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[ryandrew]

Yup, that is because we were absolutely useless, and so they decided to just give us the answers. As they seemed to do with the I NEED YOUR HELP site. Which was just a tad too blatant for my liking.

[skenmy]

[brat-sampson]

I think weneedtofindthem had to be pretty blatent as it's a bit wrong to leave people without enough information on a live event. When giving out locations, times and details it helps to be as comprehensive as possible just to avoid any miscommunications and unfortunate events.

[oliverkeers13]

Actually, nothing was given to us (as far as I can tell). The people online and on the ground were communicating poorly, but each of them made up for the other one's failings.

[ryandrew]

Ah, i thought that the websites just revealed the answers. There was a certain feel of Chinese Whispers yesterday. Was there any truth in the rumour that a character was killed? (It seemed to circulate once we got to the heliport)

[Leeravitz]

'Tis true that there mole uncovered the third attache case, although, frankly, I think I'd have found it soon enough, anyway, as I was looking for it. Yes, in retrospect, the most suspicious thing about him was the way he was wandering around in a very aimless manner!

As to the old man in the pub, I hadn't thought of the slightly spooky Scarlett based connection there. My working hypothesis is that he was simply an elderly drunk with nobody to talk to, but you never know, perhaps he was, in fact, an AI construct operating off of a remote mainframe somewhere. He certainly *never* shut up for the entire time I was in the pub. Which gives me a bit more sympathy for Scarlett, funnily enough.

[Guest]

Anyway, time for another roundup (and, for those you waiting with baited breath for it, another essay).

Brat is essentially right when he sums up the fact that our primary response to the meet - up by the end of it was a) that was a lot of fun and b) what the hell just happened?

There's no real need to repeat his (excellently recalled) analysis of how the day proceeded (which I think is clear enough), but working out what we were meant to learn from the whole situation is an open question.

If we go back to analysing our pre - meet intercepted communication from the 3p, then we know that they had discovered that 'an unknown network of operatives' (i.e. us) were acting 'counter to their interests' (whatever those might be precisely). It is worth noting that they stated the website this information was found on 'should throw them (i.e. us) off the track from getting the seventh and final keyword.'

Now, what the website told us was the idea that the meeting was due to take place on the 22nd. It was only later that we were able to pinpoint the approximate location for the 'meeting'. The 3P announced to their operative that they had 'contingencies in place' should we try to investigate further, and that they were confident we wouldn't get hold of the keyword.

The 3P then obtained the information that we were gearing up to investigate. They warned their operative that he would be required to keep in constant contact with them, and assumed that we would be little threat as we lacked 'capabilities'(!)

The message (to the operative) was to maintain co - ordination with the 3P in order to recieve instructions. The operative had to give us 'the standard cover story' (which as Jeb pointed out meant when we asked him how he found out about events, the mole declared he'd read things in Metro, and he wore purple etc.). Given that the operative's aim was to get to the meeting point without arousing our suspicions, but whilst he was fully aware that we were following the same trail, his best plan was to force our hands as far as possible (hence, his helpfulness in giving assistance) and then break away from the main group once we'd reached his 'meeting up' point. Given that another part of his instructions was 'if necessary, use a contact you trust', I wonder if that didn't point to the idea of feeding information to a member of the team who seemed trustworthy (i.e. not about to question the mole's identity) to further the aim of getting to the meeting place without raising suspicion - so Olly, for instance, was guided by the mole to some extent.

Later messages imply that the mole was to have carried out certain tasks 'prior to the rendezvous' of which we would remain unaware - either he (in - story, at least) did something before we even met him, or his tasks were precisely to gather data on us, while we investigated, so that he could bring the information back to the 3P.

In other words, what the 3P clearly organised, in the end, was some kind of sting operation - whilst we thought that we were working to track down the operative, and find out the keyword, they were using the opportunity to hustle their agent away under cover, reveal as little as possible, and (probably) gain further information on *our* activities.

The puzzles (and their solutions) remain puzzling, I should say. As far as I can work out, the pattern of the day went something like this:

1. Everyone assembled in Starbucks, as we had agreed, wearing purple for identification purposes.

2. We proceeded to the Common at the stated time. Whether the mole was already present, I can't recall, but he was certainly indistinguishable from all the other gathered puzzle solvers. Eventually, the motor cycle courier dropped off the maps for the 'treasure hunting' tasks, which the ground team were to undertake. There was a split into five groups to perform each task, and we all set off to find our puzzles. Each puzzle (as Brat has noted) was designed to uncover a keyword, which could then be used on - line to break into the 3P's secure communications lines. Whether each puzzle was solved properly is an open question, and a number of them had additional elements (such as the numbers affixed to the end of the keyword discovered via the jigsaw puzzles) which remain mysterious. During the time in which the puzzles were being solved, the mole was wandering from group to group, frequently seen talking on his mobile to his superiors (though no - one really thought much of it at the time) and aiding the teams in their attempts to solve the puzzles.

3. Eventually, all groups recovened, and at this point, it became evident that we would have to utilise material gathered from the on - line team in order to break into the comm system. This was presumably because time was running out, and the PM's felt we had to move things on. The on - line team seem to have gained the same key words in a variant manner. It should be noted that the keywords appeared to have nothing to do with the 'six keywords' that went before, or, indeed, to make much sense in of themselves. Anyway...

4. At this point, we were able to start following a (fairly torturous) trail to reach the heliport (which was the meeting point for the mole). Olly led the group as far as I'm aware, being directed by what the on - line team were uncovering (it all got a bit frantic, at this juncture). At one point, everyone got very worried because a garbled message got out from the on - line team that we were being tracked. I'm not sure what this was about, but, clearly, the mole was consistently taking pictures of the route we were following. It might have been confusion - that the message to the mole from his superiors was that *we* were following *him*. Anyway...

5. We finally got to the heliport - everyone ended up in a back alley, looking at posters, and hanging around, because this is what the posters instructed us to do. During this time, the mole snuck away, and gave us the slip, getting into the compound, where we couldn't get to him. It would appear from his on - line comments that these puzzles were useless - designed as a distraction, and not actually puzzles of any meaningful sort. What we then all saw was a party of four get into a black helicopter. This party comprised the mole (cue much booing and swearing), two figures in black, one male and one female, who were wearing dark shades (if memory serves) and were, presumably, the 3P operatives, and a guy in braided uniform who was obviously the pilot for the helicopter (and, I suspect, OOG, although you never know). The helicopter took off soon after. Again, this all happened (fairly) fast, and a few confusions arose. Shouting was heard at one point, but this was not an exchange between mole and superiors, it was members of the team yelling out that something was happening. The story that someone got kidnapped seems to have been some peculiar hybrid of the idea that the mole had been 'one of the team' for several hours beforehand, and that a few players didn't get to the rendezvous on time, because they got a bit lost en route!

I personally missed why we deduced that 'WATCH' was the final instruction given to us - I think it may have been indicated on the posters (but given that these were false lures, anyway, I've no idea if that proves much). So, whether we managed to obtain the final keyword or not seems like an open question to me.

In essence, the 3P got what they wanted out of the day - which is to say, that having had us stumble on their operations, and with their agent at risk, they simultaneously managed to get more information on us, while getting their agent away again with minimal incident. So, I can only conclude we were suckered.

Are there still elements of the day which we need to puzzle over. Maybe...:

1. The actual puzzles from the Common - it seems these fulfilled their purpose. They were designed to help us get the keywords. We didn't work them all out in time, and I guess people may want to have a crack at some of them still, for the sheer hell of it, but it seems like the keyword input was successful enough for the rest of the day to proceed. I don't know if there's much more to be got from them (although there are a number of anomalies in the answers we got...)

2. The puzzles from the heliport - the mole claims that these were fakes. As such, we may assume that they don't actually correspond to anything...but, hey, we could try and crack them if you like...

3. On - line mysteries...I recall the ground team getting info on the strange pictorial grid that introduced the access website (I think), where pictures of things like sleeping children, gravestones and streetlamps were all to be seen. As far as I am aware, in the heat of the moment, no - one thought to ask whether there was a symbolic meaning intended in this.

4. Keyword - did we get it, or not?? That debate will no doubt rage on (and what bloody use is it, anyway?).


So, there we go...I think...

[Leeravitz]

That was me (like you couldn't guess...)

[Sheepnumber12]

Just to confirm, the mole was with us while we were waiting for the motorbike to arrive.

I was probably the one who was thought to have been kidnapped because everyone was looking for me while I was at the other side of the heliport watching from the bench.

[Juxta]

[kksweety]

hey hey! Just wanted to say thanks to everyone for a great day! I turned up not knowing what to expect and everyone was real friendly! Btw, Skenmy's group didnt end up going elephant and castle, we just ended up running up and down the platform at clapham common for god knows how long! And might I add btw that I joined the group late so missed the beginning of the Journey's End poem thingy so therefore us gettin completly lost = nothing to do with me Makes me feel slightly less foolish! Anyways, with the puzzles we didnt solve are we gonna try and solve them? I have a number of the suduko/music notes thingy and I also have a thingy from the helipad where they lead us down a dead end!

[kksweety]

[JebJoya]

Just to say i'm leaving for Leam now, will scan stuff and upload photos probably to my blog later and link them here, cyall later

Jeb

[Tertius]

Pics of Helo or Mole?

[PuzzledPineapple]

Not much to add (there isn't much you can add to that lot up there), but I added a few things to the wiki paage including pictures of the third jigsaw puzzles from Buried Secrets. The interesting thing about these is that MC ran out of pictures of maple leaves and used the edge of the fish (first jigsaw) to make up the required size of picture. Nothing escapes us, apart from 3P operatives. I also updated cleared up how the sudoku were found (they weren't in a briefcase), but if you've got to this point in the thread, you probably knew that already.

In response to the suggestions as to how we deal with live events/moles in the future, I would mostly agree, but I don't think asking for email addresses from noobs is going to help. What (with perfect hindsight) we should have done (imho) is assigned them 'buddies'. To the nice new people, buddies would help them understand what was going on, try to make us not look like a bunch of raving madmen (not that we came across that way at all). To the evil operatives, the one on one interaction would allow us to notice odd behaviour more easily. All the things that were mentioned in the pub (as far as I'm aware, the only group he didn't help were Journey's End, finding the codebook, whereas practically no one else was moving between groups; also his unusual phone activity) would have made it obvious that he was a mole, but different people noticed different things and didn't share these seemingly irrelevant pieces of information until their tongues were loosened by MC's drinks.

I guess we can still trust anyone who says they are registered on unforums (glad you turned up today Phyrefly, guess you really aren't a mole!) because MC wouldn't violate the OOGness, but I don't know how other seasoned cube hunters who are not part of our lovely little community here would feel about being tailed.

Oh, and incidentally, you might be interested in the leitmarks that we had: check it out for any kloos! (And yes, that is mirror writing, I haven't flipped the picture)

(Jeb - glad to hear you're getting back alright in the end - sorry you missed your train)