Finding Essy, part 2
From Intimation
This puzzle began when several of us received the following DMs via twitter:
>>S:Unk//Oh look! Someone left the back door open wide! You'll have to find my FIVE special breadcrumbs now to find where I went to hide!
>>S:Unk//Our last game really wasn't too easy, but compared to this one, that one was breezy! ♫ Here we go round the prickly pear... ♫
Apparently, while Sys was doing its “research,” Essy was able to sneak out and send DMs to several people. These do not appear on intimation’s public twitter feed, but several users reported receiving the same messages.
Sys responded to this immediately with the following public tweets:
>>Sys:Log//URGENT//S found a weak zone in the Stonewall and managed to slip out a network tentacle while I was researching.
>>Sys:Log//I've engaged safeguards. Leak controlled and under observation. CP must be located to repair the crack. Subroutine SYS.S3 enabled
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Looking for breadcrumbs
MrToasty noticed something new about the main site, and instructed us, “On the TWTWE site, click on the little light blue rectangles that look like part of the background. Click on them and it will popup a message box.”
Shad0 added, “Nine of these breadcrumbs appear on each page load, on every page of the site today. Their location on each page seems to be more or less random -- i.e., they're in different locations each time. The pop-up is generated from http://thewaytheirworldended.com/peekaboo-pricklypear-X-Y, where X and Y are the coordinates of the breadcrumb.”
Eventually, Shad0 was able to discover that the breadcrumbs we were looking for were static and did not move around on the reload of a page. He was able to find the first breadcrumb’s location:
There's a breadcrumb on the "Don't Push Me" log entry that is static (i.e. it doesn't move around when you reload the page). You'll have to use the direct link (http://www.thewaytheirworldended.com/missionlog10.php) rather than just loading it from the main page. The static breadcrumb is hiding on the left -- just above "MISSION LOG: DAY 16" -- cleverly camouflaged as part of the usual graphic. Clicking on it leads to http://thewaytheirworldended.com/affinity-with-dirt . For completeness: The breadcrumb is 117-208.
Noting that the page Shad0 found had the title “affinity-with-dirt,” Nyst looked at the logs of Sheridan (the archaeologist) and found a second breadcrumb on the page http://thewaytheirworldended.com/missionlog01.php , directly to the left of the first paragraph (by the word pain). This led to the page http://thewaytheirworldended.com/strange-stars .
Nyst also found the third breadcrumb first, though I will use Shad0’s description of where it is: “It's on http://thewaytheirworldended.com/missionlog03.php, about two-thirds of the way down the log entry, on the right. Leads to http://thewaytheirworldended.com/up-the-wall .”
Nyst also found a breadcrumb on http://thewaytheirworldended.com/missionlog07.php (it is found near the upper-right corner of the word “elucidation” that is written in the upper-LEFT corner of the page) that led to http://thewaytheirworldended.com/minor-activity .
The fifth breadcrumb was found by Shad0: “all the way at the top of http://thewaytheirworldended.com/SYS/LOG/, right after 'THIS WAS THE WAY THEIR WORLD ENDED...' Leads to http://thewaytheirworldended.com/i-am-blind ”.
Solving three parts of the puzzle (three “breadcrumbs”)
Note that as each page in this section was found and submitted to intimation, the message “>>SYS.S3:MSG//CONTROL POINT NOT FOUND” was added to each of those pages. In other words, these pages were pieces of the trail that Essy left for us to find, but they were not where she was hiding herself, and so her control point could not be found there.
Breadcrumb 1: affinity-with-dirt
Shad0 solved this one:
- “affinity-with-dirt is a very simple puzzle. It's some song lyrics in Pig Latin, and the next three words are the song title. http://thewaytheirworldended.com/I-will-survive ”
This page gave us the message:
- You got it! But you didn't get me, heehee! You're really close - there's not much space left between us!
Breadcrumb 2: strange-stars
We did not solve this part of the puzzle right away; see the section further down on “Solving the remaining ‘breadcrumbs’.”
Breadcrumb 3: up-the-wall
From Shad0:
First row reading across: PRICKLYPEAR
First column reading down: HIDEANDSEEK
From Koreth:
- 2nd row across: PIGNOSE
From drizjr:
bottom across:
LIFE IS BUT A DREAM
Based on these results, MrToasty said, “I believe that the word from the green letters would be either SIMPLY or SKIMPY.”
He was also eventually able to work out the anagram of the blue letters, leading us to http://thewaytheirworldended.com/simply-helpless .
This page gave us the message:
- You got it! But you didn't get me, heehee! Hide and seek's my specialty!
Breadcrumb 4: minor-activity
Shad0:
- Simple letter-substitution cryptogram leads to http://thewaytheirworldended.com/getting-stranger, which is another "prickly pear" page.
This page gave us the message:
- You got it! But you didn't get me, heehee! Keep looking around, I'm not too far away!!
Breadcrumb 5: i-am-blind
MrToasty noted that it looked like constellations were involved.
Shad0:
On the left so far: Orion (the Hunter), Draco (the Dragon), and Ursa Minor (the Little Bear or the Little Dipper). On the right so far: Pisces (the Fish) and Sagittarius (the Archer).
Edit: Gemini (the Twins) and Eridanus (the River) on the left.
Edit: Cepheus (the King) on the right.
Edit: Scorpius (the Scorpion) on the left.
Edit: Aquila (the Eagle) on the left.
We did not finish solving this part of the puzzle right away; see the section further down on “Solving the remaining ‘breadcrumbs’.”
Reaction to our progress, and the retraction of the tentacle
During our search, the following public tweets were posted:
>>Sys:Log//NTID '@Shad0h' has pointed S3 to a location that S had apparently visited, at the primary network tentacle.
>>Sys:Log//The NTCP was not located there. S appears to favor this act of hiding her tentacle CP. It is for good if it makes my task easier.
>>Sys:Log//Five locations have been reported containing a hint to hiding places. Two have been analyzed, neither contain S's CP.
>>Sys:Log//These locations at the primary network tentacle: [affinity-with-dirt][up-the-wall][strange-stars][minor-activity][i-am-blind]
Based on the three breadcrumbs we were able to solve, MrToasty was able to make a guess and find the page where Essy was hiding was
http://thewaytheirworldended.com/ROUND-AND-ROUND-WE-GO/ .
This discovery was sent to Sys, which resulted in the following tweets:
>>Sys:Log//S's control point has been located, her tentacle retracted and the crack repaired. Two nodes, however, remain elusive.
>>Sys:Log//My gratitude goes out, once again, to all who aided in this task. Stonewall strength is high. Continuing research.
>>Sys:Log//Note:SYS/KC9V-08KV-0SD7-MC04 stored at primary network tentacle. Even hundreds of years before his time, John 117 was honored.
>>Sys:Log//Preparing for hibernation.
>>Sys:Log//Resuming scheduled hibernation. Time to Active: 5:23:43:00.
We took from this that Sys was satisfied that Essy was back under lock and key, so to speak, but wanted us to continue to try to solve the remaining two parts of the puzzle.
Solving the remaining “breadcrumbs,” and puzzle completion
Breadcrumb 2: strange-stars
Shad0 got the solution:
Most of the letters are from PRICKLY PEAR (in fact, you can find the string PRICKLYPEAR exactly once, going up diagonally from the P in the second column, third letter from the bottom.) There are also a bunch of Ns, Ss, and Ts. There are only two Gs, however -- which happen to be next to one another -- and just one D and one U -- which happen to lie on the same diagonal line. If you look around those nearly-unique letters, you'll notice that they're part of two longer words, SUICIDE and TRIGGER. Leading to http://thewaytheirworldended.com/suicide-trigger
That page gave us the message:
- You got it! But you didn't get me, heehee! You hit the ground running, so don't give up yet!
Breadcrumb 5: i-am-blind
Nyst was able to separate and identify the constellations; see image links at right.
MrToasty summarized:
First set: Gemini, Draco, Orion, Ursa Minor, Eridanus, Reticulum, Scorpius, Norma, and Aquila.
Second set, Pisces, Indus, Equuleus, and Sagittarius.
Using the first letter of each constellation in an anagram, he said, “OK, for the stars, I have DANGEROUS for the first word, letters SPIE for the second with just that K shaped one left.”
Shad0 then got it:
Bingo! I suspected as much: there is no constellation that begins with the letter K, so S simply made a K for us. :mrgreen:
http://thewaytheirworldended.com/dangerous-spike
That page gave us the message:
- You got it! But you didn't get me, heehee! I'm just around the corner, but I'm not going anywhere!
Turning in these two nodes completed this puzzle.
