Page 13 of 64 [947 Posts]   Goto page: Previous 1, 2, 3, ..., 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, ..., 62, 63, 64  Next
Author Message
Sylvia
Sorry guys for taking so long to check in today. Just now catching up and there is something about QS's/Slider's last email that doesn't seem right.

QS wrote:
Young master Phillip is not involved with any groups, nor with any other individuals that I know of. He is a lone walker down the boulevard of life, at least to my observations.

That doesn't quiet fit the description that Petra gave of Philly or at least it doesn't to me.
Petra from different emails wrote:
Everything I know about Philly isn't much. Met him at a bar one night. He was all serious and quiet. We started going around together. Nice enough guy at first, right, but after a while he starts getting moody sometimes. Doesn't drink or use, but smokes like a chimney. Always meeting people. Always being cool. He didn't have a job as far as I could tell so I figured he was either a trust fund kid or he was selling stuff I didn't ask about. And he was into magic. He was always reading books or looking at strange stuff on his computer. I'm not into it, so he didn't get into it much with me.

He hung with some weird people so I'm sure they were involved in whatever happened. He probably just did something stupid and they picked him up and now he's crashing with them.

I couldn't tell you if that chick or whoever had anything to do with what he was doing. I still think it was just one of his stupid friends.

Don't know much about Slider. He'd show up sometimes at parties that Philly would go to. I never knew anyone and he was the only person who would ever say two words to me. I'm pretty sure he was into the stuff too, but he didn't have that same macho thing going on that Philly did.

Maybe I'm just too tired and not thinking straight but who knows?

PostPosted: Wed Feb 06, 2008 10:41 pm
mortality
Re: what can we really offer?
badaim68 wrote:

The real issue is what we tell him about why we want to know? I've gone down the Philly/Petra/Smoke route to no avail. The only thing we have left, that is relevant to the events in St Petes, is regarding the coded ritual found in the Scarpelli library....that would certainly pique his interest....and I don't believe we have any viable alternative at this stage. Views?

I agree that our motive has been the key from the start. I still think that while he has every right to demand "why?" of us, he has not proven that it's in our long-term interest to ally with him. He's been just as cagey about his motives as we have been about ours.

It's beginning to sound like he probably didn't have anything to do with Philly's ritual. That's at least one point in his favor, because that ritual certainly sounded malevolent. But we don't know why he's interested in these subjects in the first place.

Given that we came into this situation because of WF, I'm inclined to continue acting in ways that protect their interest. I think that means keeping them and the Scarpelli document off the table for the moment. How else would we have access to the Scarpelli books except through WF? Up until it was donated to a private non-profit, it was a privately owned collection of documents, not a bunch of books in a public library.

That being said, I think Slider gave us our in. He asked why badaim keeps talking about Philly in the past tense. Well, since badaim already implied that we saw the ritual, why not describe it more fully? Include a lurid description of the blinding light and Philly's collapsed, inert form, the scorching on the matchbook, and the fact that he didn't appear to be breathing. Then reiterate the fact that if he's a loner, it would seem awfully strange that people in an SUV would carry off his body.

Maybe Slider's concern for Philly will carry the day. If not...we can revisit our trump card, the cipher.

So basically: we're curious about the ritual, but we also think something happened to Philly.

Typoxic wrote:
The whole idea, I thought, was to ultimately tie this back to Scarpelli. We should tell him we're trying to trace that document, and that path has now led us to him. It seems like a theme is cropping up in this game: keeping secrets hasn't netted us much success so far. Maybe it's just too early to tell if secrecy would have been the right way to go at any point, but it looks now like it isn't.


Being open hasn't always netted us success. BE wasn't forthcoming just because we were. Telling Ethan had consequences for our relationship with WF. Telling Reality Now anything would've been a horrible mistake. When we did let them know we'd found their website, they made it (slightly) more secure.

The point is we have to decide who to trust.

WF's interest in this case may diverge from our own. They've drawn the line, saying they only want to know how the cipher was placed in the library, who put it there, and why. Clearly we want to know more about the ritual than they do. Slider may have the connections to help us learn more about the ritual, but if Jade and Ethan are right (they said the St. Pete rituals were performed from a different source document), then Slider won't help us get the information WF wants.

On that ground, I think it's best to keep the Scarpelli document secret until we can't.

PostPosted: Wed Feb 06, 2008 8:10 pm
petunia
Yay! Thanks, SpaceBass (or his proxy)! Brownie

Awesomeness. Now we just need an easy way to convince new players who "just want to get in at the beginning" of an ARG... (okay, stopping... now.) Wink

PostPosted: Wed Feb 06, 2008 6:08 pm
Rekidk
Re: what can we really offer?
petunia wrote:
EDIT: Hey, we're stickied! Um... why?


SpaceBass probably stickied it; we're going to start stickying some of the games that have proven themselves to be non-implosive ARGs. It should make it easier for new players to find quality games. Smile

PostPosted: Wed Feb 06, 2008 5:31 pm
petunia
Re: what can we really offer?
QS wrote:
You say that young Phillip and I are friends. Now, supposing for a moment this were true, what kind of friend would I be if I went round spinning yarns, second hand, about my dear comrade. It could be that he doesn't want you to know these things. It could even be that knowing these things might give you some sort of - and here I dread even saying the words - advantage over young Phillip.


Is it just me, or does he seem a little protective of Philly here? It might not hurt to assure him that we're concerned for Philly's safety, thinking he might be into something over his head etc.... not looking to score one on him or something. (OTOH he could be baiting us, expecting just the opposite... gah, this guy's too tricky, I need more coffee... Coffee)

Quote:
Don't get me wrong, in the spirit of Quid Pro Quo, as you so aptly put it, I am inclined to reciprocate, but you still have not allayed my suspicious nature by answering my very first - and really the most important, wouldn't you agree - question; namely, why? Why do you want to know, Paul. Why in the world should I answer your questions?


I'm afraid he's got us there. Why DO we want to know? Why is it any of our business? Petra doesn't particularly care, and WC all but told us to butt out. So basically we're being nosy little bastards... nope, even I won't vote for going that route unless we truly have no moves left.

Okay then, I guess we tell him about the Scarpelli doc then. But how much? Do we just say we came across it, or what? I assume we're not bringing WC anywhere near this guy yet.

Oooh, it's Feb. 6th... Reality Now's ID of some "initiation" is at 7:15pm in London (local time?) at coords (51.512108, -0.120120). Here's hoping something interesting happens!

EDIT: Hey, we're stickied! Um... why?

Uh, anyway, those coords look to be the location of a Turkish restaurant called Sofra at the corner of Tavistock & Wellington (36 Tavistock). Looks more like a back room, actually. I wonder if they're having any private parties tonight? ^^ http://www.sofra.co.uk/

PostPosted: Wed Feb 06, 2008 1:53 pm
Typoxic
The whole idea, I thought, was to ultimately tie this back to Scarpelli. We should tell him we're trying to trace that document, and that path has now led us to him. It seems like a theme is cropping up in this game: keeping secrets hasn't netted us much success so far. Maybe it's just too early to tell if secrecy would have been the right way to go at any point, but it looks now like it isn't.

PostPosted: Wed Feb 06, 2008 7:35 am
badaim68
what can we really offer?
Latest from QS:

Quote:
Oh my! So we move in those circles, do we? In my experience, there are nine of those, they are concentric, and they lead ultimately to a land of traitors. Not to say that you are one, dear Paul, nor our chum, young Phillip, only that one must be careful what one hears. Especially if one is the type to act, as well as listen.

A fine yarn, fair Paul; a tale of intrigue, lost love, and missed opportunities. Its narrative structure leaves a bit to be desired, though, wouldn't you say? Strong opening, captivating middle, but where's the end? Ah yes, p'raps that's where I come in? Alas, tis not to be. At least not yet.

You say that young Phillip and I are friends. Now, supposing for a moment this were true, what kind of friend would I be if I went round spinning yarns, second hand, about my dear comrade. It could be that he doesn't want you to know these things. It could even be that knowing these things might give you some sort of - and here I dread even saying the words - advantage over young Phillip.

You see, Paul, I move in the kind of triangles where information is, quite literally, a powerful thing. From the vantage of your circles I'm sure you know what I mean. Don't get me wrong, in the spirit of Quid Pro Quo, as you so aptly put it, I am inclined to reciprocate, but you still have not allayed my suspicious nature by answering my very first - and really the most important, wouldn't you agree - question; namely, why? Why do you want to know, Paul. Why in the world should I answer your questions?

In good faith, and in the spirit of this marketplace of free ideas we have going on here, I will answer your last query;

Young master Phillip is not involved with any groups, nor with any other individuals that I know of. He is a lone walker down the boulevard of life, at least to my observations. You may say "Fie, I've caught you, rascal, in a snare, what of his lady love?" To which I would reply that there is little of mutual regard or respect betwixt Phillip and his many paramours. Those "involvements" have always seemed distinctly one-sided to me.

I find it interesting, and even just a tad disquieting, that you use the past tense in referring to our friend. I do hope you'll explain when you bring your stakes back to the table.

QS



The nine circles refers to the nine circles of hell in Dante's Divine Comedy (the ninth reserved for traitors).
The triangle motif also crops up in is email.....perhaps I should ask if he knows a William Wallace Wink

The real issue is what we tell him about why we want to know? I've gone down the Philly/Petra/Smoke route to no avail. The only thing we have left, that is relevant to the events in St Petes, is regarding the coded ritual found in the Scarpelli library....that would certainly pique his interest....and I don't believe we have any viable alternative at this stage. Views?

PostPosted: Wed Feb 06, 2008 4:07 am
Typoxic
petunia wrote:
"Odds fish" and Anthony Andrews both point to The Scarlet Pimpernel. This Slider really gives me the feeling of somebody from an entirely different generation.

A lot of my friends (including myself) have jarring and outdated modes of speech. He's probably twentysomething and full of himself (like me and my friends). No one talks like that without it being an affectation, from any generation. He also seems like he talks differently when he's not making fun of people for saying weird things; phrases like "crap-cutting machete" come to mind as looking more representative of his normal phrasing.

PostPosted: Tue Feb 05, 2008 8:57 pm
petunia
Heh, "stakeout" is what I've been calling our late nights on Skype waiting around for Smoke to show up, or not.

"Odds fish" and Anthony Andrews both point to The Scarlet Pimpernel. This Slider really gives me the feeling of somebody from an entirely different generation.

As for Jade's question - DO we have anything we can trade? I'm not sure telling him how we found him will be enough. I guess all we can do is offer it and see what he says. We don't really know what his interests are.

Googling "smoke eater" with "she-wolf" nets one fabulous result: http://books.google.com/books?q=%22smoke+eater%22+she-wolf&btnG=Search+Books
The Cult of Tara: Magic and Ritual in Tibet by Stephan Beyer.

PostPosted: Tue Feb 05, 2008 7:16 pm
Sylvia
Typoxic wrote:
I'd be tempted to skip the stakeout thing altogether and just say we were out for a stroll and happened to see something suspicious.

yes, I agree. We discussed that in chat last night. At the time I wrote the post above, I couldn't think of a better word or phrase and just wrote the first thing that popped into my small brain at the moment.

PostPosted: Tue Feb 05, 2008 4:36 pm
Typoxic
I'd be tempted to skip the stakeout thing altogether and just say we were out for a stroll and happened to see something suspicious. He'll know it's a lie, but maybe he'll also know that why and how we saw what we did is irrelevant. Then again, I said we should be straight with him, so maybe disregard what I just said. I'll backpedal. We can tell him about the Scarpelli document and where it led us without bringing Whitechapel into it. We're a separate group, right? There's no reason to mention WC; the story fits together just as well without them.

PostPosted: Tue Feb 05, 2008 5:48 am
badaim68
Jade's thoughts on QS
Sent the QS email trail to Jade for his view:


Quote:
42. Wink

Hey there, Let's see;

1st thought: self important twit.

2nd thought: interesting choice of words, on many more than one occasion. A very close reading with an eye, or an ear, to the lingo causes me to revise my 1st thought to read "self important FOP!" "Odds fish", what a card. Tell him to give my regards to Anthony Andrews. Very Happy

3rd thought: last time I heard someone use that vocabulary in something close to that tone he was in the midst of not being at all what he seemed (see 2nd thought, I'm sure you get my meaning). Any chance that this cat is slipping you a Mickey?

On further reflection, I'm sure I'm reading too much into it. Probably just a theatrical sort. But it wouldn't surprise me if he is serious about the barter or the quid pro quo or whatever you want to call it, also the secrecy. I'll put a fiver on his name not being anything close to anything you've heard. These people and their secrets, for cryin' out load. You got anything you can trade?

More soon,
Jade


The "42" refers to the fact i asked for his thoughts "on the emails, not just your internal musings on the Universe!"

For those of you who may not know Anthony Andrews is an English actor who tended to be typecast in foppish roles (I.e Brideshead Revisited)

PostPosted: Tue Feb 05, 2008 4:06 am
Rogi Ocnorb
"48 degrees"?

In the first three pages of google results, the only likely possibility I see is:
A google books excerpt of
"The Sealed Book Of Daniel Opened Or A Book Of Reference For Those Who Wish to Examine the Sure Word of Prophecy"

Ain't that just a mouthful?

ETA: The book's introduction ends on page 47.
There's an interesting graphic in the first section as well.

PostPosted: Tue Feb 05, 2008 3:05 am
petunia
blog post from Ethan
Quote:
My Google mojo…
Posted on February 4, 2008 by ethangrant

…done fell out of the canoe. Or whatever it is they paddle around in down on the bayou.

That only makes slightly less sense than it probably should, so perhaps I'm feeling better. Amend that. I am definitely feeling better. Best I've felt in over a week. Pretty much back to, if not tip top, at least fair to middling. I'll avoid going on about just how bad it was, because there is only one thing more boring that trying to tell other people about your dreams and that is telling them about how sick you were (or worse, how sick you still are).

Unfortunately, I was so sick that I wasn't even able to turn my bed-riddenness to something useful like thinking about my personal caseload or thinking about the Open Cases. As I was feeling better over the weekend though, I got the super bright idea of pointing the old Google at MSG4 and seeing what turned up. Heck, I figured, I'd had good luck with this hack before and I was probably still a little loopy so what the hey. I put in "duke" "manchester" and "confusion" (the rest of the words seemed too common to matter) and all I got back for the 1st five was music, taverns, and trivia related to possibly one of the real Dukes.

Oh well, maybe something else will hit my post-fever-addled brain. Hope all y'all are doing well. Let me know if you have any cool thoughts. I'll do the same (but I can't promise they'll be less than 48 degrees…).

PostPosted: Tue Feb 05, 2008 2:17 am
Sylvia
badaim wrote:
I'm tempted to come clean about everything (about Philly and Smoke anyway) but unsure as to how much to divulge re WC (if any). We don't have any other tidbits that he'd find useful anyway.

Here my suggestion, We backtrack. Tell him something like this, "we were on a stake out out and about, don't ask that's a tale for another day, but we saw a guy walking up to the (location goes here) a very bright light went off and he fell over, then an SUV pulled up but because of the bright light we're unsure about what happened to the guy. Afterwards, while investigating the site we found a matchbook that had Petra's email on it. Sylvia hit it off well with Petra right away and Petra told us about Philly contacting Smoke. (Tell him as much as you feel comfortable doing so here) From that, we figured out how to contact Smoke and the key to getting her to answer our questions. We asked about you because Petra mentioned to Sylvia that you were a friend of Philly's and that you were a nice guy, etc., etc...." If necessary we will bring up Whitechapel at a later date. One step at a time.

Next, what are we looking to gain from QS? Because once you come clean with him you need to start grilling him for the answers we need. Not all at once, though. Give and take evenly. Make it last.

Our mysteries:
1. What exactly did happen in St. Pete.
2. Where is or What has happened to Philly
3. Spearmint and Reality Now
4. Brighton Early
5. Open Cases 0702 and 0701
6. Just who the heck is Whitecapel anyways?

I think you get the jest of if. It's all yours badaim. Your doing a great job. Don't stop now.

edit: to clarify the stake out junk.

PostPosted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 8:00 pm
Page 13 of 64 [947 Posts]   Goto page: Previous 1, 2, 3, ..., 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, ..., 62, 63, 64  Next
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group