🪹the-sepulchre-arg

[river escarp]

I'm not the kind of person to say "bruh," but...

bruh.

Now what? lol

[inland thicket]

now we look for the trail

because it apparently exists

what if kaminsky is just fucking with us and theres literally nothing lol

but most probably there's been a change of plans and there's gonna be a hint either on social media, or as a message in the files when an update comes out, instead of discord messages

[left bough]

maybe the account was a hint?

[sweet dawn]

DICK

[delicate bridge]

That was the accounts status

Just incase you forget

[delicate bridge]

NEVERMIND

Memory sucks

[haughty flax]

[delicate bridge]

🎑

[toxic elm]

frum breaking bad

[boreal kite]

look for me inside our empty brethren

[plush gull]

hmm

well I'm screenshotting this

not gonna make that mistake again

Interesting, last time this image was "faces", now it's "filledfaces"

I guess we missed something here last time? Let's see...

[river escarp]

This account joined the RoN discord in August 2022, much longer ago than The Lilies Eyes that was here before. Perhaps Katminsky finally got a hold of the old account from Gwynn. ;P

Not to fixate on irrelevant details of course, if there's anything to pull from that I think it's that the other account popping up and disappearing probably isn't "canon".

[plush gull]

Yeah

[river escarp]

@inland geode

[plush gull]

I've been sitting over this for nearly an hour now

[river escarp]

There's pretty much two ways this can go, either the clue is in the phrasing or the clue is within the picture/file itself.

[hoary bay]

My thought on the phrasing is it means the clue is either close to us or MLO? There's multiple ways to interpret it. We could be the empty brethren or it could mean their dead comrades.

[plush gull]

I've been focusing on the file-related stuff

PS "look for me inside our empty brethren" sounds to me a lot like something could be hidden in a picture of said brethren

So I think that's more a hint less the solution

[hoary bay]

That would be the more literal interpretation. I tried playing around with the imagine in photoshop and didnt really notice anything.

[river escarp]

Well it's one interpretation.

Even just generally looking inside something empty.

[plush gull]

Hmm, I've got a feeling that it just has to be the image that was posted, something people must've missed. Otherwise why even bother posting it again, with a diffrent filename no less, why reuse it if it's not gonna help?

Maybe that's just me though

Either way I'm sure Kaminsky is probably watching us try to figure it out and laughing to himself

Wait a second

"Empty brethren"

"filledfaces.png"

So is it telling us to look in the original image "faces.png"?

I've actually been looking at the new one the whole time lol

[river escarp]

ooo, that's an idea

[plush gull]

Although, there's nothing beside that text that would lead me to belive they're any diffrent, but who knows

[inland thicket]

nah its the same account
#🪹the-sepulchre-arg message

[hoary bay]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/310075135325634580/995015926497939606/faces.png scrolled up for the original

[inland thicket]

ok so apparently the pic has been modified and this is the og

[river escarp]

They seem to have different file sizes

[plush gull]

I think I might've found... something?

[river escarp]

Go on...

[inland thicket]

continue...

[plush gull]

1 sec, gotta screenshot

and cofirm something

Ah crap, might've been a fluke

I think I mustve applied diffrent setting to the two images

Which made some weird pixels pop out on one but not the other

That's a yikes

[manic plume]

can we see it?

[plush gull]

I was randomly messing with the colors/inverting them and the brightness and saturation, this weird jumble of pixels pops up but I tested it again o both images and it appears on either, so this is likely just a side-effect of me messing with it so much

But in the meantime I thought of something else

"The war is in my pocket." was the About Me of that Eyes of The Lilies...

[river escarp]

Still is.

[plush gull]

Right

The pfp for Eyes is the face of this character also, so "my pocket" seems like it would fit

[river escarp]

Looking for strings in both files, I see the line "911321311.png" pop up twice in the new filledfaces.png but not the old faces.png.

[plush gull]

Oh, how'd you find that?

[rigid sphinx]

oh uh

you can disregard that

that 100% has nothing to do with the ARG

I forgot to delete it

[plush gull]

Bruh ok

[river escarp]

The strings and diff commands, had to dust off my linux VM.

[river escarp]

.

[inland thicket]

remember what kaminsky said, this is a clue

thats supposed to point us to something in game

think about what are these "empty brethren" and where are they in-game

[plush gull]

Did he say it's something in-game?

I don't recall that

[inland thicket]

he said there is a path in game

that we havent found yet

and before this whole "look for me inside our empty brethren" thing he said that more hints coming

[plush gull]

You mean this?

[inland thicket]

ye

[plush gull]

Doesn't mention anything about the game itself, and in general seems like this thing is mostly outside the game

@river escarp any luck with figuring out if 911321311 has any meaning?

[inland thicket]

then where do you think we should look?

[hoary bay]

everywhere until we have a better sense of where to look tbh

I think hints outside the game lead to clues inside of it, so we cant really eliminate that possibility yet.

[jovial salmon]

I'm so lost with all the new stuff, one thing you miss out and you can't keep up with it

[hoary bay]

we're still trying to figure it out ourselves

[plush gull]

Do you have the google doc? https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BL7nWO9WYQqG-RbBwMEEMzjNRooOJR4fZxeaRs3KdAk/edit#

[plush gull]

We also now have this hint

[jovial salmon]

Oh cool thank you

[plush gull]

I feel like I've done every possible thing with this faces.png................

I've looked at the properties/metadata, resolution, messed with diffrent brightnesses, contrasts, colors

[hoary bay]

Was the original ever uploaded?

[plush gull]

the original is this #announcements message

[hoary bay]

I mean before it was edited

[plush gull]

wdym edited

[hoary bay]

Like these images are edited concept pics. I was wondering if the original version before it was edited was uploaded.

[plush gull]

Ah I see, no I don't think it was

[hoary bay]

Would be an easy way of comparing the two

only thing I noticed was that the antenna? looked a bit funky, but it could just be the contrast from the hard lighting and photoshop antialiasing

If the hint is not referring to the image then we should probably try to interpret its true meaning

[rigid sphinx]

Nope, most Carcossa images are as-made unless the original is posted and plainly referenced to. :>
This one is original.

[inland geode]

I am back

[river escarp]

assumedly 9 1 12 2 1 3 11

A1Z26 has been used before so that can't be a coincidence.

[inland geode]

9 [I] 1 13 [AM] 2 1 13 11 [BACK]

[river escarp]

I swear there's got to be another png file hidden in filledfaces.png we just have to find out how to extract it.

!!!!! CHANGE THE FILE EXTENSION TO RAR

[hoary bay]

password?

[river escarp]

It's asking for a password

[hoary bay]

jesus

[river escarp]

um shit

[inland geode]

iamback

[river escarp]

That's the filename

[plush gull]

bruh howd you figure it out

[inland geode]

im big on this kind of thing

i do it a lot

[river escarp]

Thren and I were DMing about it

There's actually more strings in the new file

putting those other ones together makes {$~KY=2hCd2txec$) but that might be garbage, almost looks like "KEY=" though

[plush gull]

doesnt work

rip

[river escarp]

Yeah, I tried that already

[hasty adder]

Try itblooms

[plush gull]

nope

first one I tried lol

[hasty adder]

lol

Well it's a good start so far. Finding a key word should be within our power

[plush gull]

At least we know roughly what we gotta look for from now on

[hasty adder]

MLO
Lily
Sepulchre

[plush gull]

sepulchre isnt it either

[hasty adder]

Just a couple to try, but I'm gonna guess it's something we'll have to discover

[plush gull]

nor is MLO

or Lily

[hasty adder]

I'll record this into the doc when I get home

[plush gull]

weird that changing faces.png to .rar doesn't do the same thing

[hoary bay]

@river escarpMy friend suggested you try to go to the end of the archive using a hex editor. Im not that adequate lol

[hasty adder]

That's not a bad idea

Anything beyond the /End of a hex file is hidden info

[hoary bay]

He also said some hex editors have a a RAR/archive parser that might make things easier

[river escarp]

Yeah, I'm looking at a hexdump of the file, just can't really make heads or tails of it.

[hasty adder]

Look at the very end

[plush gull]

Man y'all started talking about strings n shit and now I have no idea whats going on lmao

[hasty adder]

Interesting

[river escarp]

Like, the filename inside the rar is the only readable part.

[hasty adder]

Everything beyond that IEND is what we need

[river escarp]

Yeah.

Figured as much.

[hasty adder]

And you tried iamback as the password?

[river escarp]

with and without caps

[hasty adder]

Gotcha. Well we have something for now

[river escarp]

I'd kind of like it if I knew how to separate this rar file from the rest of the data so I know what I'm dealing with

It doesn't look like a large file at all

[hasty adder]

I'm sure there's some tutorial on how to

But I'm at work so I can't help till later

[hoary bay]

My friend says the filenames are unencrypted so they may have something to do with the password. Also its actually a .zip file because of the "PK" signature. "PK" = phil katz They also mark the header blocks

[river escarp]

oh, okay

[hoary bay]

glad I know people like that lol

[river escarp]

Ehhh, it's not opening at all when I change the extension to zip.

[plush gull]

Same for me

BTW it's pretty strange to me that changing faces.png's extension doesn't do anything

Then again maybe there was just a diffrent solution to it before

[inland thicket]

so where are we now

we need a password right?

[plush gull]

Yeah

[inland thicket]

mhm

well im gonna try some phrases from the post on steam when the image was posted for the first time

mulch

listen

king

god

notahero

notagod

wakeup

so? did it work? @plush gull

[hoary bay]

no

[inland thicket]

well shit

maybe um

empty

[plush gull]

I imagine it's gonna be more complex than just a phrase

or single word

that we've seen before

[inland thicket]

i would still try but maybe

[hoary bay]

empty

[plush gull]

nah

[hoary bay]

YES

[plush gull]

wha

didn't work for me

[hoary bay]

its case-sensitive

[inland thicket]

WHAT

so the password WAS "empty"

[plush gull]

bruh I literally typed "empty" before

swear to god it didnt go through

[inland thicket]

ok anyway let me scan it and hope it doesnt give me a virus and its not a rickroll

ok this is what came out when i put it through a scanner

18!9 is 11525

we're getting somewhere

at least i hope we are

[river escarp]

11 5 25 is KEY using A1Z26, Threnody says.

[hoary bay]

18!9 is Key

[plush gull]

Why doesn't he just post here

[inland thicket]

the key to what? i think i missed something

[river escarp]

Honestly not sure.

That's just speculation at the moment.

[inland thicket]

mkay

[inland geode]

i was talking it over with you first like i did last time

i just came in here to post the screenshot

[river escarp]

"Honestly not sure" was a reply to "the key to what?"

[inland geode]

it's no prob

[hoary bay]

There no location with 1819 as the address right

[plush gull]

Hmm, worth checking probably

[river escarp]

Not sure if we should write off the exclamation point as a 1.

[inland thicket]

what's the address of the methouse?

[hoary bay]

Yeah, that was just the first conclusion I jumped to

[river escarp]

I mean, do check anyways.

Meth House is 213 Park Homes

[inland thicket]

mhm

[plush gull]

Not definitively

But checking won't hurt either

[hoary bay]

I'd keep investigating the archive, there might be more hidden clues.

[inland thicket]

ok so im too lazy to go in game again but of any of you are in game rn, in the lobby near the desk there is a set of chairs and on one of them there is a package with the location of carcosa and some numbers, and someone please check what those numbers are

[river escarp]

Archive is tiny as hell, not sure what more there could be.

[inland thicket]

can you send the archive here?

[hoary bay]

idk, my friend says theres a lot of file format trickery you can do

[hoary bay]

this one?

[inland thicket]

yeah

[hoary bay]

Just for future reference, which newsletter was this found in?

[inland thicket]

um

empty is from the discord message

but the other ones

wait a sec

[hoary bay]

gotcha

[river escarp]

I've run a binwalk on both the archive and the png contained within it, it's not indicating that there's more hidden files in their binaries.

[inland thicket]

34

[river escarp]

I could be wrong, but I think the original file name of the of the archive that was merged with faces.png to create filledfaces.png, has the original filename of 2244B6.zip

[hoary bay]

@river escarp If it is a zip file would this help recreate it?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZIP_(file_format)#File_headers Local file header signature = 0x04034b50 (PK♥️♦️ or "PK\3\4")

[river escarp]

2244B6.zip is just the archive that contains 911321311.png (protected by the password empty), seemingly containing nothing else.

[inland thicket]

and the png is the barcode or the faces?

[river escarp]

911321311.png is the barcode that reads 18!9 is 11525

We've speculated that 11525 might be A1Z26 for "KEY".

[inland thicket]

and the key, i assume, is for the ricin puzzle

[hoary bay]

Havent made that connection yet

[river escarp]

I am entirely content with saying fuck the ricin puzzle unless something seriously points us in that direction lol.

[inland thicket]

honestly yeah

but on the other hand if i remember correctly we couldnt solve it because we didnt have a key

but i fucking hate it still and dont wanna return to it because its so boring (but still we have nothing else to use the key on)

[plush gull]

What if 18!9 is a math equation?

[hoary bay]

I was wondering if its a factorial

[plush gull]

Actually I didn't even realize my calculator app has factorial lul

Apparently 18!9= 57621363351552000

[hasty adder]

Good job on finding the key

Guess it's ironic that the key to the filled faces is empty

Hmm. That looks familiar

Nothing goes above 7, is this another octal cipher?

[river escarp]

It's a large number with a bunch of trailing zeroes, similar to the infamous 16732266154100745600000000000000000000000000000000000000000.png

[hasty adder]

I remember octal having funky formating so you may need to try a couple translators. If no one figures it out by the time I get home I'll work on it

Otherwise try the gwynn table

[inland thicket]

i tried but it's just gibberish

[hasty adder]

Eh, I figured

Do me a solid and a zero and try again

See if it changes

For octal I mean

[warm notch]

by the sheer amount of messages

something must’ve happened

[river escarp]

The Lilies Eyes posted an image titled filledfaces.png, which appeared to be visually identical to faces.png from Briefing 34, but with a curiously augmented file size. There was also a caption: look for me inside our empty brethren.
It was discovered that filledfaces.png contains a hidden password-protected archive in it, accessible by changing the file's extension to .rar and using the password empty.
The archive contains only a single image of a barcode, titled 911321311.png. (Using an A1Z26 cipher can potentially decode the 911321311 to read "I AM BACK")
Scanning the barcode produces the output 18!9 is 11525. (Once again using an A1Z26 can potentially decode 11525 to read "KEY")

[warm notch]

interesting

[warm notch]

thank you for your explanation

are these found in the new announcements or somewhere else?

[river escarp]

filledfaces.png was posted in #🪹the-sepulchre-arg channel here #🪹the-sepulchre-arg message

[plush gull]

I did think of that immediately after figuring it out, but yeah nothing came of it

(I also tried it with a adding a zero, and without two of the zeroes but again nothing of value)

[plush gull]

I'm pretty stumped right now

[hoary bay]

This is still way better than grasping at straws (the direction I was going)

[calm oriole]

i'm new to args, what does everyone think we are going for? a story for the game? identifying the players in the lost and MLO? something else?

[warm notch]

has anyone trained gwynnstitution table on the first set of lettters?

l8!9

oh it’s a one

18!9

[inland thicket]

hm

nope its just gibberish again

[hoary bay]

@inland thicket for translating 18?9 = 57621363351552000 from octal to the substitution table?

[plush gull]

it's not octal

nor does translating it to octal do much, there's way too many repeating numbers if you do that

[ornate bloom]

Might want to add and compare with the rest of the arg document

[hearty ether]

Has someone actually scanned this? it could lead into more clues maybe\

[fading birch]

Yeah, we've scanned it

It's the fish meme thing

By we, I mean the NDA server, I don't think anyone's scanned it here

[calm oriole]

Every QR code in game does that lol

[hoary bay]

Domains are unregistered too. I checked a couple earlier because why not

[radiant sonnet]

hows the progress lads

[hasty adder]

Damn sorry, work has been killer lately. I'll try to update the doc tonight

New lead, we've gotten fairly far but now we're caught on what a bar code translates to

[radiant sonnet]

bro can link the bar code lemme take a look

[radiant sonnet]

huh

okay

[hasty adder]

In a1z26 that translates to Key

[radiant sonnet]

im stupid so i dont understand lul

👍

[hasty adder]

11 = k
5 = e
25 = y

[radiant sonnet]

k have funnn good luck

[hasty adder]

Question now is, what the hell does this key go to

[strong idol]

a lock i presume

[left bough]

but what and where is the lock?

[ornate bloom]

Any of the previous images that may be zip files as well?

[strong idol]

mabye the lock to my heart -good ending

[fading birch]

[hasty adder]

A key without a lock

Hmm

Doc updated for now

@rigid sphinx is this lock currently available, or will an update be needed?

[rigid sphinx]

The lock is there

[hasty adder]

Also I have accurately changed the doc

[rigid sphinx]

Perfect.

[fading birch]

[hasty adder]

I'm gonna guess that this image might have a second secret somewhere in it. Perhaps 18!9 is a string that we should single out

[hasty adder]

Shit I can't think of where to start

I didn't see a 18!9 in the string extraction

[hasty adder]

I guess if someone wants to sift through the hex strings for that again and see if I missed it

[topaz jackal]

yo holy fuck did we make progress

so
we're stuck with a RAR file and a key we have no idea how to use
that's what i'm taking from the doc

anyone have the file on hand to dump here?

i wanna try again

[inland thicket]

#🪹the-sepulchre-arg message
just save it as a rar

[topaz jackal]

mmmhmm

18!9 is key

have we tried the equation lead?
someone suggested the ! could be a notation?

18 * 9 is wrong

18 / 9 is wrong

18 - 9 is wrong

18 + 9 is wrong

i shouldn't have thought this was ez

[fading birch]

Maybe it's a factorial

[topaz jackal]

18! * 9 wouldn't make sense
number is too big

[fading birch]

Yeah

[topaz jackal]

like
to exponent of 16 big

gonna try 18! / 9

wrong

gonna try 18! by itself

wrong too

that shit is ciphertext bruh i don't think they made the password solely numbers

[plush gull]

#🪹the-sepulchre-arg message

[fading birch]

Okay

[plush gull]

There have been longer numbers

It could be factorial

It's just a question of what in the world do we do with it later

@topaz jackal what are you even using to judge if it's 'wrong'

[topaz jackal]

i clicked "ok" and the prompt said "wrong password"

only combo i haven't tried is 18! * 9
raw number too big to display on my calculator

you should know i was involved in 2 cyber CTF competitions and captured exactly 1 flag across both events lmfao

i try whenever i can because it's fun but don't expect any of my attempts to be very big brained

[plush gull]

Oh you're trying to open 911321311.rar ?

That's already been done

the password is "empty"

"18!9 is key" is what's in 911321311.rar

We don't know what the key is for tho

[topaz jackal]

i told you i'm rarded

but given that we're now at a dead end

it's either kam drops a hint
or another update drops hints

or we could've already finished this part of the arg and we have to wait for a continuation

[fading birch]

Wouldn't say that

[topaz jackal]

the single biggest contribution i've made to this arg was correctly guessing the "will y" message when gwynn was still around
the fact that decaff credited me as "a user" is kinda a testament to how simple my help was 💀

anyway
is there anything with the arg account we can try the key on?

[left bough]

ping the lost with 18!9 is the key?

[plush gull]

The Lost reply with: "Sorry, your card was declined"

[left bough]

welp, goolging "18!9" didn't help

just gave things about 18-9 and aspect ratios

[plush gull]

I feel like Google effectively ignores symbols most of the time

[left bough]

seems like it, yeah

[plush gull]

but I doubt the answer is that easy anyway

[left bough]

worth the try

[plush gull]

honestly I'm wondering if it's better to try deciphering 18!9 first, or focusing on what the 'lock' is

[left bough]

finding the lock might be easier

[inland thicket]

we've found the key, now we have to find the lock which "is there"

[plush gull]

No, Kaminsky already confirmed that the "lock" ,which 18!9 is key to, is already there

[left bough]

where was that confirmed?

oh ok

so it's just "there"

so we know it exists

[plush gull]

Yeah just this ^

[topaz jackal]

wait
wait wait wait wait

the arg account says "inside our empty brethren"

a lock exists

and the lost are implied to be dead, ghosts of, or heavily traumatised SWAT operators

do you think by any chance there's a clue in the textures of the police npcs or the swat playermodels?

[left bough]

oh boy

anyone know how to get them assets out and about?

[plush gull]

I still kinda wanna stick by my theory of "empty brethren" being faces.png

But, maybe?

[left bough]

where was the original "faces.png"?

[plush gull]

#announcements message

[left bough]

thanks

eh, that went nowhere

[plush gull]

could be something hidden in the files like filledfaces.png

but changing it to .rar doesn't let you open it like it does with the other one

deCaff could be correct that it's some hidden string or something

but I don't know how to look through those

[left bough]

neither do i

[hasty adder]

Satire or?

[plush gull]

Yes, joke

Got anything @hasty adder ?

[hasty adder]

Hell no I just woke up

[plush gull]

Ah

[hoary bay]

I tried looking for values through a hex editor and didnt find anything too. but we could try looking in a more systematic way just to make sure, like a whiteboard or something

[ornate bloom]

Might be a coincidence but a direct google search gave a bible verse, Matthew 18 9, talking about eyes

[plush gull]

Of what? The factorial number?

[ornate bloom]

yeah 18!9

[hoary bay]

could be a reference to it or a coincidence

speaking of coincidences, game's fucking with me

[hasty adder]

Lol

[hasty adder]

It is a pretty good coincidence

9 And if your eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.

[hoary bay]

if it is a reference then basically "Ride or Die"

[left bough]

haven't most of the arg's things been about eyes and flowers?

[hoary bay]

Yes

[left bough]

any idea how we're going to gouge out an eye?

[plush gull]

Try shoving a spoon in there

(For legal reasons the above statement is a joke)

[left bough]

or rather how we gone get only one of lilies eyes when the pair is tied to one user?

[hoary bay]

I was kind of wondering if 57621363351552000 is a discord user ID but that would be a stretch

[left bough]

eh, it's missing one digit

[hasty adder]

Add a zero fuck it

Nothing, but wasn't expecting anything

I am currently flapjack and coffee maxxing

[hoary bay]

Could schizopost about what the lock is supposed to be

[ornate bloom]

A big stretch: Maybe the server farm has something that you can interact lol

[hoary bay]

That's the other thing, not sure if the lock is in-game or not.

May as well check though

[ornate bloom]

yeah, nothing really to give a hint

[hasty adder]

I was curious to see if that key was a pin number but I has an exclamation

I still think it's in the image

[plush gull]

Same

[hasty adder]

Again remember that we've had a single in game hint and it was bugged to shit

[ornate bloom]

yeah haha

[hoary bay]

True

[hasty adder]

And now removed lol

[hoary bay]

Thats around the time I started taking interest in the ARG too

[hasty adder]

I'm sure we'll get more, but not this early

[rigid sphinx]

Full disclosure, I'd like in-game stuff but there is none atm.

[hoary bay]

I figured new ARG lead would change that but seems to be more of an continuation of the previous arcs

[rigid sphinx]

All ya'll got is what's been sent and what images there are in-game

[hoary bay]

thanks babe

[rigid sphinx]

[plush gull]

btw @hasty adder how can I even go about looking through strings/metadata?

[hasty adder]

I use forensically

But it's pretty basic for string extraction

I think a link to it is in the doc

I'm trying to find a better resource so I can extract shit from hex strings and make a new file for them

Isolating it might reveal new stuff, or at least make it easier to separate

[plush gull]

tell me if you do

[hoary bay]

I'm tempted to make a VM with linux so I can use better tools

[plush gull]

I know Modest used that

but uhh, idk if I wanna go that far personally

[hasty adder]

It's not too hard actually

Just upload and it handles the rest

Oh you mean the VM

[plush gull]

yes I mean the VM

[hoary bay]

The VM is pretty straight forward, I'm just lazy lol. You just need VirtualBox or something.

[ornate bloom]

The image faces.png and filledfaces.png are the same in term of pixels we can tell that much

[plush gull]

faces.png has nothing after the IEND

hmm

[ornate bloom]

Yeah filled was probably the lead to empty for the rar

[plush gull]

filled was the rar

[hoary bay]

If the first clue we missed is not in the game, then whoever suggested it might be another image might be onto something.

[ornate bloom]

There's still the unresolved SWEETLOVEFORPLANETEARTHII image

and the throne perhaps

[plush gull]

Uhh, that has been resolved tho?

[ornate bloom]

was it?

[silk tusk]

its simply just LOVEPLANETEARTH

[plush gull]

@ornate bloom
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BL7nWO9WYQqG-RbBwMEEMzjNRooOJR4fZxeaRs3KdAk/edit#heading=h.t7n004o1p64a

[ornate bloom]

huh alright my bad

[hoary bay]

For clarification, current speculation is 18!9 = KEY(or is it Matthews 18:9), is it a factorial equation 18!9 = 57621363351552000, where is the lock for said key, where is the first undiscovered hint?

[ornate bloom]

Supposedly the lock is available as well, hmmmm

[hoary bay]

And it's not going to be in-game after Kat's confirmation.

[plush gull]

Honestly I'm not against the Bible verse speculation, it does fit the theme in more than one way.

Although it doesn't answer the "cool but what do we do with this?" question any more than the factorial

[hoary bay]

Exactly

[ornate bloom]

Yup

[hoary bay]

@hasty adder Might be a good idea to archive all images and quotes separately just to make scrutinizing them easier

[hasty adder]

I have a folder of images

It's just not connected to the doc

[hoary bay]

Would uploading them to an imgur gallery ruin the data in any way?

[hasty adder]

Not really? I'd just have to make a new link in the doc

[hoary bay]

pog

[hasty adder]

And I'm lazy

I do wish I was smart enough to use github

There's probably a few stegonography tools there that would make this easier

[ornate bloom]

What if 18!9 was a year in the 1800s?

[plush gull]

I had a look at the strings in faces faces.png and filledfaces.png using Forensicallly, everything except the hidden post-IEND bit is identical

[plush gull]

Eh, feels like even more of a strech than current ideas

[river escarp]

I thought I'd already determined and shared that filledfaces.png is just faces.png concatenated with the archive containing 911321311.png.

[hoary bay]

Only connection I can think of would be to the Betsy Ross Flag

[plush gull]

Did you? Sorry

[river escarp]

No worries. Someone mentioned a while ago that it was the same picture, that's when I decided to start comparing their data and found the name of the contained file. Though funnily enough changing extension to .rar was kind of an educated guess.

[plush gull]

I thought I remembered you saying something later about needing to look through the strings again to check if there's anything else

[river escarp]

I actually only happened to have my linux VM from when I was making an effort to study cybersecurity, so for me it was convenient enough to just pop it open. If you don't want to go through all that trouble, this exists: https://ubuntu.com/wsl

[plush gull]

or something to that effect

[river escarp]

Yeah, fair, I don't know if I can ever definitively conclude that I've found everything within a file, just that I haven't found anything else.

[hoary bay]

https://github.com/WerWolv/ImHex my programmer friend says this hex tool is great

[hasty adder]

I wish I knew how to run github shit lol

My knowledge of computers is solidly in the amateur level, though I can sometimes learn shit on the fly

[hoary bay]

As in download it or make your own github page?

[hasty adder]

download

[hoary bay]

depends on your download manager but its just a terminal command

[hasty adder]

Oh really

[hoary bay]

which distro are you running?

[hasty adder]

distro?

[river escarp]

I assumed DeCaff was on Windows.

[hoary bay]

linux distribution

[hasty adder]

Lol I'm on windows

[hoary bay]

ohh mb

[hasty adder]

Again amateur at best

[river escarp]

It looks like that particular tool has some compiled installers though.

[hoary bay]

I'm like hobbyist level, don't have a degree but it enthuses me

[hasty adder]

Amateur might be too high for me then

[hoary bay]

thats part of the fun in this though, get to learn more about it

[river escarp]

Mhmm.

[hasty adder]

Well I figured out how to install it I guess so that's a start

[river escarp]

Honestly if I'm lucky this ARG might be the thing that gets me taking a look at my studies again. Kind of lost my volition a while ago.

[hoary bay]

May I suggest looking into reverse engineering videos? Mainly consoles and things, it helped me get interested in it a lot.

[rigid sphinx]

That ... is actually an incredible coincidence.

[hoary bay]

you sly dog you

[plush gull]

cat*

[river escarp]

I barely, barely dabbled with some reverse engineering stuff while attempting some OverTheWire wargames.

[plush gull]

I assume you mean the bible verse?

[rigid sphinx]

Ye

It's so in flavor

fuck

[plush gull]

Bro it is

[ornate bloom]

haha

[hasty adder]

The stars align lol

[rigid sphinx]

like Gwyn accidentally leading you guys to calling an actual flower shop a year or so ago.

[jovial salmon]

[plush gull]

hey don't blame me - I wasnt around a year ago

[jovial salmon]

NO WAY

[hasty adder]

There's a reason why the doc now states that we will not be visiting or calling IRL locations

[rigid sphinx]

ya way, I was dying when Gwyn told me

and I added that warning to my notes

[jovial salmon]

When the ARG gets real

[ornate bloom]

Visit Easter island for your next clue

[hasty adder]

Well anyways I doubt the Hex strings are gonna get me any further

[hoary bay]

void with its unlimited budget planting geocaches around the world

[hasty adder]

Everything past the IEND has been decoded, and there is no 18!9 anywhere in the metadata that I can see

[plush gull]

Yeah I looked for 18!9 in there too, didn't find it

[ornate bloom]

have we tried @ the lilies eyes with the key?

[hasty adder]

I wonder where else we can look, be it in the same image or another area

Uh

[river escarp]

Threnody and I were taking a look at 16732266154100745600000000000000000000000000000000000000000.png just because of the large amount of trailing zeros.

But we haven't found anything.

[hasty adder]

@boreal kite18!9 mean anything to you homie

[hasty adder]

We kinda solved that by accident

[river escarp]

binwalk suggested to me that it contained "compressed zlib data" but the further I investigated it the more I'm convinced that's a false positive.

[hoary bay]

@river escarp do you think the original name of the .zip archive 2244B6.zip has any meaning?

[river escarp]

I don't know if that's the original name or just one that binwalk produced.

Wrong reply.

[boreal kite]

18!9 is our comrades salve for corruption

[ornate bloom]

ho?

[hoary bay]

Ah. I see.

[plush gull]

Pog

[hasty adder]

So 18!9 is somehow supposed to fix a broken thing maybe?

[hasty adder]

Lol

I gotta get ready for work again

[hoary bay]

@river escarp Is there something corrupted about the image he sent us?

[hasty adder]

You mean besides the fucked up face and stuff?

[hoary bay]

well yeah

[river escarp]

The meme was sarcastic, not a goddamn thing lit up in my brain upon reading that clue. lol

[hasty adder]

I figured you were making fun of me for stating the obvious

[rigid sphinx]

I should also specify what I mean't by in-game, the hints and posts here can relate to content in-game, but there won't be any in-game actions to take unless specified or explicitly hinted at

[river escarp]

But I've seen it for all of 7 minutes so it was just a gut reaction.

[plush gull]

Huh

So

Salve... Hospital?

[hoary bay]

So ingame speculation is alright I guess

[river escarp]

I was about ready to throw a chair at you for how much time we've seemingly wasted on the encrypted ricin recipe.

[hasty adder]

Lol

Ricin is back on the menu boys

[plush gull]

Actually yeah it could be the ricin thing

[river escarp]

Like if there was legit zero chance that anything in the game was relevant and Kat was just watching us stir lol

[hasty adder]

You worked so hard on that lol

[ornate bloom]

Or corruption, server farm?

[hasty adder]

Comrades... port?

[ornate bloom]

lol

[plush gull]

Like Gerard thinks cops/government is corrupt etc., and by killing them he thinks he's "curing" the world or whatever

[hoary bay]

yes more schizoposting

[river escarp]

I'm still not fucking with the ricin recipe unless this community gets the kind of math nerd that doesn't lose brain cells trying to process encryption like that.

[hasty adder]

Having a key to an unknown lock might be more dubious than having the reverse

[river escarp]

Because although I think it was DeCaff who emphasized its ridiculous difficulty by calling it a "literal zodiac cipher," I'm not sure if that's quite as absurd of a task if it's patterned after a solved zodiac cipher.

(still don't wanna touch it x.x)

[hasty adder]

Can you link the image again

[plush gull]

Well not only that, but we might have just gotten a key to said cipher

[hoary bay]

Which image?

[hasty adder]

The ricin thing

[hoary bay]

ah god

@hasty adder

[river escarp]

This might be a bold speculation to make unevidenced, but I don't think it would make sense lore-wise for the encrypted ricin recipe to be something other than, well, a ricin recipe.

'cause I think others were pointing out that Gerard has already solved it.

[hoary bay]

Gerard had already deciphered it and used it to make ricin. My speculation was what was the original message? Because it wasnt his recipe.

[hasty adder]

Yeah, I just wanted to look at it again because I thought it was just a pigpen cipher

But no it's way more fucked up

It's got pigpen in it, but not only

[river escarp]

Oh man.

I was so sad when I recognized the pigpen shapes and then realized there was more to it than that.

I'm like oh! oh! I know this one! Like hell I do, fuck.

[hasty adder]

lol rip

Well get rippin kids. I gotta wash the stank from the gym off for work

[hoary bay]

I was wondering if there was a correlation between the eyes Gerard drew and the lost.

[plush gull]

Imagine if it's NOT the ricin thing and Kaminsky is just sitting there facepalming like "Fuck! They're going on about the goddamned ricin again!"

[hasty adder]

My guess is that Gerard probably actually had some credible info on them, but went insane or had his brain scrambled like an egg

That is, if MLO isn't just an in-game conspiracy theory

[hoary bay]

Weren't they also supposed to be the antagonist PVP faction?

[hasty adder]

They were cut really early

[hoary bay]

oh

[hasty adder]

So if anything they were placeholder

[hoary bay]

They still are for Farm

[river escarp]

I mean, if the whole "stand by the lost" bit can be interpreted as canon, there's at least some sort of paranormal shit in RoN's world.

[hasty adder]

But again, nothing is ever lost, only mulched

[hoary bay]

I really hope so

[plush gull]

Yeah I feel like some of info in Gerard's house is not completely bullshit, but in a large part he has gone schizo

[hoary bay]

Yeah, I'm starting to lean towards Gerard being right. He was a former USIA agent so he would've known shit

[river escarp]

Rainer wants to go ghostbusting

[plush gull]

Like the one board about assasinations of diffrent people

[hoary bay]

There was the statue on hotel that would whisper shit when you walked by it lol. Also the fact the lost are a cult

[inland thicket]

i honestly think the mlo are a cult which praises the lost, which are demons or something like that

[hoary bay]

Yeah, that's what I thought too. Or the MLO is the militarized wing of them. There are supposed to be cultists on farm

[river escarp]

I've had a weird, largely undeveloped theory that in some way RoN's leaning toward a metanarrative. e.g. Gerard in some capacity is suspicious that he and everyone else is in a literal video game.

[hoary bay]

I hope it's something metaphysical like that. The way I interpret the city is as a literal "hellhole".

[plush gull]

Anyway, if the ricin recipe thing is indeed the 'path' still, I wouldn't know where to even start
I suck ass at math

So unfortunately I feel like this would be about the time where my contribution to this ends, if that's the case

Although I will have a look at it

Just to see

[plush gull]

Actually, @left bough

Any progress on the grid cipher thingy?

And would 18!9 help, by any chance?

[hoary bay]

Again for clarification, current hint is: 18!9 is our comrades salve for corruption and maybe 18!9 = KEY or 57621363351552000 = KEY. hints can relate to in-game content, but no in-game actions are to be taken unless specified or explicitly hinted at.

[river escarp]

Yeah, it's still unclear how 18!9 should be interpreted. Factorial? 4 digit code with a wildcard? Something else entirely?

[hoary bay]

This should be disclaimed, yes

[plush gull]

Fuck I swear to god I'll never be able to look at a number the same way again

I'll just be going around like Gerard incoherently mumbling to myself "ciphers... hex... decimal... gwynn... blooms"

[left bough]

uhh... what cipher?

[hoary bay]

Gerard had a note with the zodiac killer's z340 cipher with the prime numbers highlighted on it. We're not sure if there's any connection yet.

[left bough]

oh

i haven't bothered with it since i got the last jumble out of it

RAILOSFTYOCTNTOEGNAUEOAAOTGCAINTRDLCOHSOSESTWRNEOIGEARTITFBAMFEWLNDE

or more accurately, i don't know what to do with it

[hoary bay]

Those are the characters from the highlighted cells after you rearranged them, right?

[left bough]

yeah, they should be in the z340 cipher's correct ararngement

well unless i made a mistake

[hoary bay]

@left bough can you post the version before you rearranged it, may as well

[left bough]

i don't have any other version saved

you mean just left to right and down?

[hoary bay]

ye

I dont see anything about it that suggests its related to the lock, 68chars vs 17chars. But maybe it is, or atleast the methodology is.

We have a key, we need to find a lock.

[left bough]

ROCOEGLCTNATSTGCAYAOAFEOINTUTRANLOIDSAFONEASROHTFMEIRSETOTGIFWEWLNDE

without rearrangement

[topaz jackal]

pinging arg account with the key nets us a hint statement
"comrades salve for corruption"
kat claims there's no ingame clues or leads rn
there's still images related to arg we don't know what to do with

the key may have something to do with the images

the ones in the newsletters a while ago maybe?

or a poster in a level?
probably not as likely given no ingame leads

[hoary bay]

The ARG Clues may be relevant to things in-game, but we won't need to take actions to find them unless explicitly stated or hinted at.

[topaz jackal]

mmm

if i wanna interpret it in multiple ways
if you think "corruption" in the political sense, then the hint lies in the police station lobby
if in the metaphorical sense, could be a level

[hoary bay]

Atleast that's how I interpreted this

[topaz jackal]

there's also the possibility that the statement doesn't mean anything at all

it's just saying 18!9 is a key

that brings us back to square 1

[hoary bay]

That would be a pretty big kick in the balls, we have to assume it means something.

[late lion]

Holy hell I missed a lot man

[hoary bay]

I think it's a hint that's going to lead us to the still undiscovered clue.

[late lion]

Honestly I wish I could think of and do the stuff y’all do, it’s insane

[hoary bay]

We're still learning as we go I think. Some of us atleast.

[late lion]

I see

The only thing I can think of when I see 18!9 is like, 9 goes into 18 twice. Think the number 2 has any relevance?

A toothpick of a thought

[hoary bay]

We're not sure how to interpret the number. It could be a factorial or something too. Literally just trying to figure out what the number could be used for atm. We don't know what the "lock" is.

[hasty adder]

My other theory on this is that is a key to another cipher. Remember that the gwynn cipher is an affine cipher with coefficients a=7 b=2? Perhaps this could be similar?

[hoary bay]

From a previous arc?

[hasty adder]

Either that or for future ciphers

[left bough]

if a=7 and b=2, how do you get the rest of the letters?

[hasty adder]

I'm not an expert in affine, so there's probably an explanation somewhere

It's a fancy way to rearrange letters using coefficients I guess

[river escarp]

For anyone who wants to read about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affine_cipher

[hoary bay]

@hasty adder Do you know how many of the in-game magazines were added last patch?

[silk tusk]

i got an idea

[left bough]

gimme

[silk tusk]

i cant get the image in here

[left bough]

uh?

[silk tusk]

oh nvm

this is a ww2 german cipher

[left bough]

ehhh

[hasty adder]

No

[silk tusk]

il look more into the cipher

[hoary bay]

Just a hunch maybe we have another barcode to scan.

That hint was the only time he's ever used a barcode, right?

[hasty adder]

No

[silk tusk]

i think that cipher has something to do with documents maybe

[hoary bay]

Er, I guess the newsletter too

[hasty adder]

The very first hint of sepulchre was a barcode lol

[hoary bay]

True

Like, I'm able to scan some of the barcodes but its been inconistent so far.

[silk tusk]

had a online cipher decoder decode it

led to

HWKBKUVPAEYVDPQUCPQQGEWCEPISWKDPTTHEEDUEOGIPYHJGEEIUWTJEVVXCCBGMHPTA

either has something to do with it like a second step or nah

if any of yall have a guide on what to do with sepulchre stuff i can prob solve it

or help atleast

i got another idea

perhaps the a1 z26 stuff

cipher is western friscian acording to google translate

[torn dew]

18!9 as 18factorial times 9 is 6531840 can we do anything with that?

[plush gull]

1. It's 57621363351552000, according to the three seperate calculators I've used
2. We haven't come up with anything yet

[torn dew]

Aww you're right I did it backwards my bad

[plush gull]

It's ok

[ornate bloom]

It feels too 'round' of a number as a factorial to be encrypted imo

[plush gull]

We've had 16732266154100745600000000000000000000000000000000000000000 before...

Doc says: Despite the users’ best efforts, this cipher went unsolved for quite some time. Gwynn’s many hints included:
The filename being important and the image having some “treats”
They suggested to move beyond just letter cyphers, and that binary was a good step
The file name will produce a sentence that may be the key to something else down the road
The file name cipher is a two step process
Yes the cipher is possible to solve at the time of release

To be fair I haven't experimented with binary in regards to 57621363351552000

[torn dew]

How many digits is 18!9 would it fit the zeros from that original bruteforced zeros clue?

[plush gull]

@hasty adder btw why does the doc say just "Using the phrase, “will you save yourself” They then re-encrypted the phrase and found that the encrypted numbers matched the filename exactly."

Did the user not share their method for re-encrypting?

Kinda lame if not

[hasty adder]

It was reverse engineered

Essentially we had the encryption method, but not the rest of the phrase

So he just put in phrases that fit the exact character limit, encrypted it to see if it would match the filename

To this day I have no clue where or how we were supposed to fill those remaining zeroes without brute forcing it like we did

[plush gull]

I got that much. I meant why doesn't it say how it was reverse engineered tho

The process for it

[hasty adder]

He literally just guessed, and reversed into hex, then octal format

I coulda sworn I put the method in there

I'll update it later if I didn't

[plush gull]

Uhh, I guess you kinda put it there

"After some trial and error, users found that an octal -> hex -> ASCII conversion results in what was confirmed to be the partial translation, “will y”

Users then suggested that the remaining zeros were missing characters and spaces, concluding that there were around 15-16 missing characters, rounding to a total of 21-22 characters. This was unfortunately the most progress made for months, until a user decided to type in close fitting phrases that matched the character length. Using the phrase, “will you save yourself” They then re-encrypted the phrase and found that the encrypted numbers matched the filename exactly. Gwynn confirms this as the correct answer, yet no updates have come of it yet."

octal > hex isn't outright mentioned as the reverse engineering method tho

[hasty adder]

I'll try to clean up the wording

[rigid sphinx]

Correct. Once I get Carcossa back up and running properly, things will be hidden in the game itself. More of my .rar/pngs, some more soundscape tricks, and [REDACTED], but I'll be more directly referential to the game when those come around.

also, I figure I'll ask since different ARG communities prefer it different ways

At what point would ya'll like me or by extension Lily to step in?

Not with this current hurdle, but in general

[torn dew]

Some indication of reaching the end of a current clue path so as not to schizo meaninglessly thinking there was something more that hasn't been found would be a very minimal step in and helpful.

[hoary bay]

Personally, I'm fine with struggling over it. I think if it gets to the point where you want to move on to the next lead you can guide us on the right path.

[rigid sphinx]

I'll wait until more of the crew pitches in, but this is nice feedback

though

I will say

I completely forgot exponentials existed while making this hint

[calm oriole]

What about factorials tho

[rigid sphinx]

those too

[torn dew]

Lol so is it 18 to the power of 9

[rigid sphinx]

nop, it's 18!9 under a1z26

[river escarp]

[torn dew]

57621363000000000

[hasty adder]

I guess it's how much of a hint you wanna give. Going off what gwynn did, she gave more understandable and straightforward hints. The Lost is more cryptic in what it says, which you can use if you want to keep a nice guy/mean guy theme

That or if you think we're being too greedy with hints or too fast for updates, lol

[river escarp]

The ol' "Good Cop Game ARG Guy/Bad Cop Game ARG Guy" routine.

[hoary bay]

In the grand scheme of things I don't think it hurts immersion retrospectively. Though it is kinda funny whenever you drop hints and we go apeshit.

[hasty adder]

So you're telling me the message was, Ah! I is key?

bruh we dum

[river escarp]

This is my first time participating in an ARG so I don't know if I could have valuable input regarding how challenging it ought to be or the pacing ought to feel.

[hasty adder]

Every ARG is different

Some ARGs go from simple ciphers to obscure, almost occult translations and processes to continue

[rigid sphinx]

Yeah, they're all over the place

[hasty adder]

It more often than not depends on the players. Stronger players will get harder puzzles

Or if it's a game promo thing it might be adjusted just to keep it relevant

[rigid sphinx]

That's sorta what I'm getting a grasp on now with this revival period

What exactly you all are capable of and what skill set I'm working with

[river escarp]

Are we dum, or is "Ah! I is key" as a solution too abstract for us to recognize it's the solution?

[rigid sphinx]

Decaffs doc was invaluable in helping that research

[hasty adder]

We're pretty shit, but at the same time we can improve and ask for help

[calm oriole]

Doesn’t make sense applied to the corruption line

[hasty adder]

Like I learned how to use github stuff now which is a little neat

The Lost are cryptic

Maybe it will make sense later, maybe it wont

I'd say the barrier of ARGs tends to be both lack of tools and lack of experience

It's a niche practice after all

[river escarp]

My most relevant experience comes from a brief foray into cybersecurity wargames, some of which can absolutely stump you indefinitely.

[fading birch]

[hoary bay]

I think we enjoy learning. We're getting stumped on identifying what we have to learn and the right actions to take when we have a clue. A lot of ARGs suck but this one is actually interesting because a lot of it is cybersecurity/cryptography and relevant to RoN's lore.

[hasty adder]

I just learned how to grab a hex string extractor yesterday. Fun stuff

[mellow lion]

Arg still active?

[hoary bay]

You bet it is

[mellow lion]

Care to fill me in?

[hoary bay]

The pins are a good place to start

[mellow lion]

Need 2 years of puzzles

Now!!!

[river escarp]

I think the hardest parts of ARG so far have been the abstract logical leaping. By nature of the genre, it's unclear how large the game's scope is, so any amount of information that's regarded as "official" or "from the source" is upheld as incredibly valuable.

[hoary bay]

Me calling every flower shop asking if they know what ready or not is

I'm not going to lie, the radio static soundscape in the killhouse confused me. I thought it was a lead because of how hidden it was.

[torn dew]

AH!I or R!I

[river escarp]

Validated information is also infinitely more valuable than speculation. Nobody is doubting whether empty is the password to the hidden archive in filledfaces.png 'cause it produces a clear result.

[hoary bay]

I know you've already checked filledfaces, but its good to exhaust every lead. I think the most significant clue we have right now is we're still missing the first lead because we never discovered it. Right now we have a "key" for a "lock".

[rigid sphinx]

Thank ya'll for the feedback

[river escarp]

From what I can tell you're basically acting as NPC and game designer in equal parts, so kudos regardless of any bumps in the road.

[plush gull]

we dum indeed

[hoary bay]

The school of ARG

[river escarp]

Anyways, so regarding "Ah! I is KEY". Do y'all suppose we could interpret that as "Ah! EYE is KEY"?

[plush gull]

Possible

[river escarp]

'cause I have my doubts that a single letter I can be meaningful for any sort of decryption purposes, and if it's supposed to be the first-person pronoun then it's not even grammatically correct.

That would be I am key.

I guess it's still slightly broken English regardless of how we spin it, but if it's eye then that'd definitely prompt me to start looking for some eyes instead of standing here scratching my head.

[plush gull]

@rigid sphinx btw I never would've thought to simply use A1Z26 for 18!9 since I didn't expect it to be "encrypted word, unencrypted punctuation, encrypted word" lul, hence why I jumped to factorials

[rigid sphinx]

Oh no, I see the line of logic

[river escarp]

Did I fuck it up already

[rigid sphinx]

just after gathering info and seeing ya'll hit a roadblock again, I figured I would say something

[river escarp]

Oh

[plush gull]

Thanks

@river escarp solid theory imo

[river escarp]

Yeah, I think that's what I was getting at with validated information. A code that produces a clearly readable output when decrypted could be considered self-validating.

[hoary bay]

Starting a sentence with "Ah!" seems out of character too. Though, it could be something like, "LOOK AT HIS EYES, DUMBASS" given how many hints there are towards them

[river escarp]

As an extreme counterexample, if I claimed that N was an encrypted string and gave no other information, you're basically SOL for finding what the decrypted string is supposed to be since nothing makes any possible output seem more likely than any other.

[plush gull]

I do love how it was the simplest cipher out there, A1Z26 - and yet instead of using it we attemped to interpret it as a factorial (and using a bunch of ciphers after that), possibly some other equation, house number, year, even fucking Bible verse

[river escarp]

It's funny in hindsight but I do think we had our reasons.

[plush gull]

in hindsight obviously

[river escarp]

It's actually not even AH! I is KEY, it's specifically AH!I is KEY

[plush gull]

And I am saying we not you

Like, I didn't think of it either

So I'm laughing at myself as well

[river escarp]

The lack of space after the exclamation point in a very short string that contained spaces led us to believe it was intentional, and so 19!8 was seen as one unit.

[plush gull]

Yeah

But at any rate

[river escarp]

Because, again official information = crazy valuable. The last thing we want to do is disregard something.

[plush gull]

We should probably work on finding the EYE and/or 'lock'

[plush gull]

PS I think another good argument towards I = EYE is simply the account name, "The Lilies Eyes",

Although if this doesn't lend anything we should probably go back to square one and think on what else I could be. But seems like a good place to start

[ornate bloom]

The group icon for The Lilies Eyes has a split in the middle, maybe the "!" ?

[river escarp]

The eyes that immediately come to mind without even giving it a second of thought are those which are drawn/painted throughout Sullivan's Slope.

Which does make me a little uneasy 'cause I feel like we've run circles around that level without any clear sign of progress.

Though it does track that the level would be relevant. Consider that the only lead we got before getting stuck again was "IT BLOOMS" on the Adam Update trailer, which exclusively focused on Sullivan's Slope.

Knowing that there aren't any interactive elements in-game to worry about is helpful.

Images, however...

[plush gull]

Yeah, would make sense if Sullivan's is still relevant. After all what we were just working on, the filledfaces.png thing, was meant to be a hint to something that ultimately was solvable without it, hard as it may have been

[river escarp]

Unless Kat misspoke here, in-game images are still on the table.

[plush gull]

That's how I interpret it too

[river escarp]

Yeah.

I guess it's fortunate that it's so easy to crush that level with a team of SA-58 equipped Judges, as many times as I have to keep going back :P

[plush gull]

Yeah lol

[river escarp]

I ain't finding shit.

Turns out a paranoid person who thinks they're under constant surveillances and wants to draw cute little diagrams about it plasters eyes all over fucking everything.

Well, not absolutely everything, but enough things to stop me from having an "Aha" moment looking at any of this stuff. Or perhaps an "Ah!" moment, har har har :P

[ornate bloom]

Ah! I see 😆

[strong idol]

plot twist key opens up the anal staircase

[jovial salmon]

[hasty adder]

Alright I'm biting the schizo burger

Look over the Adam update video again

Specifically the eye

My other guess is USIA? The in-game cia equivalent

Or the image's eyes

Damn

By the 9 I'm tweaking

[hoary bay]

Yeah, that's kinda the circle of logic I keep going through lol

[ornate bloom]

@ancient vessel 18!9 tells you something?

might as well lol

[inland thicket]

ok so i have an idea

so if the eyes are the key

maybe there is a puzzle on sullivan slope that requires a key, there are a lot of eyes all over the map so we'd just count them and that would be the key to the puzzle

[hasty adder]

That sounds like the exact opposite of what katminsky told us not to do

Also the HOME account is decommissioned

[river escarp]

Kind of drives me crazy that on one of the boards in Sullivan's Slope there's a "Partial list of MLO experiment subjects leaked" with a tidy list of names on one column and then crappy old lorem ipsum on the other.

Like, seeing the MLO name makes all the mental alarm bells go off, but lorem ipsum is like the universal sign of "this is meaningless filler crap, don't bother looking here"

[sweet dawn]

every time

all the way in

[hasty adder]

Sullivan's slope is a name i don't know

[hasty adder]

Oh it's not Ridgeline or the other name anymore?

[river escarp]

Ridgeline seems to be the internal name, but nah, same way that "Agency" is "Brixley Talent Time" in-game.

[hasty adder]

Gotcha

[boreal kite]

that one is gone, taken by the emptiness

we are all that remains

[left bough]

oh no

did the earthquake destroy home?

[river escarp]

Wonder if that should be read as "disregard that clue, it's not meaningful enough"

[rigid sphinx]

It means that I don't have access to that account because it was Gwyns

[left bough]

so it just means that home is gone

[river escarp]

Oh derp I completely misinterpreted who was talking to who

[topaz jackal]

if there's no game clues, the next best thing we can look at are the images they posted during adam update

there's a fucking 13mb image alongside the other smaller images

i'm half sure someone hid something using steganography
and half sure it's just a very high quality image

someone who has experience in steg help me out

i just booted up kleopatra and ran sweetloveforplanetearth thru
the program claims nth was found

kleo was the wrong tool
i'm rarded

[hasty adder]

Not the worst guess. I didn't see anything when going through the images but I've been wrong before

Empty is mentioned a lot too

I guess what could be considered empty? The original faces image?

[topaz jackal]

seeking in steg for sweetlove requires a password

i tried "empty" too

the freeware seek app i used said nothing came up

[left bough]

🤔

[topaz jackal]

i tried with a 2nd app
it crashed

[left bough]

try 18!9for a password?

[topaz jackal]

the faces and unknown image i have not touched yet

[left bough]

what 13mb are you talking about?

[hoary bay]

SWEETLOVEFORPLANETEARTHII.png i think

[left bough]

ergh, where do i find that?

[hoary bay]

@river escarp https://github.com/catoutput/the-sepulchre-arg-archive Hope you don't mind me linking this while its incomplete

[left bough]

i sucka t finding whatever people talk about 😓

[hoary bay]

Modest was working on the github as a solution for that issue

[hasty adder]

That or look through the doc

[tidal sonnet]

could it be a factorial cypher?

well the factorial came out to 6402373705728000 on dcode

so I guess multiply by 9?

also I'm about 2 days behind on updates so apoligies if this is late info

[hoary bay]

Kat said its not a factorial

[tidal sonnet]

ah damn just read through that my b

sorry I haven't been here recently sadly had the rona

raded gang

tried to do the A1Z26 cypher on the 57621363352 numbers got diddly but I also am willing to believe I just did it wrong lmao

↓ got this as my answers no idea if you guys can do anything with that
EGFUCFCCEB
EGFBMFCCEB
EGFBACFCCEB
FHGVDGDDFC
FHGCNGDDFC
FHGCBDGDDFC

tbh I'm not real good at this stuff but I just really like storytelling elements and cryptography when other people who are smarter than me do it correctly but shhh! not so loud!

also salve for corruption is almost 100% about the ricin code yeah? like the lost/Gerard believe the USIA to be corrupt/evil/etc. so the weapon would be the 'salve' as that normally refers to a topical application medicine (think: aloe) and seeing as ricin is able to poison through skin (or when swallowed but that is less important) it seems the lost is taking responsibility for Gerards ricin bomb thing that he was making. in short I think that the LSPD better get their mail double checked

anyway too many words best of luck with the arg I also want to say shout out to Kat for suffering through our constanst goofy poster behaviour ❤️

[hoary bay]

That's something we're debating. Not sure is the cipher is relevant or not, but Kat hasnt stepped in to stop us yet. Though if it is relevant I'm wondering if "Makade" is a hint towards the symbols in the cipher.

[tidal sonnet]

I mean if it's not not that then that is something at least

[hoary bay]

Yeah, I definitely feel like there's a conspiracy surrounding it. Probably why Gerard went crazy, but maybe thats just how I'm trying to connect the dots.

[tidal sonnet]

that and some of it seems just like "crazy ass person accidentally stumbles onto something right for once" type deal

like most of it is like standard fringe christian-fundamentalist stuff (5g devil, satellite=mind control stuff, etc.) but then under that surface there are some missing links to a potential actual thing (the USIA being sketch in a variety of ways, possible that the guy who was apart of the in game trigger was a test subject or something? idk wasn't there for that part of the ARG)

in short I think gerard was either crazy post-USIA or possibly fired because of crazy during his years there

idk that is something for lore dudes at void to figure out I just vibe here lmao

[hoary bay]

It's obvious he's not stupid. I think it's more like he stumbled upon something he wish he hadn't and went crazy trying to comprehend it. Judge may or may not have been apart of the MLO experiments, but in any case Gerald singled him out and left recordings directed to him to convince him of the conspiracy.

[tidal sonnet]

huh did not know that's what the recordings were

but I think it could be something mk-ultra-ish in nature

again these are stabs in the dark

[hoary bay]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVbGpWI5mNE&t=163s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQlDbYqJTnk

I wouldn't be surprised if every faction is equally bad, would fit the theme of this universe being 10x worse than reality.

[tidal sonnet]

well tbf 1990's cali was unpleasant to say the least (calendar in briefing room)

[hoary bay]

Actually, their first expansion is going to be 90's era swat teams IIRC, wouldnt be surprised if theyre the same calendars.

[tidal sonnet]

oh no shit

didn't realize expansions were even thought of currently

[hasty adder]

I'm still stuck on this one

"I is key"

We could be looking for the letter in a specific image or code, or an eye in something, or maybe The Lost needs a specific eye or I?

I could stand for something, and it's leading us to that

I could also need to be inserted into something to make it complete

I guess if you look at USIA, the I represents Intelligence/Intel

If you take it away you get USA?

@rigid sphinx Man I hate calling in hints, but am I even warming the water here? Is anyone for that matter?

[river escarp]

18!9 might not even be AH!I either. It's could be R!I, which isn't any less confusing. There technically isn't a space between the exclamation point and the 9 in the original code.

[hoary bay]

I was about to post what Modest just said when I asked him about wildcards earlier.

[hasty adder]

Kat clarified that it was a1z26

[river escarp]

Yeah, and R = 18. x_x

[hasty adder]

I mean, that makes very little sense in this context

Ah! I isn't great but at least it sorta works

[echo solstice]

i wonder kam is gonna do smth

[river escarp]

Yeah, but so far neither does I is KEY, I'm just sayin' it could be on the table.

[echo solstice]

it’d be great if he gave this a nudge

wink wink

[hoary bay]

I think we need a few breadcrumbs

[river escarp]

Kat's been giving us nudges, we're just really really lost it seems.

[hasty adder]

Well I can mean eye, which would definitely fit the theme

[hoary bay]

I dont want to outright ask him if the cipher is relevant or not

[echo solstice]

https://tenor.com/view/gman-half-life-alyx-creepy-gif-16000932

[hasty adder]

People throw shit to the wall, and it ends up hiding what might actually stick sometimes

[river escarp]

Nah I'm completely on board with it meaning I/EYE, it was just a thought I had recently.

Like that's just how inconclusive it really is.

[hasty adder]

Sorta yeah. It's phrased a bit oddly but we've since had clarification

[river escarp]

'cause we still don't even know what the key is for in any case.

[hasty adder]

I is key might just mean that it's a key feature/object we need to pay attention to

Not a literal password or such perhaps?

[river escarp]

I spent like an hour yesterday in Sullivan's Slope looking for eyes. x_x

[hasty adder]

Nothing in-game unless specifically hinted at

It might relate to game stuff

[hoary bay]

That's why I want to know if the cipher is relevant. The only revelation I had was how Sullivan's slope is in "Makade Falls" and how the cipher looks like syllabics.

[hasty adder]

Aw hell no I'm not touching that damn nonesense until I have solid confirmation that it's relevant

[hoary bay]

Yeah, same. huge coincidence if not tho

[hasty adder]

Guess the only other thing I can consider potentially connected is that the SWEETLOVEFORPLANETEARTHII.png image uses two letter I's, not number 1s

And that the image is 14 fucking MB

[hoary bay]

Yeah, the rest of the images were around 2-4mb, including filledfaces.png

[hasty adder]

It's pretty big and high rez, but it's still suspicious

But again, it doesn't show any hidden things

And making it an RAR file doesn't work

So I'm back to square 1

[river escarp]

We also had the hint 18!9 is our comrades salve for corruption

[hasty adder]

RI = rye

The Lost likes rye bread

[hoary bay]

WHERE DO THEY SERVE RYE BREAD?

[river escarp]

Now I know you may be thinking, "But Cat, that doesn't help at all."