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 Forum index » Archive » Archive: Ephemeral » ARG: Eldritch Errors
Themagician
Moderators: aliendial, celina63, konamouse, rose, thebruce
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danteIL
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Joined: 08 May 2006
Posts: 1990

Themagician
closer or farther away?

Bryce has been posting some interesting messages recently. Compiled here for your reading pleasure:

Quote:
Magic's always been a big part of my life.

When I was a kid, I had a favorite uncle. He was a stage magician and he captured my imagination. I was completely entranced by him and everything he did.

I remember when I was six, he made me take the Magician's Oath and taught me a few tricks. What I ended up learning was just how technical magic actually is and how connected that was to practice. Anything worth doing, anything you want to look magical, you have to practice over and over before you can let the audience consume it. Scary to think of how many times I convinced myself that practicing would save me from a problem.

Not everything is as under your control as a magic trick.

I think that's why I keep re-reading that strange letter from B.

Over and over again.

The accusations that I do nothing are getting to me more lately.


Quote:
Um...the LA one strikes a bit home for me. WTF is going on?

And by the way...

I really don't know what to think about Stu's newest blog post.

Makes me sound like an obsolete bumbler and our serious prediciment as a tabloid-scandal to be. Guess who stars in it? Not me, even though I'm the one looking through these sniffer logs and crap.

Marie, do you think you could do a more professional description of what's been going on for our site? Meanwhile, I'm starting to develop a theory. On my own!! Without Stu telling me what to think. The horror! *groan*


Quote:
It may be that I have too much Mountain Dew in me. I just can't sleep. I keep staring into the screen at that LA posting. It is getting me to thinking about things I haven't thought about in a really long time. The dead birds are really something.

Um... see, my uncle used to raise doves. He must of kept 30 of them at once. That is really the one thing I really remember about his garage where he worked... the cooing of doves.

What I couldn't ever figure out as a kid was why he had so many of those birds if he only used a couple in his act. Why did he need so many?

About the same time I stopped believing in Santa Clause I also realized something about my uncle. So one day I asked him, "It seems like even with all the eggs that hatch you always seem to have the same number of birds."

"Not all of the birds make it home from the show," he said to me and that was all I had to hear. I don't think my relatiionship with my uncle was ever quite as close after that. Once I realized the horrible things he would do just to make the crowd applaud with giddy delight.

It is no wonder grifters and three-card Monte dealers use the same tricks as magicians.

And I know that this is from staring at the screen for too long thinking about that stupid Craigs List but that is not going to be.

I'm not going to spend the rest of my life rehearsing for something anymore.


Quote:

StuR wrote:
Bryce, thanks for the deluge of emails - they were a little rude, though. And weird. And the phone calls! I'm impressed you figured out my phone number here at work, but dude. That's ... you know ... creepy. And the messages on the company voice mail were, like, creepiER. Maybe you could work on weening yourself off the caffeine drip + code crunches and catch some sleep once in a while instead of staying up all night, panting into the receiver.



Your welcome. At least, I know how to answer a phone when somebody is calling with advice. Whatever. I'm not going to let myself be destracted by a little kid that doesn't know the difference between a port scan and a full syn attack. It is no wonder they are sending jobs outside of the country if you represent the people they have to hire from.

But, like I said, I'm not going to be destracted by you anymore. I don't mean to offend. I'm really on to something here and you really do not help me at all. I can see that we are on the edge of a big discovery. Something that will open a whole layer of the signal we haven't been looking at.

Xé:3a MEANS something. It isn't a random key.

There's just so many variables to it that a kid like you wouldn't know what to do with. I've drawn and redrawn it on my whiteboard in the office a dozen times just trying to make everything fit. I lied earlier and said that I was redesigning the new data center cage.

Maybe you could be of some help. I'm about out of Mountain Dew. Make yourself useful and bring me some more.


Quote:
There's something so close that I can taste it.

The whiteboard is getting organized. It looks like a CAD design. There are starcharts and moon phases and more strange Arabic. What it means, I don't know. But I will know. No matter what.

The whole MUD engine is some kind of bridge between the socket handling on strange port numbers. The missing chunks that must have been cleaned up by Dreamhost are starting to fit more obviously in the blank spaces across damaged file surfaces that other things HAVE to connect to. If I had a tcpdump of whatever those sockets were streaming during "occultation" I'm convinced it would just open up and reveal to me all of its secrets. Open sesame.

I'm going to use the eraser one more time and try to sketch this out from a different perspective.

I am close. So close.

I can feel it.


Quote:
So I'm rethinking this whole dead bird thing. It is symbolic!

It is the key to unlocking something!

It ends up, the oldest recorded magic isn't the grifter's trick of the cups and balls after all.

They don't have to stay dead!

Dedi had it right in 2700 BC.

Who knows, maybe my uncle didn't leave the dead doves that way for long either. Maybe he brought them back and set them free!


So either Bryce has failed his Sanity check, or he is indeed trying to lead us somewhere. Thoughts?

PostPosted: Sat May 26, 2007 10:42 am
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enaxor
I Have No Life

Joined: 25 Feb 2003
Posts: 2395

TheMagician wrote:
Dedi had it right in 2700 BC.


I remember reading about Dedi. *ETA I read about Dedi and the cup and balls trick in David Blaine's book, "Mysterious Stranger".

Quote:
The Egyptian magician Dedi (fl. about 2700 bc) gave a performance in which he decapitated two birds and an ox and then restored their heads.


but what does he mean Question
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PostPosted: Sat May 26, 2007 11:06 am
Last edited by enaxor on Sat May 26, 2007 11:51 am; edited 2 times in total
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cissmiace
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Joined: 24 Mar 2007
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Hmm, what could it possibley unlock? Aside from resurecting ducks, and ox's, he refused to do the same trick with criminals. He also prophecised Kings.

Is Themagician hinting that the birds were never killed by his uncle and it was all part of 'the trick'? And that his uncle simply released them? Or has he really lost the plot and is saying his Uncle could really resurect things.

Ive been reading his posts, he sounds like he himself is slipping into some madness.
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PostPosted: Sat May 26, 2007 11:38 am
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konamouseModerator
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Shocked We're not part of trying to resurrect the 'dead' people from that caving accident, are we?????
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PostPosted: Sat May 26, 2007 2:11 pm
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danteIL
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Joined: 08 May 2006
Posts: 1990

It doesn't look good for Bryce:

HPHack wrote:
Bryce, haven't seen you up on Skype or IM all day and you stopped responding to my emails. Hopefully you're just finally sleeping. I didn't understand what you were trying to explain to me last night, man. You actually kind of worried me a little bit, you seemed so intensely frustrated that I wasn't getting it.


Mkaos wrote:
Have you heard from him since you wrote this?

I left an email a couple hours ago and nothing. I just tried calling and he didn't pick up. Hopefully he just went outside for some vitamin d but I must admit that I'm a bit worried after reading the LA craigslist post

Silly thoughts that I'll feel foolish about tomorrow, I'm sure.


http://losangeles.craigslist.org/lgb/mis/338638825.html

PostPosted: Sat May 26, 2007 6:28 pm
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cissmiace
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HPHack still hasnt heard from him, and In the MUD we had a convo with mkaos, who emailed him, and tried to call him. However there was no answer Shocked

Edit: I'd really like to know what he said to Howard last night. It seemed to unnerved him quite a bit.
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PostPosted: Sat May 26, 2007 7:36 pm
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WolfHawk
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Joined: 15 Nov 2006
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Ok I think I'm confused again. Big surprise.

In the MUD when I look around and see all the people are they actually connected at that point? Because if so, themagician is in the void portal where we all seem to end up right now.

Does that mean his computer is connected right now?
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PostPosted: Sun May 27, 2007 1:58 am
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Rasputin42x69
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WolfHawk wrote:
Ok I think I'm confused again. Big surprise.

In the MUD when I look around and see all the people are they actually connected at that point? Because if so, themagician is in the void portal where we all seem to end up right now.

Does that mean his computer is connected right now?

Nope, that just means that that's where his "player object" is. Typing "who" will show you who's actually connected.

Poor Bryce... I've a bad feeling about this...
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PostPosted: Sun May 27, 2007 2:39 am
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WolfHawk
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Meaning that's where he was when he logged off?

Thanks!
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PostPosted: Sun May 27, 2007 2:58 am
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sinyx
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Location: Brooklyn, NY

Mkaos as of Sun May 27, 2007 7:45 am wrote:
I have an update. Bryce is ok but he's had a bit of a breakdown and he's in a little bit of trouble. I just had a visit by the police that I'm not sure what to make of. They're making it sound really bad, but I'm sure it's just to prepare me for the worst.

Details are slim. I'm still not certain as to why they contacted me. They said something about a message in his office to warn me, I don't know. And they came to me to find out if I was ok, what I knew of the situation, and if I had contact information for someone in his family. (I don't. Do you Howard? Jen?)

I've decided to head down there until we can find his family. If they beat me there, that's fine. I just don't want him going through this alone. When I told them that I would go down there, they seemed shocked and a bit worried for my safety. That's when the vibe became very negative. I don't know if it was to persuade me to not go. I just don't know. But they said that I wouldn't want to go into his apartment and, apparently, when they found him (outside his place?) he was covered in blood - most of it not his and some of it might not be human. It all just sounds awful. Sad

That's everything that I've mentally processed at this point, I don't know if they told me more. As soon as I know anything else, I'll spread the word somehow. If you're inclined to pray or send vibes, please direct some good positive energy towards him. I think he really needs it. Crying or Very sad

I'm going to try and catch the 6:30 direct, I know that I'm not going to make it (especially if the shuttle doesn't get here soon I should have done a cab I don't know what I was thinking), but I'm going to try. Wish me luck and keep Bryce in your thoughts. Please. Crying or Very sad


Shocked

This is BAD for Bryce. Right now it's looking like BA's last LA post was more than a dream. Is the barrier between BA's 'dreamworld' and our reality breaking down? I wonder what exactly happened. Did Bryce go completely nuts or was he defending himself against something? BA's dream person sounds like a frenzied madman.

Bryce last posts said that he 'was close'. That he could 'feel it'. Did he figure out the meaning behind 'Xé:3a'? Did he unleash something that he had to kill? He was covered in blood; most not his and some not human.

PostPosted: Sun May 27, 2007 9:57 am
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cissmiace
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I kinda got the impression he might of been trying to resurect things Shocked maybe doves?
He talks about the Doves from his childhood, and also the Doves in BA post.
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PostPosted: Sun May 27, 2007 10:53 am
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enaxor
I Have No Life

Joined: 25 Feb 2003
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So Marie has reported in over at SO. Apparently Bryce is really bad. I'm pasting one part of her post here, it looks like Bryce found something.

Mkaos wrote:
couldn't even walk into the kitchen. The living room was better, but not much. His office was the worst. If I hadn't wanted to look for information on his family or find some of his music CDs, I wouldn't have gone in there either. There must have been 20 birds in there alone. Feathers were stuck to everything. The keyboard was still sticky. His monitor was covered with bloody fingerprints. It was just awful. (Dante, I never even thought to take a picture of anything. All that I remember seeing on the whiteboard was /backups/121606 = boil and a big WARN MARIE! - I tried the directory on his computer and on the website but there's nothing there. So I don't know what it was about )


bold is mine
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PostPosted: Sun May 27, 2007 9:46 pm
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konamouseModerator
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going back to that boil.c thing?
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PostPosted: Sun May 27, 2007 9:53 pm
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enaxor
I Have No Life

Joined: 25 Feb 2003
Posts: 2395

enaxor wrote:
So Marie has reported in over at SO. Apparently Bryce is really bad. I'm pasting one part of her post here, it looks like Bryce found something.

Mkaos wrote:
couldn't even walk into the kitchen. The living room was better, but not much. His office was the worst. If I hadn't wanted to look for information on his family or find some of his music CDs, I wouldn't have gone in there either. There must have been 20 birds in there alone. Feathers were stuck to everything. The keyboard was still sticky. His monitor was covered with bloody fingerprints. It was just awful. (Dante, I never even thought to take a picture of anything. All that I remember seeing on the whiteboard was /backups/121606 = boil and a big WARN MARIE! - I tried the directory on his computer and on the website but there's nothing there. So I don't know what it was about )


bold is mine


Thanks to Mapmaker, who figured out the correct url, www.ronomi.com/backup/121606 which led to a password protected page, from there I got in using un=boil pw=Xé:3a

ETA

Oblation file:

Quote:
I am Spukhafte Fernwirkung. I invoke the Pact of Chorazos. I bind it to this
work that I have done for You, Yog-Sothoth. I bind the three names together
with this seal of oblation.

Yog-Sothoth! You know the gate. You are the gate. You are the key and
guardian of the gate. Yog-Sothoth! I prepare the way. I place the keystone
glyph in the arch. I pave the path for Your supplicants. Yog-Sothoth! Bless
the work of the hands of Your servants. Remember what we have done for You.

This altar has been prepared, and this oblation placed upon it, so that all
may know it is consecrated it to You. Receive this sacrifice, prepared for
You like a trussed drove. Let the blood upon this altar draw Your
supplicants to You from all corners of the wilderness. Let this altar
prepare Your supplicants for prayer under the strange moon of shattered
local realism.

Yog-Sothoth, remember us! We toil ceaselessly to be worthy, to be counted
among the least of Your servants. Yog-Sothoth, remember us! We prepare these
nurseries in Your name. Yog-Sothoth, remember us! Open for us the gates of
entropy when we whisper Your name and ours in the dead of night. Find favor
for us.


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PostPosted: Sun May 27, 2007 11:27 pm
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danteIL
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Joined: 08 May 2006
Posts: 1990

Nicely done!! good job figuring this out...

So some comments:

Spukhafte Fernwirkung, or "spooky action at a distance," comes from Einsteinian quantum mechanics. I think that this finally provides some possible directions when trying to understand what is going on with B.A.'s dreamworld. Another word for "spukhafte Fernwirkung" is 'entanglement," which, if you'll recall, was our friend Exu's favorite word for describing the state of the past, present, and future being intermixed in B.A.'s dreams. The term comes from Quantum entanglement.
So perhaps we should start thinking of B.A.'s dreams in quantum mechanical terms:
"Quantum entanglement is a quantum mechanical phenomenon in which the quantum states of two or more objects have to be described with reference to each other, even though the individual objects may be spatially separated. This leads to correlations between observable physical properties of the systems."

This also connects to the part about "shattered local realism." The Principle of locality refers to the idea that distant objects cannot influence one another. So, 'shattered' local realism clearly suggests a situation where this isn't true.

Other questions:
What are the 'three names' that are used to bind the oblation?
What is the 'keystone glyph'?
What is a 'trussed drove,' or should that be a 'trussed dove'?
What are the 'nurseries'?
Why does Marie need to be warned about this? Is SO in trouble?

PostPosted: Mon May 28, 2007 12:57 am
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