messenger of Dusk shook his head. “Nein. Gehen Sie nach Hause. Relax. I vill be in touch.”
Card nodded once and spread his batlike wings. His guards did the same, and they took to the skies.
Kätzchen, meanwhile, didn’t vanish immediately to who-knows-where. Instead, he looked over at a gray-suited pony, who was watching him from across the street. Kätzchen waved his hoof enthusiastically. “Hey! Is eferyzing on time today, herr Observer?”
The gray pony nodded, although his face remained as blank and expressionless as ever.
“Zat is great news!”
They turned and looked away from one another. In the space of a blink, in a moment when nopony was watching, both of them vanished from the street, as if they had never been there.
Luna lifted herself gently from the cooling, sudsy bath water. Sweet incense sticks sat nearby, filling the humid air with the scent of flowers. Helping Hoof, the princess's personal maid, offered her mistress a warm, fluffy towel.
"Thank you, Helping Hoof."
"It's my pleasure."
After drying her coat and wrapping her mane in a second towel, Luna asked, "What flavor have you picked for me tonight?"
"Mint, your highness. It is the classic," the maid replied. In her time working for the recently returned princess, Helping Hoof had grown accustomed to her employer's odd obsession: toothpaste. Princess Luna had discovered toothpaste when she had returned, having never had anything like it when she had left.
Dental hygiene had been poor in Equestria at that time, with only chewing on sticks providing any sort of dental care - care which Luna's regenerative abilities made moot. Coming back to find that now there was a paste that could make her mouth feel good was a pleasant surprise.
Now Luna had already tried every flavor on the market, and had gone so far as to commission her own flavors. But mint... "That sounds lovely."
What wasn't lovely was the cloud of ash that had somehow drifted through the air vents of the bathroom and ignited beside her. As the ash burned - or un-burned - a small package materialized and plopped onto the counter.
“What is this?” Luna picked up the package, which was addressed to her, and magically opened it. She lifted out it’s contents: an ugly, roughly crafted necklace and two folded pieces of paper. On one of the papers was the words ‘Read Me First.’
The letter, which she quickly discerned was from Sparkle, described in detail the seal release states of the vampires. It also said that the necklace was a key created to regulate the seals of any vampires she had unlocked previously, namely Squads Three through Six and Lieutenant Ironwood. And somehow, despite granting the mistress of the night more insight into the inner workings of vampirism, the cut-and-dry text was so abysmally bland that she found herself struggling to read it.
In fact, it almost seemed to be engineered to be dull.
Setting aside the letter, she eyed the pendant. It was a rough thing, thrown together by a mare with no experience in craftsmanship. The jewels were simply glued onto the wooden medallion and metallic strips weaved haphazardly between them. Putting them down, she picked up the next letter.
Luna,
It has come to our attention that there are better paths in life that we could be taking. We jumped at a new opportunity to do exactly what my (Sparkle’s) cutie mark is telling us. Necromancy is our gift, and like a fox, we quickly followed our hearts.
You might call us crazy, but we are not crazy at all. Never before has our path been so clear. The world is our oyster; all we have to do is take it.
We quit.
-Sparkle and Thorn
P.S. Celestia, you tried, but you couldn’t crack us.
Rot in tartarus.
Guy snapped the pony's neck and, for good measure, used a hoof, shifted to a razor sharp edge, to slice her victim's throat open.
She looked up. She could feel that blast of goddess-tier rage from here. It was worse than last week's rage burst, where Luna smashed windows with her voice alone.
Guy shrugged and donned her victim's face. As she trotted out of the room, she couldn't help but wonder what she would like to be least.
The mare who crossed Dusk, like that poor sap lying in a heap?
Or the doomed soul about to face the Nightmare's wrath.
She paused. "Definitely that dead lump."
"CELESTIA!"
"Luna, what's wrong?" her worried sister asked as Luna burst into Celestia's room.
"This!" She shoved the letter into Celestia's face. "That necromancer has taken our generosity and spat in our face. Never have I been so insulted."
Pushing the letter aside for a moment, the solar princess asked, "Are you sure?"
Luna snorted. "Of course I am sure, sister. She has plainly stated that she has left us to practice the most heinous of magic, and has gone as far as to wish you to tartarus."
Celestia sat down on her rug. "How... I tried. I tried to keep her. I thought she was going to fight for good. A good necromancer." She sighed slightly. "A pipe dream. How could I have been so blind?"
Luna frowned, looking down at the floor. "I do not know, sister, but it seems that I was blinded as well."
When Celestia didn't respond immediately, Luna looked up. She saw that Celestia bore a puzzled expression on her face. Celestia was holding something else in her magic, a scrap of paper on which the words "Sorry, Celəstia" were written.
"'Tia?"
Celestia picked up the momentarily discarded letter and read through it. "Couldn't crack..." The white princess blinked, and then shot up as if she had been electrocuted. She bolted to her desk and grabbed a quill. Furiously, she started writing in the margins of the letter.
Luna looked over her shoulder and saw Celestia write this:
Key = E
Code = OLUJXHYGXHZZNAWI
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C D
"Luna, it's a cipher! That letter isn't real - this is the real message!" Celestia exclaimed triumphantly.
"A cipher? What could be... Oh."
"Exactly," Celestia replied, knowing Luna had already figured out the gist of the message. "Sparkle and Thorn say..."
more Hellsing references, yeah
I read people, not ciphers... Honestly I find it interesting but I can usually only crack code by instinct or brute force analysis. People though... Reading people isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Anyone got a translation?
AWESOME JOB KEEP IT UP xD!!!!!!
I'm too stupid to crack this code. Anyone managed it?
I have no idea how to decode this, unfortunately I won't be able to go to sleep until I know what it says
I always thought Schrödinger was ine of the coolest characters in Hellsing mostly beacause he was so different.
Dangit. That's what you meant by double layer. Well played. The key really threw me off I guess the line and upside down works quite nicely. I'll need to remember that for future reference. Also, not too shabby with the accent, though it isn't perfect. However, it isn't exactly easy to write out abstract sound differences, so I applaud your results.
EDIT: "spy n bock bod dream"? Not sure I got that right. Might have done it wrong.
wall321.com/thumbnails/detail/20120603/hellsing%20nekomimi%20nazi%20animal%20ears%20boys%20hellsing%20ultimate%20armband%20schrdinger%201920x1200%20wallpape_www.wall321.com_69.jpg ?
vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/hellsing/images/2/2e/Schrodinger_OVA_5.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20110905201012
5991045
The "o" is wrong.
5991045
Actually, I'm stupid. I can't read my own handwriting. I solved it (wrong) on paper before typing the letters.
Na, it's fine. Needs more screaming, though. Everyone knows we Germans ALWAYS SCREAM!
5991090
And here I thought I was stupid, also got that and thought it to be gibberish.
5991091
It should be fixed now in the story, so just refresh your page.
5991091
If I didn't know you were joking, I'd take offense to that. But I don't, because I agree with your sarcasm. Deutschland for the win!
5991090
Kinda figured it was something like that.
Should be OLU J XHYG XHZ ZNAWI then.
EDIT: and this is what happens when WiFi is slow. Send message AFTER the update Still can't do things right.
5991046
5991072
Glad to know I wasn't the only one who got that reference.
SPYNBLCKBLDDREAM
I honestly can't remember all the names I need to. Whose dream?
5991137
Punctuation and spaces aren't included. Try breaking it up into phonetic units and punctuating as needed.
5991137
I guess it's supposed to mean:
Spying on BLACKBLOOD, contact me via dream.
5991164
myreactiongifs.com/gifs/aceventurathumbsup.gif
I found myself wondering if the german colt is inspired to Shroedinger from Hellsing, Nightcrawler from Marvel comics or both.
Also, maybe it's Shroedinger who's inspired to Nightcrawler... I think I need to sleep...
5990993
I feel you bro, ciphers are much less interesting than people...
5991178
i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/288/329/8d2.gif
Damn it. Damn it damn it damn it.
Oh well. At least I tried.
Oh, you had your German accent right, as far as I can see. The only thing that's actually wrong are these lines:
In accurate German, it should be:
"Nein. Gehen Sie nach Hause. Relax (...)."
schroedinger is in the game
5991290
Thanks. I found a guide online, but it was vague on actual German, since it considered only the phonetic aspects of a native German speaker trying to speak English.
5991190 Other way around.
People can be interesting, but there's always a chance someone will react different. Ciphers are interesting because no matter what they must follow a pattern, people can break that pattern at any one time, even if it's someone you actually know quite well (After 9 years I still managed to surprise my ex with my reactions on a fairly frequent basis)
Exceptions are always going to happen. The unpredictability is in a way predictable... Sounds weird but for me it's true. I could go on for hours and still never be able to fully explain it.
Ciphers? Never, if you get it wrong it's either an input error or you don't have have the whole thing decoded.
It's high level math in a lot of ways. Which is something I've always found fascinating, especially when it's beyond my skills.
We call her Mama Bear. as for what we want
‘“Fantastic. Welcome aboard, then.”
By march, I think you could
I was looking forwards to working with
1. Forgot to capitalise.
2. Extra apostrophe at the start.
3. Forgot to capitalise as well.
4. Forward in this case.
Welp, couldn't break the cipher either. I tried. But on the upside, we now know one kind of cipher. Until the time we forget about it again. I give us two days.
Wonder how things will play out when the other parties see Luna significantly calmed down. Would be extremely suspicious after going through such a large amount of rage.
5991342 You're welcome
Ah yes. That could be handy for references... but I have to warn you. German is a lot harder than you might think. Especially its grammar.
I'm really, really sorry, I'm going to nitpick right now, you can just ignore this if you want, but technically, it's still wrong. First off, capital letters matter. Sie and sie have different meanings. Sie is singular, and used formally, speaking to someone higher than you. Speaking to an equal it's 'du'. 'sie' is plural. They all mean 'you', so I know it can get confusing.
Furthermore, all nouns should be written with capitals.
And then there are so many, many more rules in German grammar... so, if Katchen comes back, I would suggest to contact someone who has more, and some actual German knowledge.
Kinda cool using what's effectively a rot-4 cipher for the message. Caesar ciphers are pretty insecure but they provide the right amount of challenge for a reader to figure out :P
5991428
Most of the time, he'll just be speaking English with a German accent, instead of actual German. However, if I do include German, I'll try to find someone who can proofread it.
I also fixed your nitpicks, so it should be good now.
5991466
It's a rot4 applied to something previously encrypted with a rot18. The order in which these are applied is then determined by the writer's signature, where a vertical line through a letter determines the first rotation amount, and an upside down letter indicates the second. Then, it uses baconian-esque elements to encode the text into another message. Normally, a cipher like this would include the key elsewhere, but Sparkle didn't have a way to alert them of the cipher key early. Really, it was just to keep other ponies from accidentally discovering the message.
5991443
Oh, thanks.
You, um, you don't actually need the S key to decode that cypher. The E key on its own is sufficient...
I am great with numbers, but when it comes to the alphabet I just can't comprehend it without singing the ABC song. I wish I never learned it as a song, because now I can't figure out what comes after most leters without starting from the beginning.
5991771
Wow. I didn't even notice that.
Well, that's what you get when you try to make a fancy cipher with almost no knowledge of cryptography.
5991833
Well, to be fair, if it was a really fancy cypher, Celestia would actually have trouble with it... and taking out a lot of the vowels while leaving the message only a few words long really helps.
As a rule, layering substitution cyphers like that doesn't help; each starting letter changes to a single finishing letter, so your layering adds no extra security. (You can layer it with other codes, like writing every second word backwards, or you can do something fancy like changing the substitution cypher after every few letters).
Also, when sending a secret message, it's a big cryptographic no-no to send the key and the message in the same letter; then anyone who gets that letter can decode it. A much more secure way would be to send the message to Luna without the key, and then send a different letter to Celestia containing the key but not the cyphertext (then it's only easy to decode if someone gets copies of both letters).
Really well played, I like what you have done with the characters and the letter was cool!
5992003
Learn something new everyday.
I'm going to fix that in the chapter, so Sparkle doesn't look like so much of a cryptographic klutz. It won't change the content, though.
5992003
I've seen a pretty cool code that used the code letters to give the shape of the key letter. Another trick was using the italicized letters as a false code and hiding the message as a morose code, using the italicized letters as the lines. The latter, however, would basically be impossible for anyone to solve without prior knowledge.
5988450 Thought I said "Hellsing Abridged"
But yeah, Hellsing Abridged.
--SYA, The Horse
5992073
Just read it, so I don't know what the whole two-key thing is about (though others are correct: for example, rot-4 + rot-16 = rot-20). What would work better is if the key were "SORRYCELESTIA". That makes the message more resistant to brute-force attacks (there are only 25 possible cyphertexts in rot-N). The way that works is: apply rot-S to the first letter, rot-O to the second, rot-R to the third and so on (return to the start of the key after the A).
But this is only effective if the key is exchanged before the cyphertext, since you have to assume that an attacker knows the algorithm that will be used.
Still, all this is for interest's sake, the current state is fine for the sake of storytelling and I don't intend to criticize.
5992073
Yeah, that's significantly more secure.
(For future reference, the other big cryptographic no-no - which I didn't mention earlier because Sparkle's avoided it very well here anyway - is making a part of your message predictable. If you always start your message with "Dear Princess Celestia", and the enemy knows this, then he doesn't need the key to work out which letters mean "D", "e", "a", "r"...)
Of course, ideally, if Sparkle sees herself sending more coded messages to the Princesses, then she should really hammer out a proper code the next time Luna visits her dreams. (Though, once Luna knows to visit her dreams regularly, I don't think there'll be that much need for future coded messages). Something like taking the first letter of every third word as the cyphertext and then decoding it with a key that is the same as the first letter of the current weekday might be suitable - the key changes every day, making it hard for an enemy to decode all the messages, and it's less obvious when a letter includes or doesn't include a coded message if the cyphertext letters are not explicitly marked. (Mind you, considering that Luna and Celestia weren't expecting a code, what she's got seems very suitable here - but I imagine she'll want to be better prepared in case this is needed again).
5992267
...that first one is rather insecure, because it means that you are by necessity sending the key with the cyphertext. The second one, on the other hand, has potential - you're disguising the message by pretending it's a different message. Very nice.
But, yes, it requires that the recipient know the code.
something tells me Sparkle PLANNED This; mainly to get the Criminal Underworld to Trust her; and to pass intel to the Red Platoon so when the S*&T Hits the Fan, the Red Platoon will be Fully Prepared!
I wish I could upvote every single friggin chapter your glorious mind delivers to us!
5992441 Isn't that how British code breakers cracked Germany's Enigma machine in WWII? Because all the German messages started with the words "Heil Hitler," so if they could decode that, they could decode the rest of the message?
Sad I missed out on the first attempt at cryptography.
Still, looking forward to finding out about what she means by Dream, though.
Likely just a heads up to have Luna contact her through dreams? Impressive none the less.
Also, I am always amused by references to Hellsing.
Mama Bear, huh? So Fluttershy runs a massive vampire conspiracy in this universe.
(I refuse to believe any alternative explanation, as this one is much funnier.)
5993369
img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130428070238/mlpfanart/images/2/22/Sweetie_Belle_%22seems_legit%22_reaction_image.png
I love how I can discuss perfectly about symmetric and asymmetric encryption algorithms, best practices on how to use then, some usual pitfalls you can encounter, but I'm too lazy enough to try to break a simple Vigenère cipher.
The points >>>CCC raised are all really good. Combining multiple ciphers is not simple, and multiple applications of the same cipher can be mathematically reduced to a single application with another secret that is a combination of the previous secrets.
What can be useful to make the cipher hard to brute force is Cipher Block Chaining (CBC).
Also:
>>> s = 'OLUJXHYGXHZZNAWI'
>>> "".join(map(lambda x: chr(ord('A') + ((ord(x) - ord('A') + 4) % 26)), s))
'SPYNBLCKBLDDREAM'
5991488
"There were two kinds of codes in cryptography, codes that stopped your little brother from reading your message and codes that stopped major governments from reading your message, and this was the first kind of code, but it was better than nothing."
-HJPEV