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Forum index » Archive » Archive: General » ARG: Strange Dreams Pt. 1 & 2

The Story (and Wiki info!)

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jamesi
Sentient Being

Joined: 25 Sep 2002
Posts: 2195
Location: Canadia

The Story (and Wiki info!)

via an anonymous source:

It started with a strange visitor to a chat room. "StrangeDreams" was a Junior at Apple Harbor Highschool named Josh Celleri. He'd been having strange, vivid nightmares for the past few weeks. Recently he decided to start posting these dreams to his Blog, in a search for help to decypher the meaning in these strange messages.

Some had more obvious messages, such as an acrostic that spelled out "SaveMySoul", a poem with missing letters that spelled "A Demon in My Head", and a strange key symbol with the number 13 featured prominently.

While the keys went undecyphered, Josh continued to experience those strange dreams. People and places he had never seen, yet understood as if he had lived his whole life knowing them. Dark and angry emotions which affected his mood for days at a time. More strange messages, spelling out words such as "Vengeance".

Astute observers noticed that there was a broken link on Josh's Blog to his highschool's webpage. Upon further investigation, it was found that the entire Apple Harbor city webpage had been vandalized. In place of a front page was an odd red picture with another key symbol.

The night after, Josh experienced a new dream. Floating in an empty void, he wrote of a strange universe that grew around him, full of twisting and whirling images that merged and morphed. As he began to orient himself, he suddenly found himself in his Geometry class. His teacher, writing out a strange grid of numbers across the board. Over the the loudspeaker, a repetitive voice chanting an odd permutation of the Pledge of Allegiance.

He decides that the key symbol appearing in both his blog and on the Apple Harbor page is too great a coincidence. He pays a visit to the webmaster and ex-substitute teacher Alyssa Aster, who is recovering from the recent murder of her boyfriend. Hastled by police as a potential suspect, she's reluctant to trust anyone, even Josh. She tells him of how she had found her entire webpage vandalized. After deleting everything she saw, in a moment of desperation she typed the words "helpme" and was taken to a hidden directory with the red picture. Furious, she wrote a blistering condemnation towards whomever was tormenting her.

The next day, Josh receives an apology via email from Alyssa about her standoffish behavior, with the hint that she might seek help from him later. Meanwhile, more strange images fill Josh's nights -- cold blue eyes, a broken toy, and a lost boat. The lyrics to a song scrambled in his head, to spell out a clue to the mystery of the Keys.

Then, the Apple Harbor page is vandalized again. The red picture had been changed, with a new message and a new key. With another clue the Keys were decyphered, but the messages ("Seek answers elsewhere/There are other worlds than these") only seemed to link Josh closer to the mystery. A new message turned out to be the first lines of a poem.

Then, over Christmas weekend, a breakthrough. Josh had been contacted by someone named Samuel Gees, who had posted an odd essay on the nature of dreams. With Samuel's approval, Josh began to try and communicate back to the spirit causing these dreams. At first there was limited success, then more as Josh began to learn what images would provoke different responses.

After a particularily frightening dream in which Josh tried to get the spirit to explain the meaning behind the defacement of the Apple Harbor Webpage, there appeared a new image on the site. An article from July, telling of a suspicious accident Alyssa was in, was now posted above the red picture. But the strange part was that the article was in a hidden folder with the same name as one of the messages decyphered from Josh's earlier dreams! More hidden folders were found, containing hidden messages and past attempts from the spirit to communicate. Two were of particular interest: an encrypted conversation between "Cleopatra" and "brutus", and a strange piece of sheet music. The conversation's meaning was quickly decyphered, but the only clue extracted so far from sheet music seemed to point towards the Grid from Josh's geometry class dream.

At this point, Josh's life was becoming increasingly complicated. His girlfriend, a childhood friend he had always been close with, had become increasingly argumenative towards the time he spent on his dreams. To make matters worse, he was starting to feel sympathetic towards Alyssa, who was starting to reach out for help to fix her webpage.

A New Years Eve that Josh had planned to spend with his girlfriend quickly turned to disaster. First, she called him to say that she was very sick. Then, he learned that Alyssa's job had been threaned unless there was a working webpage by the end of the day. He worked with her all New Years Eve to bring back some semblance of a working page. When they were finished, they talked for a while. Then, as Josh made ready to leave, Alyssa broke down. In a moment of sympathy, he got too close, and things got out of control.

Unsure who made the first move, Josh realized the next morning that the point was moot. If the ghost haunting his dreams was that of Alyssa's murdered boyfriend, he feared the worst. Josh sent out a paniced message about his fears, but it was no use. The next morning he was found, comatose.

As this was happening, members of Samuel Gees' "Order of the Castanedas" were communicating with those Josh had shared his experiences with. One member in particular, Scott, tried to send warning to Josh's friends but it was too late.

A new message was sent out, seemingly by the spirit of the murdered doctor. It warned that Josh's life was held by a strand, and he would not be released until players could name the "cursed shrine" that held it, and gave a clue indicating a musical hint given earlier might shine some light on the hidden message.

Now, as Josh's friends try to decypher the meaning behind the ghost's demands, a new voice arises. Intercepted from Samuel Gees' inbox, an email is responded to by someone identified only as "Silverleaf", from the SocietasSolanum, or the Society of Nightshade. They appear to have similar talents as Josh, but have a distinct suspicion of any who would try and use them for their abilities. They have a cold respect for Samuel, but feel he would rather reveal them for the world to examine than respect their wishes for secrecy.

Relevant Links:
http://home.earthlink.net/~strangedreams - Josh's Blog
http://home.earthlink.net/~appleharbor - Apple Harbor page (vandalized)
http://home.earthlink.net/~appleharborweb - New Apple Harbor page
http://hometown.aol.com/dreamtheory2004/ - Samuel Gee's page
http://www.forum.immersionunlimited.com/viewforum.php?f=56 - In-game forum at Immersion Unlimited

Join the discussion in #Dreams at irc://irc.chat-solutions.org

(You can also log into the IRC chat room through the Unfiction chat applet -- jamesi

Posted: Mon Jan 03, 2005 4:07 pm
Last edited by jamesi on Mon Jan 03, 2005 7:35 pm; edited 1 time in total

QBKooky
Decorated

Joined: 24 Jul 2004
Posts: 281

Awesome! If you don't mind, I'm using this in the... dun dun dahhhh:

Strange Dreams (in-progress) Wiki

I still have a lot of work to do, but anyone should feel free to drop in and add their own theories / information.

_________________
A clue!

Posted: Mon Jan 03, 2005 5:04 pm

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