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 Forum index » Archive » Archive: General » ARG: Project Gateway
[PUZZLE-SOLVED] smoke and mirrors
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Randomeis
Unfettered


Joined: 25 Aug 2004
Posts: 426
Location: AL

 		[PUZZLE-SOLVED] smoke and mirrors
http://www.infocyclone.org/ashthrower.htm

was found earlier today that gave us the search term smoke and mirrors

which gives us the link

http://www.infocyclone.org/images/smokeandmirrors2.htm#

<!-- fwtable fwsrc="C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My Documents\My Web Sites\mysite\images\smokeandmirrors.png" fwbase="smokeandmirrors2.jpg" fwstyle="FrontPage" fwdocid = "742308039" fwnested=""0" -->
</a>

smokeandmirrors.jpg
smokeandmirrors_f2.jpg
smokeandmirrors2.jpg
smokeandmirrors2_f2.jpg
smokeandmirrors.png

the F2 images contain reversed pictures of keys

have marked as Solved and unstickied for now.. hope this isn't too preemptive Smile -seq EDIT - this time it's *definitely* solved, right? Very Happy

PostPosted: Wed Oct 20, 2004 1:41 am
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sequoya
Unfettered


Joined: 27 Jul 2004
Posts: 548
Location: Land of haggis, kilts, neds and Irn-Bru

 		Re: [Puzzle] smoke and mirrors
Randomeis wrote:
http://www.infocyclone.org/ashthrower.htm

was found earlier today that gave us the search term smoke and mirrors



Great find guys, but can someone explain to me exactly how we got from ashthrower to smoke and mirrors?

Was it just a guess down to the fact that AshThrower's element is smoke?

([META]Can we make sure that our puzzles and the steps to their solves are sufficiently detailed so that others can follow please?[/META])

As for the puzzle itself, the text on the key looks pretty much unreadable by zooming in, so I don't think there's any clues to the content of the key in the picture as such... hmm..
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--seq

PostPosted: Wed Oct 20, 2004 4:42 am
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treebiter99
Veteran

Joined: 25 Sep 2004
Posts: 128
Location: Pittsburgh, PA

 		Good News: The .png is a Macromedia Fireworks file.

Bad News: The key is still part of the background image and is not a vector image as I had hoped. If it was a vector image, I could have zoomed in and read the text without problem.

PostPosted: Wed Oct 20, 2004 7:58 am
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treebiter99
Veteran

Joined: 25 Sep 2004
Posts: 128
Location: Pittsburgh, PA

 		It appears as if the Search Utility at Info Cyclone is our newest tool in unlocking the cells.

The search can reveal pages not linked to from the main page, and also includes a handy "Last Modified" column to look for changed pages.

For example, Searching for "Shaw" displays a list of all pages on Info Cyclone with the word "Shaw" on them, currently 17 in all. This is the method that led us to the Ash Thrower page

How Ash Thrower leads to Smoke And Mirrors
Spoiler (Rollover to View):

The main page of InfoCyclone tells us that "deception.cc32" has been started.

The Ash Thrower Page contains the following text:
"IT"S A TRICK! NOTHING BUT A "LINK & TITLE" WITH A SEARCH!"

The Link is for gravityoflove.mp3, which contains the lyrics:
"Here's the mirror, behind there is a screen."

Also, that song is from an album titled "Screen behind the Mirror."

That combined led someone to think of "Smoke And Mirrors" as a deception.

Searching for Smoke or Mirror brings us to the Smoke & Mirrors page


PostPosted: Wed Oct 20, 2004 10:58 am
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treebiter99
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Joined: 25 Sep 2004
Posts: 128
Location: Pittsburgh, PA

 		smokeandmirrors.jpg is identical to smokeandmirrors2.jpg

smokeandmirrors_f2.jpg is identical to smokeandmirrors2_f2.jpg

...for now. it may change later.

PostPosted: Wed Oct 20, 2004 11:08 am
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Macavity
Entrenched


Joined: 25 Jul 2004
Posts: 883
Location: UNSC Comm Relay Station Alpha, West Shokan, NY

 		Here's what I've got for the keytext so far:

Code:
I am smoke.
I am the (illegible)'s of 
(illegible).
Use me, and you
shall unlock
a minion(?) of the dark.
Gate#3217


'Minion' is questionable, but that's what it looks like to me. The other two are completely illegible.
_________________
You are likely to be eaten by a grue. If this predicament seems particularly cruel,
Consider whose fault it could be, with no match or torch in your inventory...
NP: Erase The Truth

PostPosted: Wed Oct 20, 2004 3:33 pm
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rose
...and then Magic happens


Joined: 26 Nov 2003
Posts: 4117

 		gee
you mean I was right when I mentioned smoke and mirrors?

I thought it had to start with "A" ??

PostPosted: Wed Oct 20, 2004 4:11 pm
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RedKnight
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Joined: 30 Oct 2003
Posts: 72
Location: www.kingdomofloathing.com
Macavity wrote:
Here's what I've got for the keytext so far:

Code:
I am smoke.
I am the (illegible)'s of 
(illegible).
Use me, and you
shall unlock
a minion(?) of the dark.
Gate#3217

For the two illegible words, can you tell how many characters long they are? I was trying to do that but not having a good time of it.

RedKnight
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Posting and You ...

PostPosted: Wed Oct 20, 2004 4:33 pm
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treebiter99
Veteran

Joined: 25 Sep 2004
Posts: 128
Location: Pittsburgh, PA

 		I've enhanced the key image to the point where I believe I can make out the words.

Spoiler (Rollover to View):
I am smoke.
I am the veil of
darkness.
Use me, and you
shall unlock
a minion of the dark.


Anyone agree, disagree? Anyone want to submit it? I haven't submitted this yet, so please feel free to.

For those interested in how I enhanced the image, I started with the smokeandmirror.png file, as it was probably of higher resolution than the .jpg file. I opened that file in Macromedia Fireworks and cropped the key out.

I save the key as an uncompressed bmp file and opened it in Photoshop. I then enlarged the image by 500% using the "bicubic sharper" algorithm. I then adjusted the contrast/curves slightly and saved it as a png.

PostPosted: Thu Oct 21, 2004 10:48 pm
Last edited by treebiter99 on Sun Oct 24, 2004 1:07 am; edited 1 time in total
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treebiter99
Veteran

Joined: 25 Sep 2004
Posts: 128
Location: Pittsburgh, PA

 		I just noticed this from the command page "whiteandsmart"

Quote:
EagleTalon: It would all fall so easily though. It's like a veil of smoke and mirrors...


PostPosted: Thu Oct 21, 2004 11:01 pm
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latecomer
Kl00


Joined: 21 Oct 2004
Posts: 42
Location: bummin' Ham, Abalama

 		This is marked as solved and yet we don't have AshThrower unlocked? I tried to hastily submit a key tonight but ended up goofing it and getting it in after 12:00am PDT, which means I'll probably be banned after tomorrow for a couple of days. I was looking at the image and I really think that "minion" should be vision. That would hold with the mirror element of "smoke and mirrors" and it would fit better in the poem(at least it makes sense to me). Just a theory! I'm grasping at straws. I want this puzzle solved.

I am smoke.
I am the veil of
darkness.
Use me, and you
shall unlock
a vision of the dark.

PostPosted: Sat Oct 23, 2004 4:23 am
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treebiter99
Veteran

Joined: 25 Sep 2004
Posts: 128
Location: Pittsburgh, PA

 		I'll buy that it's vision instead of minion.

If you look closely at this word, the 3rd letter is definitely different than the 6th. It really does look like an s.

PostPosted: Sat Oct 23, 2004 2:07 pm
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treebiter99
Veteran

Joined: 25 Sep 2004
Posts: 128
Location: Pittsburgh, PA

 		Hurray! Latecomer did it. The Key was accepted. Case closed.

PostPosted: Sun Oct 24, 2004 1:06 am
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