directional cipher

# All SombraARG encryption/decryption programming is occuring here: https://github.com/kimdcottrell/sombra

            CENTER # clave = key in spanish?
A   B   C   D   E   F   G   H   I   J   K   L   M   Ñ   N   O   P   Q   R   S   T   U   V   W   X   Y   Z # shift cipher index 1
S   T   U   V   W   X   Y   Z   A   B   C   D   E   F   G   H   I   J   K   L   M   Ñ   N   O   P   Q   R # shift cipher index 2
X   Y   Z   A   B   C   D   E   F   G   H   I   J   K   L   M   Ñ   N   O   P   Q   R   S   T   U   V   W # shift cipher index 3
X   Y   Z   A   B   C   D   E   F   G   H   I   J   K   L   M   Ñ   N   O   P   Q   R   S   T   U   V   W # FIRST ROW SHIFTED 23 TIMES
                                                E
            Center
                                                                                N
                        S
                                                SE
                                                                            W
    S
                                                                                            NE
                                                                                NW
                                                
                                                                                
# tab delimited data; timestamp, direction, what appeared in video, character, type of shot, map
0:18        East        arrow & EAST ¼ MILE     Mercy       Skin        Route 66
0:19        ?           C                       D.VA        Skin        Temple of Anubis
0:20        North       up arrow                Torbjorn    Skin        Nepal
0:22        South       down arrow              Genji       Skin        Hanamura
0:23        Southeast   southeast arrow         McCree      Skin        Hollywood
0:30        West        WEST                    Symmetra    Emote       Gibraltar
0:34        South       SOUTHWEST               Bastion     Emote       Hollywood
0:45        Northeast   NE                      Winston     Pose        Volskaya Industries
0:45        Northeast   NE                      Tracer      Skin        Volskaya Industries
0:47        Northwest   nw arrow                Tracer      Icon        King’s Row

REMOVED
0:48        East        east arrow              Mercy       Icon        Temple of Anubis # texture error and misinterpretation of video

Massive thank you to Veratil who helped me determine a bunch of complex stuff! :D

This is difficult to explain since I don't understand these ciphers well, but here goes.

So we had these clues:

1. Sombra is the 23rd hero
2. "The compass? The compass." - Jeff @ Blizzard (this is repeated, so probably important)
3. "This is CIA level stuff. Way above my head" - Jeff @ Blizzard (this is repeated, probably important)

So I went through and annoyed myself with the following:

1. The skycode, could it be parsed? (sorry, no. it can't. seriously. no. and because it can't, it is dead to me and everyone else)
2. "Way over my head" Numani flight list with flight numbers that aren't all numbers (gave up after a few hours, but not sure on this)
3. The stuff below.

I was in the middle of the Numani flight list parsing when Veratil noticed that the Spanish word for key is "clave." That's when it dawned on me that there are probably ciphers out there that involve letter arrangements placed in layered circles that require a letter or two for a key. Turns out there are. They are known as shift ciphers and you can see one here: http://inventwithpython.com/cipherwheel/

There are games you can give children to help them get into crytography. The main one is a cipher wheel and it's probably common in those "pretend you're a CIA undercover agent!" kids spy packs.

I didn't want to go down this route unless the compass played a further role. I took the first letter of every champions name and assigned it it's related direction. Turns out there was a pattern. So I could assume that there was possibly something there, so I assumed that the shift cipher could be written at this stage with 3 indicies, each aligning with DVA as the key. EDIT: You can assume that we may not need all 3 indices, as most shift wheel ciphers only have 2. I'm only showing all 3 at this time because there's no data-proven reason to dismiss the 2nd and I wanted everyone to see the DVA key fully.

There's another type of cipher called a ceasar cipher. You take a message, then move every single letter of that message n number of times over. I did this with the first index of the shift cipher 23 times and it matched up with the third index. You can play with ceasar ciphers here: http://rumkin.com/tools/cipher/caesar.php

What this means is that DVA is the key to a shift cipher. That much is certain.

But the compass, aside from helping me find that DVA was the key to the shift cipher, is still a mystery.

The compass directions do match up with the letters, but I don't know how that plays a role as I do not have it written out perfectly. For instance, NE and E are definitely not both mapped to M. That would just be silly.

I currently think that the rest of the compass (aside from dva) is supposed to be used to determine the message/password, or at least a clue to find where the message/password is located.

EDIT: Resources that may help you understand the ciphers I'm referencing:

1. Shift cipher: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dlyk_cJuhvs
2. Shift cipher: https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/computer-science/cryptography/ciphers/a/shift-cipher
3. Ceasar cipher: https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/computer-science/cryptography/crypt/v/caesar-cipher
4. Ceasar cipher + shift cipher: https://lh6.ggpht.com/4HWP0WU1N91Uav9dB-iljHvuEu2FHUA6uWRCm6T2fh7peSEiWONlwEHL9YlET3nfxYDP=w300

I'll reiterate for importance:

1. The compass directions given are guesses. I just simply took the first letter of a champion and matched it with the any N, E, S, W direction. I wanted to find slight patterns and go from there. The directions seem to group up around letters, but it's just guesswork.
2. We have a shift cipher wheel, but no message to decrypt. We need to find the message.

Super big shoutout to whoever made this, but this might be a thing: http://i.imgur.com/3v4N5vi.png

Things to think about: what if the ROT23 and shift wheel (with key of DA) parallel was used to simply make a 3 index shift wheel, and the compass directions are the key to a transposition cipher? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transposition_cipher