Return to Unfiction unforum
 a.r.g.b.b 
FAQ FAQ   Search Search 
 
Welcome!
New users, PLEASE read these forum guidelines. New posters, SEARCH before posting and read these rules before posting your killer new campaign. New players may also wish to peruse the ARG Player Tutorial.

All users must abide by the Terms of Service.
Website Restoration Project
This archiving project is a collaboration between Unfiction and Sean Stacey (SpaceBass), Brian Enigma (BrianEnigma), and Laura E. Hall (lehall) with
the Center for Immersive Arts.
Announcements
This is a static snapshot of the
Unfiction forums, as of
July 23, 2017.
This site is intended as an archive to chronicle the history of Alternate Reality Games.
 
The time now is Fri Nov 22, 2024 3:28 am
All times are UTC - 4 (DST in action)
View posts in this forum since last visit
View unanswered posts in this forum
Calendar
 Forum index » Archive » Archive: General » Old News & Rumors
[TRAILHEAD] Carcosa
View previous topicView next topic
Page 1 of 2 [25 Posts]   Goto page: 1, 2 Next
Author Message
HarleyQuinn
Guest


[TRAILHEAD] Carcosa

Got this in an email this morning. Looks promising!



I don't have time to try anything right now, but I thought I'd post it ASAP. At least now I have something to do on my lunch break. Rolling Eyes

PostPosted: Sun Mar 13, 2011 7:09 am
 Back to top 
Minz
Decorated

Joined: 12 Apr 2009
Posts: 183

Very interesting Very Happy

Somehow this looks like a screenshot from the indie game Amnesia.
Example screenshot :
http://www.mobygames.com/images/shots/l/474942-amnesia-the-dark-descent-windows-screenshot-you-ll-find-many.jpg

The poem is also on a wiki page : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcosa

Spoiler (Rollover to View):
The city was later used more extensively in Robert W. Chambers' book of horror short stories published in 1895 entitled The King in Yellow. Chambers had read Bierce's work and had also borrowed a few other names (including Hali and Hastur) from Bierce's work.

In Chambers' stories, and within the apocryphal play (also titled The King in Yellow) which is mentioned several times within them, the city is a mysterious, ancient, and possibly cursed place. The most precise description of its location given is that it said to be located on the shores of Lake Hali in the Hyades. The descriptions given of it, however, make it clear that it must be located on another planet, or possibly even in another universe.


I guess we can assume that this ARG will be horror-themed then Wink

PostPosted: Sun Mar 13, 2011 7:55 am
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
d3333n
Boot

Joined: 18 Jul 2010
Posts: 17
Location: The Netherlands

Very interesting indeed!

I will also be looking into it.
for c/ping:

Code:
4155787770 QUAWQ LKIX               fjzcfkzoxvloir@dtpd.zf


PostPosted: Sun Mar 13, 2011 8:04 am
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
user1353
Decorated

Joined: 12 Feb 2011
Posts: 234

hahahaha omg...
i just had an awkward meta moment with the postmaster XD!!

4155787770
is a number that's connected to the person's ipod text messaging system.
i first called the number and found out that its a number solely based for texting on the ipod.

me:carcosa
?:txt, plz
?: Sorry, this is a text app on an iPod touch.
me: My apologies, I thought this was a number related to a game I'm playing.
?: Well, it is if it's related to carcosa
?:(awkward meta moment. sorry)
me: Oh then my apologies pm, please let me start over.
me: Hello? are you from carcosa?
?: Please do. =)
?: No.

edit:
me: QUAWQ LKIX
?: ?

PostPosted: Mon Mar 14, 2011 1:19 pm
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
user1353
Decorated

Joined: 12 Feb 2011
Posts: 234

ran quawq lkix through a cipher,
i got alpha bets

?: What about that?
?: Rl xlt hklv Aofb Pizra?

PostPosted: Mon Mar 14, 2011 1:44 pm
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
AUZ505
Unfictologist


Joined: 07 Mar 2008
Posts: 1599
Location: Germany

user1353 wrote:
ran quawq lkix through a cipher,
i got alpha bets


Which programme did you use? Normally such short substitution texts could not be resolved automatically and in general a lot of different solutions are possible, e.g. "RUMOR FITS" would fit, too
_________________
Playing:

PostPosted: Mon Mar 14, 2011 5:54 pm
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
HarleyQuinn
Guest


Tried the e-mail (imaginaryworldSPLAThush.ai), but it failed. Looks like we're stuck with texting. :\

PostPosted: Mon Mar 14, 2011 6:53 pm
 Back to top 
catherwood
I Have 100 Cats and Smell of Wee

Joined: 25 Sep 2002
Posts: 4109
Location: Silicon Valley, CA

I'm not convinced that there is a single possible answer to the substitution (unless I've missed some external clues)

What I see so far is:
Code:
QUAWQ LKIX
fjzcfkzoxvloir / dtpd.zf
Rl xlt hklv Aofb Pizra?


And taking some valuable input from the posts above mine, I've gotten this much so far:
Spoiler (Rollover to View):
????? ONLY
imaginaryworld / ?u??.ai
Do you know Eric ?lade


I'm not as willing to try all possible domain names for the email as some of you might be. (btw, the country code .ai = Anguilla)

p.s., could we please not embed images? just give the link http://i1189.photobucket.com/albums/z435/10813/thing.png
It is too wide for my window, plus it burdens people with restricted bandwidth who just want to read text. kthx

PostPosted: Mon Mar 14, 2011 8:38 pm
 View user's profile AIM Address Yahoo Messenger
 Back to top 
aterribleoldman
Greenhorn

Joined: 08 Mar 2011
Posts: 7

Pretty sure I worked it out at work.

Spoiler (Rollover to View):
using a keyed caesar: key should be pbrae with a shift of 25
plaintext alphabet goes to encrypted -
zpbraecdefghijklmnoqstuvwxy


rl xlt hklv aofb pizra?
Spoiler (Rollover to View):
do you know eric blade?


quawq lkix
Spoiler (Rollover to View):
svexs only


fjzcfkzoxvloirSPLATdtpd.zf
Spoiler (Rollover to View):
imaginaryworldSPLAThubh.ai




From that, all I could come up with is:
Spoiler (Rollover to View):
that Eric Brooks is the Marvel hero Blade - as played by Wesley Snipes in the Blade trilogy of films.

Viral marketing for a new game/film/tv series?


PostPosted: Mon Mar 14, 2011 11:50 pm
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
fezzik
Veteran

Joined: 02 Sep 2004
Posts: 131

terribleoldman,

I think you got close so all credit to you but I made a few modifications.

I think the key is

Spoiler (Rollover to View):

zebrascdfghijklmnopqtuvwxy
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

or, "zebras"


fjzcfkzoxvloirSPLATdtpd.zf
Spoiler (Rollover to View):

imaginaryworldSPLAThush.ai


rl xlt hklv aofb pizra?
Spoiler (Rollover to View):

do you know eric slade?


quawq lkix

Spoiler (Rollover to View):

twext only (must be a mistake? clearly meant "text only")


PostPosted: Tue Mar 15, 2011 1:02 am
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
aterribleoldman
Greenhorn

Joined: 08 Mar 2011
Posts: 7

Makes far more sense.

Damn.

However I can't find anything about
Spoiler (Rollover to View):
Eric Slade


PostPosted: Tue Mar 15, 2011 2:04 am
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
fezzik
Veteran

Joined: 02 Sep 2004
Posts: 131

well there's a lot of...that name... on the internet. so it's no so much a problem of lack of information as too much

also i tried the email address and it said the account had expired...meaning it was valid at one point but not any more, i guess?

PostPosted: Tue Mar 15, 2011 3:05 am
 View user's profile
 Back to top 
-
Guest


I looked into the hush.ai adress and according to http://www.robtex.com/dns/hush.ai.html#summary

Quote:
Hush.ai ("Hush Communications Corporation") is a domain controlled by two name servers at hushmail.com.


And at http://www.hushmail.com/ it's possible to sign in by simply entering the email adress. I did that and was told
Quote:
Thank you for trying Hushmail
This account has not been accessed in the past three weeks. To keep your free Hushmail account active, you must sign in at least once every three weeks.


Don't know what to think of that.

PostPosted: Tue Mar 15, 2011 3:33 am
 Back to top 
HarleyQuinn
Guest


Tried to send an email to whoever sent me pic above (theKinginYellowSPLATlinuxmail.org), but my email hates me at the moment. You guys should have better luck, though.

PostPosted: Tue Mar 15, 2011 11:37 am
 Back to top 
catherwood
I Have 100 Cats and Smell of Wee

Joined: 25 Sep 2002
Posts: 4109
Location: Silicon Valley, CA

fezzik wrote:
{snip}

Building off what you posted (spoilers are a pain to nest), I agree with a tiny fix to the typo, and summarize:
Spoiler (Rollover to View):
Using this Keyed-Caesar tool
http://rumkin.com/tools/cipher/caesar-keyed.php
and a keyword of ZEBRAS

QUAWQ LKIX
fjzcfkzoxvloir / dtpd.zf
Rl xlt hklv Aofb Pizra?

TVEXT ONLY
imaginaryworld / hush.ai
Do you know Eric Slade?

I can possibly see that as ".tv extension only" if it's not a slip up.

Thank you to multiple people for contributing to the solve (and teaching me more ways to approach a puzzle)

- wrote:
And at hushmail it's possible to sign in by simply entering the email adress. I did that and was told
Quote:
Thank you for trying Hushmail
This account has not been accessed in the past three weeks. To keep your free Hushmail account active, you must sign in at least once every three weeks.


Don't know what to think of that.

Excellent investigation technique. I was coming at it from hush.ai and pinging it to get a network block for hushmail.com as well, but didn't think about logging in that way. Does the owner need to login to read emails, or might they get forwarded elsewhere? At least they shouldn't be bouncing, right?

PostPosted: Tue Mar 15, 2011 12:04 pm
 View user's profile AIM Address Yahoo Messenger
 Back to top 
Display posts from previous:   Sort by:   
Page 1 of 2 [25 Posts]   Goto page: 1, 2 Next
View previous topicView next topic
 Forum index » Archive » Archive: General » Old News & Rumors
Jump to:  

You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
You cannot attach files in this forum
You can download files in this forum
You cannot post calendar events in this forum



Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group