+ CLUE POST +

[vitaelamorte]

Come on, guys. It's not an Eway party without puzzles.


Here's how it's going to work! Your characters have received invitations to four different parties that will be spread out over the course of the event. Each party log will contain a clue that will be the beginning to one of FOUR puzzle paths, leading to FOUR possible outcomes, including:

• Two routes that lead to who it was that invited everyone to Wonderland, given out in two different ways.


• One route that does not give the answer, but does reveal some interesting Background Information about Wonderland.


• And one route that is a red herring route that does not lead to anything useful at all.

We are NOT telling you which route is which, so you're just going to have to solve them all and find out for yourselves when you get to the end! Each route has 3 steps (except for the last route, which has 4) and will work like this:

ICLY: Your characters will find clues and attempt to solve them! Clues will regenerate after five minutes, so if for example, one character or group of characters finds a note with a clue on it and takes it with them, the note will re-appear for others to find. They'll (hopefully) solve the clues to find the next step of the route and so on and so forth until eventually they figure out where the clues are leading them. They may need to ICly seek out others for assistance if they do not have the knowledge or skills to progress further, and it is entirely possible that they may get ICly stuck on one route, and may need to change to a different one. If they stick with it though, they will be rewarded with information...unless they got the red herring route, of course.

OOCLY: These puzzles are a TEAM EFFORT. As each log is posted, we will post the first clue of each route whether the previous route has been solved or not (so on the 1st the House Party Route will start, and on the 3rd the Throne Room Party route will begin even if the House Party route has not been 100% solved, and so on until all the routes have been started). When you think you have solved a clue, reply to that clue on this post. If you're right, we will reveal the next clue in that route, and if you aren't then you can keep trying. We encourage you to use each puzzle route's thread for OOC collaboration and shouting ideas at each other, and even begging for clues if you're really stuck. Clues will NOT be revealed ICly until they are solved OOCly. For example, if puzzle route A's first clue leads to the roof it does not, nice try, the clue will not APPEAR there until someone solves the clue OOCly – this is partly to prevent spoilers, and partly to allow people to go about their lives in-game without having to retcon and be like “oh and there was a huge clue in the background of this thread”. We encourage EVERYONE to try their hand at the puzzles, whether their characters are working on that route or not. The routes will get solved faster with multiple people working on it as a big team, and we hope that it'll be a lot more fun that way!

PLEASE KEEP AS MUCH TO THIS POST AS YOU CAN - we know you guys love Plurk, but you'll be doing puzzles alongside people who haven't been in the RP scene in years and may not have access to puzzle-solving happening exclusively on plurk.

We are releasing the puzzle routes in order from hardest route to easiest route (in our opinion, as puzzle makers), since by nature there will be less time to work on the routes released last. If you have any questions about how the puzzle routes will work or anything along those lines, please bring them to the FAQ POST. If you have questions about specific riddles or need to demand hints, please keep those questions to their puzzle path threads so everyone can easily find the answers!

That should be about it! We'll begin releasing the first clues as each log goes up, and we wish you all the best of luck with our maddening puzzles! ♥

Comments

[demonstrate]

I AM CHEERING RIN ON AS WE SPEAK

[charlastan]

[demonstrate]

[ rin and i came up with the numbers 1865. we are deciding to check alice's room on the regular mansion... ]

[interspatial]

[my work if it helps!]

[vitaelamorte]

[ Unlike the inconspicuous ink in the disco, the message written on a wall in Alice's room is clear as day: DON'T GO TO SLEEP. LOOK BELOW.

The paint, somehow, is always still fresh, no matter when you arrive. ]

[demonstrate]

[ ✧!!!!!

well. that's not alarming or anything. instead of impulsively and immediately heading into the caves half-cocked, a thorough sweep of the room will be made just to be on the safe side. spot checks include: looking under any rugs, drawers, and the bed... sry alice. ): ]

[vitaelamorte]

[ But... but what about your spirit of adventure?! Your youthful enthusiasm? Your zest for-- No? All right, fine, okay then.

There is a printed card hidden underneath Alice's bed. Furthermore the middle drawer on the nightstand still holds Alice's ribbons. One of them is tied neatly into a bow around a rolled-up message.

You also find the following items: Dust, dust, a whole lot of dust, some more dust, and finally, dust.

They do not seem particularly relevant to the riddle, however. ]

[eyething]

Okay, so in the printed card, Simple... the I is actually a 1 which I thought meant something, but I'm not sure what.

So 4 of these numbers (1423, 307, 2503, and 13) in the printed card are prime numbers so I thought that by Simple it meant we had to do the prime numbers first using Simple to decode starting with I because the I is a 1 so the first prime number was I, etc, but I tried like doing that and it didn't work and my brain hurts and I came up with nothing... that was feasible.

There are 8 dots on the rolled up message, and there are 6 dots on the printed card.

Yes, that's all I got, and I don't think I was super helpful at all, but... YES. >> /collapses

[notagoodloser]

JUST WANTED TO STOP IN TO SAY IM WORKING ON THIS, will respond if this works but I have... a Theory

[interpersonal]

excellent TEAM WORK TEAM WORK

[notagoodloser]

ok actually here I'm just gonna Talk About This: I'm working on this like a cipher? Because the i is a 1, and there's 8 dots on the "simple" paper which tells me it could be an N=8 shift (so A = I, which makes sense that the I is a 1 to indicate I = 1). But I'm running into the issue of what to do with the zeroes in that case, because... you don't usually use zeroes in a number/letter cipher? So I'm not sure how to code that.

EDIT: WAIT EACH NUMBER MIGHT BE A TWO-DIGIT AND NOT A 4 DIGIT LET ME INCLUDE THE ZEROES AS A TWO DIGIT THING AND GET BACK TO YOU

[forwearemany]

It's also possible a transposition cipher could be involved somehow? Given the ribbons part.

But I don't actually see what that would even get us...

[notagoodloser]

possibly? here's what I'm at so far:

14 23 03 07 14 20 25 03 14 23
03 07 14 20 25 03 14 23 03 07
21 25 24 01 08 01 23 12 13

Where 1 = I, N = 8 for an a/i cipher shift

SHIFTED
V E K O V B G K V E
K O V B G K V E K O
C G F I P I E T U

NOT SHIFTED
N W C G N T Y C N W
C G N T Y C N W C G
U Y X I H I W L M

so... yeah. first translation is with the 8 shift, second without, just in case. There probably needs a key I'm missing.

edit: it probably has to do with the "step 2: ribbons" part but I'm very ??? on that

[krmvgivv]

This is adding the grouped numbers together:
10, 10, 7, 10, 10
10, 7, 10, 10, 10
10. 7, 9, 8, 4

also I tried reading the numbers vertically and if you do that you get:

102 431 202 375
012 344 020 701
120 458 200 031
212 543 021 332
101 433 20 37

NOT SURE WHAT IF ANYTHING EITHER OF THESE MAY LEAD TO but tossing it up for people to look at

[voiceinthedark]

Okay, I may be completely wrong, but a couple more avenues to look at.

1. Are we counting too many dots? Like... should we only be counting the dots that appear in the word 'Simple' (which is 2)

2. Are we looking at the wrong dots? On the page with the code, it seems a bit unusual to have a full stop at the end of 'Simple'. And there's also the colon?

[krmvgivv]

Also can't really play with this at work but this cipher seems to produce numbers in the same format? I will investigate more later!

[krmvgivv]

OK HOLD ON HOLD ON I HAVE AN IDEA

If you add up the first two rows you get 47 each time. The second one adds up to 40 but it has two digits missing. To make it equal to 47 as well you'd have to add 07 to the end. (Or 34, or 16, etc etc but they said simple I'm gonna believe them).

Go to the ribbon, count the dots, there are 8.

MODS TAKE ME TO FLOOR 8 ROOM 7.

WAIT I CAN'T DO MATH the last one adds up to 38 take me to floor 8 room 9!

Also someone else check my math I can't be trusted.

...I could be totally off base but hell with it I don't have any better ideas.

[vitaelamorte]

[ You walk up to the eight floor of the first mansion. You enter room number nine. It contains one bed, a closet, and a bathroom attached, as well as running water and electricity.

This is, as it turns out, just one of Wonderland's basic rooms, currently unoccupied. HOWEVER! As you explore this possibility, you meet some of the people who tried to visit room number five on the same floor earlier. You take a brief moment to stop and sort of go



at each other, before turning back to business.

There are no further clues in sight for any of you. ]

[demonstrate]

[ s o b.

i have stared at this puzzle way too long and i've tried way too many n/shift combinations that i'm not sure anything makes sense letters are no longer letters numbers are no longer numbers my heart is but a ghost town. there is one word that jumped out at me as i tried everything out tho, and it's garden.

so maybe. i'll explore the garden....

fruitlessly. as you laugh at me. ]

[vitaelamorte]

[ You wander aimlessly through the gardens, and eventually walk past the beautiful fountain in its center. Many goldfish are swimming around, lost in conversation with their own kind. Furthermore it looks like there's a red toy boat driving itself around the f-- wait a minute.

This isn't where you are supposed to go at all!

A group of fellow puzzle seekers hurriedly snatch their well-earned toy boat from your greedy grasps, and tell you to shoo. It appears that there is no further clue here, at least not for you... ]

[demonstrate]

[ what if i explored every inch of the mansion ]

[voiceinthedark]

I have no idea if this is of any use, but Simple Susan by Lewis Carrol.

[saved]

I'm at lunch between my sessions at work so I don't have a lot of time, but if you look at this, you could see it as an equation wherein the numbers have a certain ratio to them at least 3 of the numbers. I'm not sure if the 4th one matters or not, but I know at least 1423 can match this because 1 = A, 2 = B, 3 = C

A + 1 = B aka 1 + 1 = 2

B + 1 = C aka 2 + 1 = 3

It works if you conclude D is 4, but the passage also talks about only 3 numbers and using some fancier stuff to come up with the 4th number. I think I'm reading quick here.

But I'm not sure what to do with that 8( Maybe the sets of number that fit the S1MPLE Susan equation-y mean something different to the sets of numbers that do not? Though if you include all 4 numbers, I think only 1423 is applicable and then you're left with a lot of blanks. But maybe you do the S1MPLE blanks first and then the rest w/ Ribbons.

Just throwing out/spitballing some stuff here. I could be totes off.

[normandysbest]

honestly I am trying my hardest to wrap my head around this and I just... don't get how to apply it? Because if it's just a simple A = 1, B = 2 sort of deal, then it's just an A1Z26 Cipher. In the context of the book he was using it to solve a puzzle but it was like... presented as an algebra equation? And it's More Math than I can possibly handle because I got to pre-calc and almost failed lmao

so if anyone could figure it out in the context of the equation, perhaps? But I had decoded it as an A1Z26 earlier and got preeetty much gibberish out of it, so.

[saved]

SAME that was my big struggle as I stared at it all. I want it to be the key we need cause GRAGH SIMPLE!!! It should lead us somewhere, but like even if I could input these into the weird equation-y ish like what then... what do the numbers mean and why would I even....

The whole passage there seems to talk about solving by process of elimination, but again, not sure how it would be applicable here.......

/curls up into a ball