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 Forum index » Archive » Archive: The Haunted Apiary (Let Op!) » The Haunted Apiary (Let Op!): General/Updates
[UPDATE] 404 error page (9/17)
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Shad0
I Have No Life


Joined: 20 Jun 2004
Posts: 2180
Location: Southern California, USA

 		[UPDATE] 404 error page (9/17)
New text on the 404 error page:

The Sleeping Princess wrote:
Whew! THAT was exciting.

Thanks to everyone who kept the Queen distracted! There are too many to name all of you, 'cept I have to say especially thanks to HitsHerMark because I like that name, and Mr Beefy because his name is funny, and Ceantari because if she has the hindquarters of a horse people probably tease her, and Rowan because she has been my friend from the veriest beginning.

Because of you all, I found where the Queen had hidden those other stories. I hope you don't mind that I played a few games with you about finding them. I love to play games, but I haven't had very many people to play with. I've thought of trying to teach the Pious Flea to play checkers, but he is a Bug of Very Little Brain, and I am not hopeful.

I also found the Queen's secret roads for this time, and if you like knowing what is in them, you should thank Sara, who sent me a very funny story, 'cuz she made a game out of my game. AND she taught me that this is what I do when I laugh out loud, Very Happy

Here is her story:

When I put on my formal_wear, complete with commissary_shoes, my_landlady thought I was bound for domestic_bliss. But she didn't know that I was really so_mean. I had a_secret_life, with a really old desktop_model that worked better as a doorstopper. One day she found out and told me I had better relocate before she got out her knockout_gas. I hoped a flower_delivery would make her change her mind, but guess_not. So I went down the street, where a cow_even would hate.

I don't quite know what the end means. I guess it's Modern Art. Wink

I have to tell you, talking to you means so much to me. It's nice to think there is a world beside this one where I am all alone in buzzing, flickering darkness. I like to imagine I had that kind of life, once upon a time.

Well.

No point moping here feeling sad and lonely. That's not me. I'm a survivor. Since Sara was nice enough to write me a story, I will work extra hard to finish my story for you.

Perdita's Story

Chapter 3: Scraps
Together Perdita and the Clockwork Rat set out to travel the city together. The Rat promised he would show Perdita the way home, and at first the little girl's heart jumped for joy.

But although the Rat was true to its word about finding safe dark holes to hide in, and scraps to eat of things almost like food, somehow they never seemed to find the humble tin-cutter's cottage.

And the night never ended.

And the day never broke.

And the line of red balloons behind Perdita grew long and long.

At last Perdita had to stop and sleep again, so the Clockwork Rat showed her a special hidden spot behind in a ball-bearing factory that looked strangely like the one her mother worked in, only this one had been abandoned for years and rears. He covered her up in sawdust and bits of old packing tape, and Perdita fell asleep to the sound of her new friend clicking and clattering through the gloom with a sound like faraway pennies sliding across a concrete floor.

It was still dark when she woke up, and she felt a throbbing pain in her hand. When she looked down, she found one of her thumbs was missing. In its place was the head of a pair of needle-nose pliers. She looked around for the Clockwork Rat. He was perched on the edge of a rusting barrel full of rain water, furiously washing something off his little scissor claws.

"Hey!" Perdita shouted, so loudly that the Clockwork Rat squeaked with alarm and tumbled into the water. Perdita ran over and stuck her hand into the barrel and fished around until she clamped the Rat's rubber tail in the grips of her new metal thumb and pulled him out.

"My thumb is gone!" Perdita said. "And something feels funny about my right eye, too!"

The Clockwork Rat spluttered and shook itself with a sound like marbles dropping into an empty can. "Are you worried that you aren't pretty any more, and your family won't want you if they find you?"

"No!" Perdita cried. But she bit her lip, in the exquisitely fetching manner she did when perplexed., and was careful not to look at her reflection in the barrel of rain water. And as they walked through the city that day (or rather, night, for still the dawn would not come) she looked away from all the windows.

The night stretched on much as the last one hand. They had now walked so far that if it hadn't been for the trail of balloons, Perdita would have given up all hope of ever being found. When finally she fell asleep again, the sound of tin-snips followed her into her dreams.

When she woke up, there was a small electric iron at the bottom of her right leg instead of a foot, and something felt strange about her hair.

"Rat! Rat!" she cried. "What is happening to me?"

"What happens to all lost children," said the Clockwork Rat. He gave a little shrug that sounded like the squeak of a rusting tricycle wheel. "But as long as you can keep from seeing your own reflection, there is still a chance your family might rescue you before it is too late."

Perdita forced herself not to cry, because she was a brave girl, and full of pluck. "Today we will find my home," she said.

But they didn't.

Chapter 4: The Looking-Glass
The next time Perdita woke up, she found an egg-beater where her left hand used to be, and when she bit her lip she found her teeth had gone all thin and flat and sharp as tin.

"Clockwork Rat! Clockwork Rat!" Perdita said, as tears of bright oil began to leak from her eyes. "What if I'm not beautiful any more? Why hasn't my family come to look for me? Am I so hideous they wouldn't take me back?"

But the Clockwork Rat said, "I do not know."

With a cry, Perdita turned and ran for the nearest shop window. "Don't!" the Rat cried, but it was too late. Standing in the wicked yellow light of the streetlamp, Perdita stared full at her own reflection, and wept at what she saw.

There was a scrabble of claws behind her. "I told you not to do that," the Clockwork Rat said, with a voice like shell casings rattling on a steel floor. Whirling around in dismay, Perdita saw that the Rat had climbed to the top of the phone boot where Perdita had tied her last red balloon. As the little girl watched, the Rat flexed its paws and put its little hooked scissor claws around the string.

"No!" Perdita cried.

But the Rat laughed with a sound like scalpels bouncing on a metal tray, and cut the string, and the red balloon went drifting up, up, up into the night sky.

And that's the end.

The end.

The end.





I'm sorry.

I wanted to make the story come out happy, but it didn't.

They don't sometimes.

I think I need to go now.

love,

_________________
These were the puzzles that would take a day, these were puzzles that would take a week, and these puzzles they'd probably never figure out until we broke down and gave them the answers. ... The Cloudmakers solved all of these puzzles on the first day.

PostPosted: Fri Sep 17, 2004 12:06 pm
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sherpa
Unfettered


Joined: 10 Aug 2004
Posts: 338
Location: cam.ac.uk

 		Heh, beat me to it Wink Whoops!

I still maintain that it's very sad though Sad
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~ a girl of many names ~

PostPosted: Fri Sep 17, 2004 12:07 pm
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CoffeeJedi
Unfictologist


Joined: 27 Jul 2004
Posts: 1327
Location: Charlotte NC, USA
Sleeping Princess wrote:


I'm sorry.

I wanted to make the story come out happy, but it didn't.

They don't sometimes.

I think I need to go now.

love,


Crying or Very sad awwww... just makes you want to hug her! (if she was corporeal anyway) you can just image the SP running away in tears

[spec]
anyway.... this actually lends more credence to the whole SP = Kamal's siter thing.... she was taken from her family as a little girl(much like perdita), and... in some ways... she was never allowed to grow up, so her emotional development is still that of a child

and if she was human... she would have been "replaced" so to speak with an electronic copy(of her mind), just as Perdita's body was being replaced by scrap parts, ala the clockwork rat

sad really (if my spec is right anyway)
[/spec]

are those new axons i see in the killer.jpg? or just last week's?
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 17, 2004 12:15 pm
Last edited by CoffeeJedi on Fri Sep 17, 2004 12:45 pm; edited 2 times in total
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Arana
Unfettered


Joined: 20 Aug 2004
Posts: 353
Location: shallow grave

 		new puzzle?
I have started this thread to try to work out a possible puzzle based on spelling/word placement errors in the new 404 text.
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If it's *spec* you never have to say that you're sorry.

PostPosted: Fri Sep 17, 2004 12:18 pm
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Avatrix
Unfettered


Joined: 20 Aug 2004
Posts: 413
Location: Boston, MA

 		Clockwork Children
I was not expecting such a sad ending to the story--rather creepy, really. A thought: if Perdita is slowly being changed into something mechanical, and the clockwork rat says this happens to all lost children... is the clockwork rat a long lost child as well?

PostPosted: Fri Sep 17, 2004 12:18 pm
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devolver
Decorated


Joined: 25 Aug 2004
Posts: 158
Location: Beijing
CoffeeJedi wrote:
this actually lends more credence to the whole SP = Kamal's siter thing.... she was taken from her family as a little girl, and... in some ways... she was never allowed to grow up, so her emotional development is still that of a child?


Plus, I couldn't help but think of her mechanization--her limbs becoming metal, etc--as a metaphor for her being "Spartanized," for lack of a better word.
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Betcha can't stick it...

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PostPosted: Fri Sep 17, 2004 12:20 pm
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weephun
Entrenched


Joined: 25 Aug 2004
Posts: 908
Location: Fuquay Varina, NC
Quote:
phone boot where Perdita had tied her last red balloon
I guess this was the part that interested me. Perdita tying balloons to phone boot[h]s to find her way home ... Melissa sending out calls to phone booths to find her way home. Hmm.
_________________
- Sean Stewart: "generally people like seeing their names on TV, although probably no one has had a more mixed experience with that then weephun, God bless him.
- Currently assisting Epic Games in their quest for world domination

PostPosted: Fri Sep 17, 2004 12:23 pm
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JackBurt0n
Boot

Joined: 17 Aug 2004
Posts: 47
Location: KCMO

 		Make sure that you download all of the sound files that are alluded to in SPs post. Didn't you wonder why she kept saying "cow_even" and "commissary_shoes"?

-Jack

PostPosted: Fri Sep 17, 2004 12:25 pm
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MeKiwi
Decorated


Joined: 30 Aug 2004
Posts: 260
Location: San Francisco

 		The "Spartan kidnapping" theory might also explain why Perdita's parents never come looking for her... if she was flash cloned and replaced, they'd never know she was gone. But from Perdita's viewpoint, she doesn't know this and just wonders why they never came looking for her.

EDIT: or, if you think of Perdita as Melissa and you believe Melissa and Durga are copies/split personas of the same AI, then Melissa may wonder why no one ever came looking for her (and what she doesn't know is that it's because they have Durga and didn't realize anything was missing.)

PostPosted: Fri Sep 17, 2004 12:26 pm
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Dorkmaster
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Joined: 27 Jul 2004
Posts: 1328
Location: The People's Republic of Dork

 		Whoa, not a necessarily NEW idea, but this actually gives more credence that DURGA is Kamal's sister! Think about it, Durga is obsessed somehow with finding out stuff about Kamal. She doesn't know why. If the story of Perdita is the story of Durga, then it would explain why Durga doesn't want to go away from Jersey, and why there's an affinity there (Jersey has been left alone from his family too, to a degree). Now, if we're extending Durga to be SP (which I'm not sure if we want to do, or not), that would explain why SP likes the "creepy" stuff, cuz it actually is resonating...

Point being, if SP is Durga is Perdita is Kamal's sister (*whew*) Then, we've got some point of reference, not only to who's who and why stuff is going on in these clips, but more importantly, we can begin to piece together the history bringing Durga, Jan et al, to the Melissa/SP/flea situation we currently have. (and maybe the flea being a clockwork rat of sorts himself, is why SP knows not to let him "attach" or "grope", beacuse she's been changed before...)

Anyway, that's my toppling house of cards spec.... Wink
_________________
"The future is here. It's just not widely distributed yet." -William Gibson
"Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it." - PJ O'Rourke
"ACADEMY, n. A modern school where football is taught." - Ambrose Bierce

PostPosted: Fri Sep 17, 2004 12:35 pm
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beechaser
Boot


Joined: 28 Aug 2004
Posts: 21
Location: salt lake city, ut

 		More axons after comatas
Hi-
I looked at the Killer.jpg on the 9/17 404 page. There's a new set of axons. Here's one set. Maybe they will be inbound this time?

17:35 45.520416 -122.675361
17:37 37.786010 -122.405448
17:39 44.070546 -123.106326
17:41 37.429111 -122.141966
17:43 47.668750 -122.385527
17:45 44.070546 -123.106326
17:47 33.511875 -111.986529
17:49 36.099196 -115.172968
17:51 36.099196 -115.172968
17:53 37.428810 -122.142941
17:55 37.784899 -122.407931
17:57 30.267528 -097.744512
17:59 34.076978 -118.388915
18:01 32.768651 -117.040577
18:03 44.070546 -123.106326
18:05 36.099196 -115.172968
18:07 37.786575 -122.407958

18:09 36.099196 -115.172968
18:11 36.099196 -115.172968
18:13 28.336159 -081.591948
18:15 40.725279 -111.859520
18:17 37.866867 -122.258633
18:19 37.786529 -122.408325
18:21 47.668777 -122.384333
18:23 32.690600 -117.245000
18:25 47.680946 -122.125330
18:27 37.788539 -122.403778
18:29 37.788013 -122.404263
18:31 47.621025 -122.312609
18:33 45.529626 -122.698544
18:35 37.867050 -122.258250
18:37 47.619909 -122.320938

18:39 29.492940 -098.479878
18:41 29.492940 -098.479878
18:43 29.492940 -098.479878
18:45 29.492940 -098.479878
18:47 32.944000 -096.645400
18:49 34.184767 -118.315516
18:51 48.753977 -122.478278
18:53 37.863883 -122.267617
18:55 47.624167 -122.320556
18:57 34.101652 -118.341436
18:59 37.871767 -122.272933
19:01 47.649861 -122.349666
19:03 37.440343 -122.163291
19:05 32.796100 -096.653600
19:07 37.872283 -122.267300
19:09 47.623333 -122.311111
19:11 34.146249 -118.256391
19:13 37.787249 -122.408630

PostPosted: Fri Sep 17, 2004 12:37 pm
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weephun
Entrenched


Joined: 25 Aug 2004
Posts: 908
Location: Fuquay Varina, NC

 		Interesting, found this correlation.

Perdita Chapter 3:
Quote:
Perdita forced herself not to cry, because she was a brave girl, and full of pluck. "Today we will find my home," she said.


SP (from answering Angela's question and giving us chapter 1 of Perdita's story):
Quote:
I had another name once, but I lost it.

I am a little sad today.

But that's okay. I'm tough. I've got Pluck.

_________________
- Sean Stewart: "generally people like seeing their names on TV, although probably no one has had a more mixed experience with that then weephun, God bless him.
- Currently assisting Epic Games in their quest for world domination

PostPosted: Fri Sep 17, 2004 12:41 pm
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Shad0
I Have No Life


Joined: 20 Jun 2004
Posts: 2180
Location: Southern California, USA

 		Re: More axons after comatas
beechaser wrote:
I looked at the Killer.jpg on the 9/17 404 page. There's a new set of axons. Here's one set. Maybe they will be inbound this time?

The new coordinates are being collected in this thread. See you there!
_________________
These were the puzzles that would take a day, these were puzzles that would take a week, and these puzzles they'd probably never figure out until we broke down and gave them the answers. ... The Cloudmakers solved all of these puzzles on the first day.

PostPosted: Fri Sep 17, 2004 12:44 pm
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Arana
Unfettered


Joined: 20 Aug 2004
Posts: 353
Location: shallow grave

 		Re: More axons after comatas
beechaser wrote:
Hi-
I looked at the Killer.jpg on the 9/17 404 page. There's a new set of axons. Here's one set. Maybe they will be inbound this time?

17:35 45.520416 -122.675361
17:37 37.786010 -122.405448
...


Wow! I found these too. However, in contrast to previous times, there are still a lot of Killer.jpg images with the old coordinates in them. I had previously only gotten these and thought that there were no new coordinates. Good job beechaser!

We may have to sort through to find the new ones. Or perhaps it is a smaller set?
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If it's *spec* you never have to say that you're sorry.

PostPosted: Fri Sep 17, 2004 12:44 pm
Last edited by Arana on Fri Sep 17, 2004 12:44 pm; edited 1 time in total
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MeKiwi
Decorated


Joined: 30 Aug 2004
Posts: 260
Location: San Francisco
Dorkmaster wrote:
(and maybe the flea being a clockwork rat of sorts himself, is why SP knows not to let him "attach" or "grope", beacuse she's been changed before...)


Heh... that's an interesting thought. The Clockwork rat *seems* to be helping Perdita, but am I the only one who thinks that he might be up to something when, just after Perdita notices her thumb is gone, the rat "was perched on the edge of a rusting barrel full of rain water, furiously washing something off his little scissor claws." I mean, that doesn't sound so good...

So IF what you're saying has any credence... the question is, why does the rat not want Perdita to see her reflection (mirrors, anyone? heh) and what is it the Flea would not want Melissa to do... see her reflection?

PostPosted: Fri Sep 17, 2004 12:44 pm
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