@!!$$%!*!(@)!!$$(!$&

[Dryunya]

Another WMG theory.

You hear what you heard and now you must read what is written.

"What we heard" was CANDLESONLY in the sound. "What is written" are the Contemplate Our Navel tweets that come after that. Maybe the code word has something to do with those tweets? Or something?

[Pixelmage]

I feel like the Twitter messages are aiming us at a blog of some kind, but "thesound.blogspot.com" and "thesound.wordpress.com" are both defunct, and "thesound.tumblr.com" is a blank page (and I'm not creating a tumblr account just to follow something that may or may not be involved).

The sound was candlesonly, though. So, following from that: http://www.candlesonly.blogspot.com

Empty of followers, and timeline compliant with the appearance of our Matrx. No, I can't for the life of me make the slightest sense of how it would connect to what we have this far.

[JackAlsworth]

There are three entries on the blog. One of them has a comment, from a Livejournal user named "deckygirl". She has a linked Twitter account, which about a week ago posted a possibly relevant newspaper cutting.

[Dryunya]

Whoa. We are sooo on the right track.

Caution: thinking aloud ahead.

UPD: To recap, she is a new girl at some hush-hush facility. The cutout hints not to use the "save password" function... So, I assume, she has it saved somewhere.
HUNT ALL THE PIXELS!
UPD2: Her inbox was hacked recently. It probably has "swordfish" for password, or something. What mail addresses are associated with Blogspot?
UPD3:

Okay, well that explains what happened to my inbox the other day. Maaaan get it together, Uni!

Uni? What's Uni? The picture mentions some "Servers of the Un<...>puter systems". Maybe it's "University" and I shouldn't focus on it. Still, a weird abbreviation.
UPD4:

New boss is really cool, talks to me about deforestation and stuff

And Matrx mentioned the trees. Hmm. Also, the boss' name is Beth.
UPD5: She has "work tweets". Maybe there's another account to uncover.
UPD6: Magnetic anomalies?
UPD7: Finally, the photos. No apparent hidden content. I tried to look for reflections in the Pong machine monitor, for no avail. Something may be deduced from the photo of her colleagues, but everything is barely visible. The guy on the right has an indiscernible tattoo on his arm, is wearing some weird amulet that may or may not look like that thingy in Matrx shutdown video, and has "(R?)PWS" written on his shirt, which does not lead to anything definite. Nothing to work with.
No important information in her blog, either (other than her background).

My conclusion: since we got an actual living human to work with, maybe it's about time we probe her. I'm not sure how to approach this, though. I do believe we need to either get her inbox, or her work twitter account.

[JackAlsworth]

"Uni" is a fairly common abbreviation for University, especially in British English. Since we have virtually no other clues as to what university it is, I think it's a low priority for now.

[Blurred_9L]

Blogspot accounts are usually associated with google, if I'm not mistaken. Though, I thought blogspot was replace by blogger. I might be wrong on this.

EDIT: I have the feeling that the guy's tattoo on his hand is remarkably similar to the NEW thing logo.

EDIT2: She just reacted to followers on twitter too

[narrativedilettante]

Blogspot accounts are usually associated with google, if I'm not mistaken. Though, I thought blogspot was replace by blogger. I might be wrong on this.

I use Blogger. It's Google's blog service. Blogger gives you a .blogspot.com url.

[The Wild West Pyro]

Whoa. We are sooo on the right track.

Caution: thinking aloud ahead.

UPD: To recap, she is a new girl at some hush-hush facility. The cutout hints not to use the "save password" function... So, I assume, she has it saved somewhere.
HUNT ALL THE PIXELS!
UPD2: Her inbox was hacked recently. It probably has "swordfish" for password, or something. What mail addresses are associated with Blogspot?
UPD3:

Okay, well that explains what happened to my inbox the other day. Maaaan get it together, Uni!

Uni? What's Uni? The picture mentions some "Servers of the Un<...>puter systems". Maybe it's "University" and I shouldn't focus on it. Still, a weird abbreviation.
UPD4:

New boss is really cool, talks to me about deforestation and stuff

And Matrx mentioned the trees. Hmm. Also, the boss' name is Beth.
UPD5: She has "work tweets". Maybe there's another account to uncover.
UPD6: Magnetic anomalies?
UPD7: Finally, the photos. No apparent hidden content. I tried to look for reflections in the Pong machine monitor, for no avail. Something may be deduced from the photo of her colleagues, but everything is barely visible. The guy on the right has an indiscernible tattoo on his arm, is wearing some weird amulet that may or may not look like that thingy in Matrx shutdown video, and has "(R?)PWS" written on his shirt, which does not lead to anything definite. Nothing to work with.
No important information in her blog, either (other than her background).

My conclusion: since we got an actual living human to work with, maybe it's about time we probe her. I'm not sure how to approach this, though. I do believe we need to either get her inbox, or her work twitter account.

North? Could there be some significance here?

[JRPictures]

North? Could there be some significance here?

Perhaps but I have nothing.

Well, at least we have something to go off of now with DeckyGirl.

Looks like we're about to get involved in some werid sci-fi conspiracy nonsense.

[Dryunya]

North? Could there be some significance here?

There should be. Compass points north. If it doesn't, there's some massive magnetic field nearby.
Swan station, anyone? >_>

What the hell, I'll ask her about that.

[Scarab]

...I'm not even going to comment on the fact I was asleep this time, because I wasn't. I was, apparently, getting my arse handed to me in Left 4 Dead >.>

So what exactly are we doing right now, guys? Are we looking for some kind of code, or was this the destination we were heaving to. Has anybody spoken to the Matrix guy about it?

There should be. Compass points north. If it doesn't, there's some massive magnetic field nearby.
Swan station, anyone? >_>

Yeah, that makes sense... in so far that any of this does. I think maybe there's just some kind of... interference wherever they are, messing with iPhones? Just digital? Could we ask her to check the same place with a REAL compass, see whether or not she gets the same problem? (I dunno what that'd do but I'm intrigued to find out, I could ask?)

"Uni" is a fairly common abbreviation for University, especially in British English. Since we have virtually no other clues as to what university it is, I think it's a low priority for now.

Yeah, I use that one all the time, although apparently some Americans/Europeans do a lot, too... can we find out where exactly her university is?

So does this mean she's a part time employed student...? That's a lot of orientation meetings for a Part Time student worker...

[Dryunya]

Okay, in this post I'll try to see the big picture.
Matrx contacted us. He seems to be an AI or something ("Reality Manipulation and Parafine enabler device"), and he's familiar with the Metaguards, Coffee Room and the lack of sea monsters around here. And something is wrong with him, so he needs our help to reboot itself.
He pointed us to the candle blog. How in the living hell does that make any sense. The only apparent purpose of that blog seems to be helping us to find Rebecca F, because she is somebody working in a technical company keen on keeping its secrets (not to mention the magnetic fields). Everything is pointing out to a sci-fi AI-conspiracy scenario.

So, our objectives have been updated:

1. Find a password to reboot Matrx.
2. Find out what's the deal with that company Rebecca works at.

My list of WMGs is too long to post. While the company investigation amounts to conversations and looking into details, the password thing requires us to know what we're looking for in the first place. It would make sense if Matrx escaped form that company's labs or something - in that case we can find the password there.
UPD: And, well, the possible connection between Matrx and Mr. Administrator is obvious. Maybe he used it to manipulate reality, or maybe somebody tried to replicate what he already can do. Before going down that rabbit hole, don't forget that this is at most half-canon, so Mr. A is unlikely to get directly involved.

[The Wild West Pyro]

Okay, in this post I'll try to see the big picture.
Matrx contacted us. He seems to be an AI or something ("Reality Manipulation and Parafine enabler device"), and he's familiar with the Metaguards, Coffee Room and the lack of sea monsters around here. And something is wrong with him, so he needs our help to reboot itself.
He pointed us to the candle blog. How in the living hell does that make any sense. The only apparent purpose of that blog seems to be helping us to find Rebecca F, because she is somebody working in a technical company keen on keeping its secrets (not to mention the magnetic fields). Everything is pointing out to a sci-fi AI-conspiracy scenario.

So, our objectives have been updated:

1. Find a password to reboot Matrx.
2. Find out what's the deal with that company Rebecca works at.

My list of WMGs is too long to post. While the company investigation amounts to conversations and looking into details, the password thing requires us to know what we're looking for in the first place. It would make sense if Matrx escaped form that company's labs or something - in that case we can find the password there.
UPD: And, well, the possible connection between Matrx and Mr. Administrator is obvious. Maybe he used it to manipulate reality, or maybe somebody tried to replicate what he already can do. Before going down that rabbit hole, don't forget that this is at most half-canon, so Mr. A is unlikely to get directly involved.

Bloody hell this is nuts. And most likely a spinoff of TWWF.

But anyway, this is getting interesting. Reality Manipulation? Sounds familiar.

And hush hush facility? Check Matrx's interesting Youtube account, called Stop the Clock and has a profile picture of the moon. Now, there are a load of conspiracy theories about the moon getting blown up...

UPDATE: Ignore my last line. THAT PIC IS NOT THE MOON. It's that weird spore glowing dot sphere symbol again.

Just for a closer look...

Screen shot 2014-03-14 at 10.02.08 PM.png (132.23 KiB) Viewed 10798 times

Also, it looks like Donkeys are going to be the main animal here, like cats in TWWF.

[Lordxana0]

At this point we are going to need a timeline to keep up

[Blurred_9L]

Matrx just said we have everything we need.

So yeah, I'm insanely busy right now, so I'll leave it to you guys Not that I would have made much progress anyway :p

[Dryunya]

Well, he couldn't be more obvious.
And yet I still don't know what the hell that means.

• Follow the sound
• We have everything we need to find it
• It lies within the candles light
• Found near the sign of the sun and moon

I assume "the sign of the sun and moon" is that weird logo thingy. The problem is, it is separated from the candles by the pictures of a facility and skulls. I can't make any guesses except for wild ones. I'll take a closer look in a couple of hours...

[Blurred_9L]

Maybe you could try asking where does she work?

[Dryunya]

Too inquisitive. You do it.

I watched through every frame of the video, again. There's just nothing else I can find in the audio, and if we throw the CANDLESONLY away (the hint was supposed to help us find the password, after all), I have no idea what sound to follow. I also tried to circle the candle flames and see if anything gets in that area. Of course, all the text we have is all blurry and noisy, and the flames' borders are not exactly crisp, either. "Order" on one of the frames kinda-sorta fits, so I tried it. Of course, i's not going to work. But that route is just as good as a goddamn dictionary attack.

In a fit of padeidolia, I also found that the glowy sphere has something resembling a skull behind it in one frame. That's about as much as I can see here. I'll tweet my final wild guess, and this is as far as I'm willing to go. Fuck this puzzle.
UPD: Yep, it's not "order" either. I think I'll cry foul no matter what the answer is going to be.

[Scarab]

Calm down, Dryunya. I get it, though, this is frustrating >.< Look, the answer HAS to be there, and knowing our tendency to read into things too much, it's probably RIGHT in front of us, we're just not seeing it. It's GOT to be on the blog. We keep looking for puzzles, but maybe this isn't a puzzle so much as... information we need to put across to him.

After all if this guy NEEDS help, why would he be wasting his apparently limited time forcing us to do puzzles? Why not just GIVE US the information?

Also, can somebody ask this deckygirl if it's possible to go to the place she was with an ACTUAL compass, or something?

Also, Xana's right, we need a god darned timeline.

[eli_gone_crazy]

Well, he couldn't be more obvious.
And yet I still don't know what the hell that means.

• Follow the sound
• We have everything we need to find it
• It lies within the candles light
• Found near the sign of the sun and moon

I assume "the sign of the sun and moon" is that weird logo thingy. The problem is, it is separated from the candles by the pictures of a facility and skulls. I can't make any guesses except for wild ones. I'll take a closer look in a couple of hours...

What about looking at astrological images?

[Dryunya]

What about looking at astrological images?

I actually googled the "moon and sun symbol". There are too many various images to give a conclusive result.

Look, the answer HAS to be there, and knowing our tendency to read into things too much, it's probably RIGHT in front of us, we're just not seeing it. It's GOT to be on the blog. We keep looking for puzzles, but maybe this isn't a puzzle so much as... information we need to put across to him.

The problem is, we don't know if it's on the blog. We were told to follow the sound, so we either follow CANDLESONLY and search the blog (or maybe keep bugging Rebecca - how can we know?), or treat his hint as "you're digging too deep at this point" and continue searching the video, which I refuse to. As for the blog, I sure can't find any symbols (or even mentions) of sun and moon there. I've looked.
UPD: ...and, for good measure, I've just pixel-hunted the candle images, revealing a bucket of nothing.

After all if this guy NEEDS help, why would he be wasting his apparently limited time forcing us to do puzzles? Why not just GIVE US the information?

Because security measures? I'm pretty sure it's out of his control.

Also, can somebody ask this deckygirl if it's possible to go to the place she was with an ACTUAL compass, or something?

I don't think that's necessary, and will come off as weird. That was supposed to hint that there were some EM shenanigans involved - it did, and the cell phone incident only seems to confirm that. Besides, I did suggest her to see what her phone would show - if it had any plot significance, she would have followed through with it.

Also, Xana's right, we need a god darned timeline.

I actually don't (everything is, time-wise, pretty clear so far, besides, we have a Megathread II right here ), but if you think we do, I can make one... If you tell me where to host it, as taking it back to TV Tropes would be pushing it.
I kinda think that we could put it on Wikia, but that's a whole new can of worms.

[Scarab]

The problem is, we don't know if it's on the blog. We were told to follow the sound, so we either follow CANDLESONLY and search the blog (or maybe keep bugging Rebecca - how can we know?), or treat his hint as "you're digging too deep at this point" and continue searching the video, which I refuse to

But all we HAVE are the Blog and Rebecca's twitter, right? Unless there's something else we need to have found by now which we don't have. Otherwise logic states, it's one of those two and probably not the twitter. I checked the sentences of the blog entries, so it's not a hidden acrostic in the phrase or anything like that. What else is important on that blog page?

I don't think that's necessary, and will come off as weird. That was supposed to hint that there were some EM shenanigans involved - it did, and the cell phone incident only seems to confirm that. Besides, I did suggest her to see what her phone would show - if it had any plot significance, she would have followed through with it.

Then maybe she's not relevant yet? I don't see how she can be, I mean, we barely know her. It's not like we can ask awkward questions.

[Dryunya]

Code: Candelabra found. Processing info for hard reset

My reaction.png (17.95 KiB) Viewed 10693 times

[eli_gone_crazy]

Hahahahahahahahahhahahahaha

[The Wild West Pyro]

HOW MANY CODES AND PASSWORDS DOES HE NEED?