[sinyx]

So the huge deadline passes in silence? I expected at least a little something this morning, even if there was a trip up in plans and we missed the big shebang. Very strange.

Hope nothing bad has happened.

[Noyb]

Hmm... Be Kind Rewind is out Friday, and from the GMD Studios blog, they had a hand in marketing it last month with indieWire, which seems to have a fair amount of overlap with GMD. I'm not sure such a big "if" would leave the entire studio out of contact, though.

Has anyone with more moxie/ less sleep deprivation than me tried calling them?

[feriwiccan]

I was worried about the same, Noyb. I remember one ARG that kind of died because the PM was in the hospital -- damn, I forget the name. And with no activity as of this morning; well, I just don't know what to do.

[Noyb]

This doesn't seem like the PMs to completely cut off all contact like this on multiple threads with all the buildup to tonight. Hopefully nothing bad has happened on a meta level (rocket launcher wielding researchers as neighbors would freak me out), or that they're not in panic story rewrite mode not having thought of what would happen if we didn't solve the MLM puzzles fast enough. Or that the scenario we triggered resulted in the death of all major players without anyone on our side to tell us what happened.

[WolfHawk]

I'm thinking it's going to happen at the Forsythe conference in Arkham. We may not hear from Peter again. How appropriate for the beings behind this to bust up a conference concerning threat management.

[DavFlamerock]

At this point I'm pretty sure we actually never were supposed to stop the ritual. But we'll see...

[sinyx]

WolfHawk wrote:

It's getting late. Maybe we should go ahead and tell Peter. This can be OUR test of our ability to trust HIM.

This may be our only option at the moment, unless we magically solve everything in time for tonight (long shot) or the PM's finally kick in and have someone give up a hint/answer. Hopefully the storyline was flexible enough to move in either direction - us getting the solve and stopping the ritual or us not getting it and win #1 for Chorazos.

[WolfHawk]

Noyb wrote:

So what do we have to do at the moment? * Leak info to Peter to get more pages of his executive summary. Maybe a writeup on what we know about MLM's structure would help? * Solve that Chinese (?) 22-character cipher. * Make our own ciphers to act as usernames on safeget. * Give emotional support to sploit with his mapping, maybe warn him of the danger of leaving that satellite photo up. * Help Howard get his groove back. * Figure out the logistics of that coming ritual.

It's getting late. Maybe we should go ahead and tell Peter. This can be OUR test of our ability to trust HIM.

Unless whatever is happening on the 20th HAS to happen to move the story forward in which case the difficulty is planned so the ritual or whatever can happen.

I put this here because I can't get into SO at the moment and I have to leave for work soon.

[rowan]

Not as good as j5's, but I've been humming this all day without realizing it until now.

Oh where, oh where have our PMs gone?
Oh where, oh where can they be?
With our keys all stuck and our nerves all worn
oh where, oh where can they be?

[DavFlamerock]

Noyb wrote:

* Make our own ciphers to act as usernames on safeget.

That would be my poem--our trademark cipher would be the poem idea.

[danteIL]

Noyb wrote:

Honestly, I'm still not entirely sure of the ingame reason why the photographer (?) is helping random mules break his ciphers on safeget.

My guess: DC has pegged us as potential recruits for Chorazos. These ciphers are a Mensa test of sorts, and they're from the Sculptor (not the Photographer) I think (and we're failing miserably). I agree it doesn't make sense that he would help us break his own codes, but perhaps Chorazos is desperate for new blood.

Quote:

Or how chorazos expected its inductees to have a prerelease copy of Sharp Teeth.

At the NYC drop, after obtaining an autograph from the author, Johnny received it from the Sculptor.

Quote:

* Leak info to Peter to get more pages of his executive summary. Maybe a writeup on what we know about MLM's structure would help?

I believe that there are a number of emails currently waiting in Peter's in-box, but we haven't heard a peep. We haven't told him yet about MLM, have we? I am sure he would be very interested in that.

Quote:

* Solve that Chinese (?) 22-character cipher.

Sapagoo solved it (Job #2), here: http://www.sentryoutpost.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=8988#8988 Be impressed! The final message says:

Code:

VIRGIN I-CHING DATA CAST WITH SAINT ANTHONY'S BONES BY GNOSTIC PROPHETESS NINE MB AVAIL BEST OFFER

It seems that this is the auction that is being referred to in this message, which Rowan received in one of the replies to Job #3 (the one with the message SIGNED BARGAINERS ONLY:

Code:

the clipping is a key to my auction for the icheng rearrange the text into a grid of twenty two chars emet suggests which columns you want Hebrew suggests the orfer to read each row the result looks like nonsense but encludes spaces encludes runs like cynuB and sious must arrange peck up of goods in my tarot code

This is the cipher that is giving us all of the trouble at the moment!

Quote:

* Make our own ciphers to act as usernames on safeget.

Yep, it's not clear how this is supposed to work.

Quote:

* Give emotional support to sploit with his mapping, maybe warn him of the danger of leaving that satellite photo up.

Emotional support: Check
Warning about photo: Good idea

Quote:

* Help Howard get his groove back.

Ha! As if.

Quote:

* Figure out the logistics of that coming ritual.

Yep, and it's getting closer with each passing moment.

[Noyb]

Hehe. Nice parody, johnny5. It works when sung aloud, which is always a sign of craft.

Don't have enough free time at the moment to dedicate to solving ciphers that apparently either require PM help or iterating through all possibilities. (Oh, insane guy who uses ciphers as an intelligence test, I thought I would never see it in this game). Honestly, I'm still not entirely sure of the ingame reason why the photographer (?) is helping random mules break his ciphers on safeget. Or how chorazos expected its inductees to have a prerelease copy of Sharp Teeth.

So what do we have to do at the moment?
* Leak info to Peter to get more pages of his executive summary. Maybe a writeup on what we know about MLM's structure would help?
* Solve that Chinese (?) 22-character cipher.
* Make our own ciphers to act as usernames on safeget.
* Give emotional support to sploit with his mapping, maybe warn him of the danger of leaving that satellite photo up.
* Help Howard get his groove back.
* Figure out the logistics of that coming ritual.

[mapmaker]

Heh, I'm sure it's just Dreamhost or whatever, but right now I can't even get to SO.

[enaxor]

Left a CL from Sharp Teeth, and all I got was a link to date Alyssa.

[danteIL]

So what's going on here? Did we break the game? Has everyone given up in disgust that we can't solve this stupid safeget key? Did Chorazos finally drag Peter away as a human sacrifice? Last time I checked the eclipse was still fast approaching. A little meta/Meta-communication would be nice.