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

[Dryunya]

As usual, my findings mostly involve what that cipher is not.

• First, I assume the cleartext words contain as much letters as ciphertext ones. That's not necesssarily the case, so don't let it stop you.
• If that assumption is true, the first scrap contains 3 2-letter words (wrote that as 2-word letters at first, lol) in a row. That's something. If we can gather a list of word combinations that make sense, we may get a better idea of the pattern. These are the 2-letter words I think we can encounter: AD, AH, AM, AN, AS, AW, BE, BY, DO, ED, EH, ER, GO, HA, HE, HI, HO, IF, IN, IS, IT, NO, OH, ON, OR, OW, OX, RE, TO, UH, UM, UP, US, WE. Note that the only words with one letter following the other (TU in the cipher) are HI and NO.
• Finally, I did a search on 9-letter words starting with 2 same letters, which OOHSKDLSY could match (I used a regexp dictionary - no idea how I lived without it). The only matching word is "OOGENESIS". I conclude that we're not dealing with monoalphabetic substitution, either - in that case 4th and 6th letters and 7th and 9th letters would be the same, as in ciphertext. It's something trickier.

[Sophira]

There is actually a word which fits if we were using a constant substitution, but it's rather unlikely: "ookinetic".

But yeah, I agree it's probably not a constant substitution here, because if it were, we'd be ignoring the "(+1)"s scattered around.

[Sophira]

The two pieces of paper are quite probably linked. The numbers could refer to things on the other piece of paper. The things I've tried haven't worked out though.

[eli_gone_crazy]

New video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMksjMD-0Wk

[JRPictures]

New video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMksjMD-0Wk

Ok that is very interesting.

This is what was written during that image of Australia:

Pretty sure this was heat based warfare guess Kingsler has a taste for irony

Looks like Beth the boss is heavily involved with all this.

The next country, Yaeyama Islands, the date on the image reads 29/9/2023:

if you think this is scary, wait until you see what they did to Aus.

There's a brief flash of an elephant, which we all know is reference to this: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1346#p54511

and this: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1346#p54573

[Dryunya]

Here are the key frames in order of appearance:

1. Parking lot in 2 frames (one brighter, but with noise, the other is duller and with "green noise").
2. Skipped the clouds, because, well, they're clouds. If there's anything interesting in them, it's probably better seen in motion.
3. The globe. I picked a frame where it gets closer, because there is some weird round thingies that may be important (though unlikely). Other than that - well, it's a globe.
4. Birds on power lines.
5. Australia.
6. Yaeyama Islands. Half of it is pretty much wiped out. The comment is signed by '-D'. Technical note: this is a screencap from Youtube, because, for some reason, I can't get this part clearly on downloaded video (even though it's 720p).
7. The elephant.

UPD: Silly me, forgot about it. The description translates to "accesing this data is highly difficult" (sic!).

You know what... the sound goes in a separate post.

[Dryunya]

Now, the sound.

The morse code is a bit trickier than the previous one. First, it has spaces (as slight pauses in the sound). I recommend to use the spectrographic view to see that, if you aren't using it already.
Second, it is still broken up by the characteristic "whoosh" several times. The problem is that the first two times the whooshes seem to go right in between the beeps, interrupting them with a pause, the other times they are just overlaid on the code. If I delete the noises, I get:
A COMBINATION OF AVITY WITHHAT SEGMENT. ITS ALMOST CUTE

If not,
A COMBINATION OF AS EITY WITS EHAT SEGMENT. ITS ALMOST CUTE

I've just realized there might also be the case when the whooshes mean actual data loss. In that case, we get
A COMBINATION OF A***?<Noise>?ITY WIT***?<noise>?HAT SEGMENT. ITS ALMOST CUTE
(Asterisks represent the dots left intact, question marks represent either a dot, or a dash.)

Feel free to improve on my translation, it sure needs more sets of eyes. Also, it only raises the question of what the hell that means.

Finally, those weird sounds we heard on Adell's message seem to be present during the morse sequence. Can't get much from that.

The ominous background noise is looped, every iteration ends with a "whoosh", and, if I may remark, compared to the rest of the media the seam is pretty noticeable.

Finally, the last segment has no noise on it, and I'm pretty sure it is a loud exhale followed by "help".

[Blurred_9L]

Well... not really contributing that much to the current puzzle, but the only thing I can think of is that the encryption might be similar to that used by the Enigma (each letter typed makes the cypher alphabet change, there were 3 rotors, but I'm not sure I completely understand how it works...)

One thing I was thinking was that Matrx had already pointed us to 3 different caesaring shifts (the thing with the 1, 2, 3 that ended up being +1, +3 and +5). Maybe in this case, +1 means to use the alphabet from the first caesarian shift, +2 means the second one and +3 the third one (1, 3 and 5, again, respectively), in this case, we would just need to shift the letters by one for every letter, maybe?

Aside from that I can't think of anything else...

[Dryunya]

One thing I was thinking was that Matrx had already pointed us to 3 different caesaring shifts (the thing with the 1, 2, 3 that ended up being +1, +3 and +5).

Huh. That actually makes sense. I'm pretty sure the cipher is not limited to a Caesarean shift, though (I tried all the keys). Maybe the letters are scrambled after the encoding, or something - I didn't try going deeper than 1 layer of encryption.
If it's true, that might mean this +1 +3 +5 pattern goes deeper than we thought.

[The Wild West Pyro]

This is getting very intriguing.

[Sophira]

For the record, when using CwGet on the morse code (with no modifications to the audio), I get pretty much the same result as Dryu:

a combination of as t ity wits ehat segment. its almost cute

[Scarab]

Intriguing is one word for it... I'm not sure I can handle all of these numbers.

Also, it seems somebody named Brent is not answering his phone...

[Blurred_9L]

I tried asking about the emails from Brent, but she told me to be more specific, anybody have any ideas of what sort of information we need?

[The Wild West Pyro]

For the record, when using CwGet on the morse code (with no modifications to the audio), I get pretty much the same result as Dryu:

a combination of as t ity wits ehat segment. its almost cute

A combination as of why it's that segment. It's almost cute.

Hmmm...but where does the extra e come in?

Just a thing: That green checkered background in the video looks like the texture on a Creeper from Minecraft.

[Dryunya]

Well... Shit just got real. Brent is dead, and we all know that he was on to something.
We should hurry up with the cipher.

UPD: Me and Eli tried to take a shot in a google doc. Nothing fruitful came out of that, but there were several new ideas:

• Looking at text as if it was typed on a keyboard and interpreting the numbers as shifted keyboard rows or something.
• Something to do with interpreting the letters as numbers. We haven't tried this before, and that's all I can say about it.
• Considering that the cipher was intended for Rebecca, it has to be something she could see eventually. No nerdy cryptographics here.

Oh, and Eli suspects we might have saved Brent if we cracked the code on time, but I don't want to think about it.

UPD2: It might be a Gronsfield cipher, where the circled numbers may be key modifiers or something.

[The Wild West Pyro]

Well... Shit just got real. Brent is dead, and we all know that he was on to something.
We should hurry up with the cipher.

UPD: Me and Eli tried to take a shot in a google doc. Nothing fruitful came out of that, but there were several new ideas:

• Looking at text as if it was typed on a keyboard and interpreting the numbers as shifted keyboard rows or something.
• Something to do with interpreting the letters as numbers. We haven't tried this before, and that's all I can say about it.
• Considering that the cipher was intended for Rebecca, it has to be something she could see eventually. No nerdy cryptographics here.

Oh, and Eli suspects we might have saved Brent if we cracked the code on time, but I don't want to think about it.

UPD2: It might be a Gronsfield cipher, where the circled numbers may be key modifiers or something.

Holy shit. So she thinks it was suicide, but seeing how many MegaCorps have a habit of arranging "accidents", Newlight definitely orchestrated it.

By the way, can we at least make a forum thread on TV Tropes?

[Dryunya]

By the way, can we at least make a forum thread on TV Tropes?

I still don't think that's necessary, but I can't stop you if you want to.

Now, Eli can't post at the forums right now, so I'm posting it for her. She DM'd Rebecca for Brent's email, and this is the response:

This is what Brent said in his last email, copied out exactly like he said it. Like I said, it's... eccentric. (And in case you're wondering... I've NEVER forgotten my security key for work. I wouldn't be able to get in if I did.
Maybe Dryunya is right. Or maybe he's crazy. Or maybe I'm crazy. I have no idea right now.)

Greetings From the Square on the next floor!

Hey Becks!
Do you mind if I call you Becks?
Only we haven’t known each other long and I don’t want to be overly personal even if you said we're friends now. Now I get I can be pretty strange and everything but... yeah, I’m just pretty strange XD. Try and trust me, though, I’m not a crazy stalker or anything. Take your time, think things through. Really, I don’t expect you to hang out with me just cause you feel sorry for me or anything, I'm not THAT sad! Unfortunately, I know you’re way too smart for me. Seriously. They would never suspect how clever you really are. They’d think you’re the bees knees if they had any idea. How do you come up with those website pages, anyway? Even my brother Tom was impressed and NOTHING impresses him (then again he’s eight, you know what kids are like).
Sorry for being so weird lately, I get it must have been freaky. Eventually, I hope to have an explanation for you. Cause you know, I do actually have a reason for all the wandering about and weird looks. Unfortunately I don’t think I can explain without looking like a nutcase. Really, it’s all a big surprise for some people . I’ve been working on it for days now and I guess I’m getting jumpy. Time to take a vacation, maybe?
You wanna pop down to the cafeteria tomorrow? Got a really short class, so plenty of time before seven. Understudies don’t work as hard as they would have you believe. Are you game? Reply as soon as you know. Don’t forget your security key next time! Seeya
Brent.
PS: Don’t be a square, that's my job.

No emphasis added, things in bold were in bold in the email. Which is probably a hint.

This arrived a bit later:

Maybe. My security code on my card is 78-RF-01 But it’s just your Employee Dept. Number, initials, and working floor.

[Rick Healey]

Upon Dryu and Eli's request, posting here.

I looked at the email, noticed the bolding on the words eight, seven, and square, and did a quick character count. If you pretend that the spaces between the words don't exist, but that the circled "plus a number" items are a number of spaces, the blue card has 64 characters, while the second card has 49 characters - 8 squared and 7 squared.

My problem with this is that I seem to be either misreading or misaligning the blue card. But here are the squares I got.

Code: Select all

TU_IA_IE
_OOHSKDL
SYTTSC_B
H___EAEM
_HWDMBHU
DCOA___B
IAHE?EF_
DE_RSGID

YOM__I!
_HOGT_M
KPSNOTE
C__INHH
ERSH_GT
HOOTSI_
COTE9RN

I think I might be misreading handwriting a bit which would explain some of the issues, but if you start reading from the southwest corner of the second square it DOES say this:

Code: Select all

CHECK YOOR PHOTOS SOMETHING 9S NOT RIGHT IN THEM!

I suspect that it's actually trying to say "your" and "is" in the two off words.

The other is a bit trickier, as I think I have more transmission errors, so to speak, but this is what I have.

Code: Select all

DID HS TEACH YOU HOW TO READ THIS? MESSAGE BACK IF HE DID BUMBLE

I guess it reads like the beginning of a sentence, but it feels off. Unless it's supposed to be "he" in the second word and "fumble" in the last.

EDIT: Wait, logically, that last sentence doesn't make sense. You wouldn't be asking for someone to tell you that they couldn't decode a message in a coded message; they'd never get that they were supposed to if they did need to. "Bumble" in this context seems like a signature - the message was written by someone going by "Bumble." Is there a bee theme?

[The Wild West Pyro]

By the way, can we at least make a forum thread on TV Tropes?

I still don't think that's necessary, but I can't stop you if you want to.

Very well, I'll do one. But where should I post it?

Pyro, please, trim your quotes, this is getting out of hand.
-- Dryunya

[Dryunya]

Your thread, your call.

Code: Select all

CHECK YOOR PHOTOS SOMETHING 9S NOT RIGHT IN THEM!

I suspect that it's actually trying to say "your" and "is" in the two off words.

"YOOR" is probably Brent's typo, but "9S" really is "IS". The message itself is pretty clear, but I'm not sure if it refers to Becky's Twitter pics, or some of her other photos she didn't post. I'll take another look at the former.

Code: Select all

DID HS TEACH YOU HOW TO READ THIS? MESSAGE BACK IF HE DID BUMBLE

I guess it reads like the beginning of a sentence, but it feels off. Unless it's supposed to be "he" in the second word and "fumble" in the last.

EDIT: Wait, logically, that last sentence doesn't make sense. You wouldn't be asking for someone to tell you that they couldn't decode a message in a coded message; they'd never get that they were supposed to if they did need to. "Bumble" in this context seems like a signature - the message was written by someone going by "Bumble." Is there a bee theme?

First, again, "HS" is translated correctly, so it's either a typo, or initials. Either way, it refers to someone both Becky and Brent know. "Bumble" kinda looks like a signature, but it would be delimited by punctuation.

Anyway, the proper course of action is to show it to Becky. Since she seems to trust Eli the most, I'll try to coordinate with her in the chat. We've yet to decide how much to show to her...

And let's not forget Matrx's morse message. Is it related to this in any way? Because I'm still not sure what it means.

[Dryunya]

Apparently, I missed Becky's last tweets. Brent's death is referenced in a local newspaper. I have a stray thought that Matrx's picture of a bridge references that place, not sure why. Will check tomorrow. I'll also need to examine the picture in photoshop.

Also, googling South Lunning returns nothing, and "Joe's bright side" is only used literally in some random blog. It seems to be unrelated, but relatively recent. I'll leave it here just in case.

[eli_gone_crazy]

Because Dryunya refuses to be a middleman, this twitter thread https://twitter.com/eli_gone_crazy/status/459727512743186432 discloses Brent's full name.

I'm inquiring now as to whether she knows anyone with the initials HS or not.

As for emails, yes I have Becky's. I'm not going to share it right now, because ARG or not, some things are private. In the event that it becomes necessary to disclose it, I will.

[Dryunya]

New Light's obituary post is up. Brent is... way slimmer than I imagined.
The post also says that he worked in a New York branch.

Also, the coded message seems to reference some personal stuff for Becky. Eli is interrogating her at the moment, so I won't post it just yet.

[eli_gone_crazy]

So I twitter DM'd her.

Okay, I think we solved the code. the blue card says "CHECK YOOR PHOTOS SOMETHING 9S NOT RIGHT IN THEM!"
eli
28m
the yellow says, "DID HS TEACH YOU HOW TO READ THIS? MESSAGE BACK IF HE DID BUMBLE"
eli
27m
Does anything in either message mean anything to you?
Rebecca F.
20m
Is this supposed to be some kind of joke?
eli
16m
Nope. I wouldn't joke about something like this.
Rebecca F.
16m
Did someone put you up to this? All of this?
eli
15m
I can show you where I broke the code. He was trying to tell you something. You know what now.
eli
14m
What you duo with this information is up to you. I'd love to help, but I'm not moving without your okay.
Rebecca F.
11m
I don't know ANYTHING. I know he was talking bullshit in some stupid code and he knows my dad's nickname for me.
Rebecca F.
11m
Nobody calls me that. Dad's dead. He died years ago. WHat is this crap?
eli
9m
Where is your dad?
Rebecca F.
6m
I jsut fucking TOLD YOU.
Rebecca F.
6m
he's not around anymore. In any possible sense of the word. Nobody uses that nickname!!!
eli
3m
One last question, and I'll leave you alone. What was his name?
Rebecca F.
1m
Go away.

I'm done. She can continue to play things her way. I'm not going to try and contribute further unless there's a code.

Good luck, guys.

[Scarab]

I WAS GONE FOR A DAY FOR GOODNESS SAKES.