# Could use help solving a riddle... Now an Anagram.



## Scheherazade (Apr 11, 2009)

I have no idea the answer, it's for an augmented reality game I'm involved in and 500 people are struggling with it.  Hoping new eyes that aren't blinded by the information we already have might help.  Plus you guys is smart!  So the riddle is...

For a MAN, the sun didn't rise. What was the time for all the other men?

The only clue I really have to go on is that "For a man, it's going to be a specific place."  Any help is appreciated, thanks!


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## Scheherazade (Apr 11, 2009)

Also... it doesn't seem to be that they want the code for the Manchester Airport, but I still don't get how it could be one time for everyone else even if that was the answer.


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## Scheherazade (Apr 11, 2009)

Oh, and if anyone is interested in the ARG itself, it's certainly open to anyone and I'll be glad to share the information we have so far.


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## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)

I can't help but be drawn to thinking it is the North or South Pole, even though the Sun does rise and set there occasionally (several times a year during a short period around the Equinoxes).

I take it the all-caps on MAN is part of the original riddle.  You realize it is possible that this is based on something in the alternate reality that nobody not in the game would know.....


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## traceya (Apr 26, 2010)

I'm with the Claw - I think it might be game specific but good luck and let us know the answer when you find it


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## Scheherazade (Apr 11, 2009)

The alternate reality is our world, not really fantasy.  It involves Illuminati and such, but it's still things based on reality.  And yes, MAN was capitalized like that in the riddle.


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## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)

My only other suggestion is to wonder if MAN is an abbreviation for a thing or person that's in the game.  I realize many many participants have already thought of that.  Other than my pole suggestion, which wouldn't give anything about the time, I am baffled.


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## Scheherazade (Apr 11, 2009)

Yeah, I suggested Manitoba and someone else said Manchester... there was this bit in the email after the riddle, both were in the signature line.

P.O. Box 33 - Freetown

But we used that information for another piece of the puzzle.  Was hoping it might have looked familiar to someone.  It most certainly has to be a play on words, because how could it ever be just one time for everyone?  I thought it might be mourning, as in the one man is dead, but apparently we shouldn't take MAN that literally.


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## traceya (Apr 26, 2010)

I actually popped back in to suggest 'mourning' but looks like that's already KO'd - still very intrigued


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## Scheherazade (Apr 11, 2009)

Yeah, we're still puzzling it out... it's getting more and more confusing.


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## Scheherazade (Apr 11, 2009)

The answer was 5:11am... the time of the sunrise in London after Jack the Ripper's first kill in on August 7, 1888.  Mary Anne Nichols was MAN, his first victim.  The next few riddles were a little easier but now we're stuck on... "No fear of death, nor fear of rot. Blood thirsty in the hollow hills."


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## ChrisHewitt (Dec 24, 2011)

According to Norse mythology, In Iceland there were trolls living in mountain caverns and in the "Hollow Hills".
These trolls fought alongside giants and often kidnapped or killed humans.

Your quiz may be referring to something totally different though.


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## Tony Richards (Jul 6, 2011)

Sounds to me to more likely to be something to do with vampires.


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## balaspa (Dec 27, 2009)

I have no idea what the answer might be (I kind of suck at riddles), but reading this is giving me a headache!  I hope you figure it out.


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## Brownskins (Nov 18, 2011)

Is it Ancient Earth?

_"Ancient Earth work fort and barrow 
Discreetly hide their secret abodes 
The most fearful hide deep inside 
And venture not there upon Yuletide

For invasion of their hollow hills 
That music hold and Oberon fill 
Is surely recommended not 
For fear of death, in fear of rot" _


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## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

Brings back old D&D memories of game masters who came up with what they thought were clever but solvable riddles, only to completely stump the party and bring the action to a grinding halt.


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## Scheherazade (Apr 11, 2009)

The Hollow Hills one ended up being Bela Lugosi.  It pointed to a song by Bauhaus, and they have a song who mentions him, and he played a bloodsucking vampire.  It was kind of convoluted.  Thanks for the help everyone.  We finally cracked it, though now we're stuck trying to figure out a set of runes to open some portal with a bunch of Cthulhu clues (R'lyeh specifically)... and I don't know a whole lot about Cthulhu.


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## Scheherazade (Apr 11, 2009)

For those curious, this is an "Augmented Reality Game" that has been running for like 5 years, I just got into it recently since it's all leading up to the launch of an MMO called The Secret World that I'm interested in playing. We've been given, over the last couple of months, a series of seals to solve to open a portal covered in runes. Each seal gives us clues to the overarching plot and leads us to runes to put into the portal and activate the next seal until, one would imagine, the portal opens.

Some of them were pretty easy, others tougher, but until this week it only took the community around 4 or 5 hours max to crack it. This last bit took 3 days. And while I'm writing this we just figured out the runes. If you want to sort of get a feel for how it all works, this week's seal pointed to... http://www.thesecretworld.com/33/index.php/1873071243

It'll be harder to do this one after the fact since a livestream with clues was involved, but the object is to put in your username (any username works) then crack the key or password or whatever it asks for. In this one you receive a link when you put in your username and it asks for a passcode. The link is http://pastebin.com/TtNdrQCC which gives us some clues and a string of text to decode using http://www.tools4noobs.com/online_tools/decrypt/ which is an online decrypting tool. To use the decryption you need a Key which you get from the clues in the pastebin. This clue led us to Son of Sam, who was born with the last name Falco and killed someone in a driveway with a gun.

Getting that decrypted (Using Son of Sam as the Key, Blowfish as the Algorithm, CBC, plus Base64) leads to http://tinyurl.com/ccpwppb which is someone's ID tag. Long story short on this one, we came up with Lucifer based on the guy's name and other guys named Reis which we then put into the site as our Passcode. Doing this gave us http://tinyurl.com/cqxpg7o which led to a livestream that gave us the rest of the clues over the next couple of days.

The first clue was a picture of Lucifer being thrown from Heaven which we figured out pointed to Pride, so Pride was the first key. The second key we got a pretty easy clue, a family tree with dates... some simple googling came up with Jane Toppan who was our second key. After that they started to play music on the livestream, Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique Movement 5 which led us finally to Dies Irae which was our third key.

By then we were seeing the whole seven deadly sins theme with an underlying theme of works of art (we assumed Toppan fit as an actress). Our next clue was written in Cryllic with a date I think. Going with the theme and knowing it must be something in the arts that has to do with Sloth, we came up with a novel called Oblomov. This brings us to where I came in here asking for help...

We got a clue to "CONTACT SEVEN" with an email address: [email protected] Emailing that address gets an auto response from the Travel Agent (who is actually one of seven guardian agents of some manuscript we don't know what is yet). The email's signature gave a location (Freetown) and the clue "For a MAN, the sun didn't rise. What was the time for all the other men?" We finally came to the conclusion that MAN was the initials of Jack the Ripper's first victim and checked to see that sunrise on the day of the murder in London was at 5:11am. With a little cajoling we figured out to use this in the email, so we sent an email to [email protected]

511 gave another auto response with the clue "Still not solid @ 0 K?" and the location "Kinshasa". That one was helium, so we did the same with the email for helium and got "Danny, Danny.. Don't write on the bathroom door!" and "Luanda" which pointed us to "The Shining" and Redrum which was our next contact. Redrum returned "No fear of death, nor fear of rot. Blood thirsty in the hollow hills." and "Brazzaville" which was Bela Lugosi as I explained above.

The Bela Lugosi agent auto returned "I have a 6 eyed friend hunting in the corner..." with the location "Harare" and we tried every spider in the world until finally getting Chilean Recluse. That email returned "I am not a number, I am a free man!" and "Monrovia". This one took a long time, but we finally, after much arguing, came up with "1" as the answer. No auto return for this one, but this agent did finally get back to us with "Manuscript Key Code: 1.038" and the subject "This is the end, my only friend." So we sent an email to thedoors and got "No really... It is the end."

Going through all the emails and knowing we were on Greed, we finally figured out that all of those locations were notorious for trade in blood diamonds. Blood Diamond was our next key. So after that we got more music which ended up being "Dead Souls" by Joy Division along with a clue that said "Cipher Manuscripts" and "Leah" which pointed us to the Cipher Manuscripts of The Golden Dawn and Leah Hirsig. Another long story short here... we came up with Alesiter Crowley and then figured out they wanted the name of his commune, "Abbey of Thelema".

Things went really quickly after this. Someone got Asmodeus for the final sin, Lust, almost immediately because of the book ("Tobit") on the seal page. Asmodeus was the final key and it took us to the video with the clues that led us to the runes for the door. We usually got the runes handed to us, but this time we had a clue and were told to find a backdoor in. The clue was R'lyeh which pointed to Cthulhu like I mentioned before. Finally someone tried spelling Cthulhu in runes and... bang it worked!

So if you want to do it yourself and see the video and the door seal and everything you can just go to:

http://www.thesecretworld.com/33/index.php/1873071243

Username = Anything, put whatever you like
Passcode = Lucifer
Key 1 = Pride
Key 2 = Jane Toppan
Key 3 = Dies Irae
Key 4 = Oblomov
Key 5 = Blood Diamond
Key 6 = Abbey of Thelema
Key 7 = Asmodeus

To get to the seal door with the runes go to: http://www.funcom.com/. Click anywhere on the site that's not a link to make sure you are inputting keystrokes onto the page itself and press "33". You'll get a blue screen, don't panic! The seal door comes up eventually. Then you enter Cthulhu in runes on the door (http://imgur.com/FS1HT minus the last rune since it repeats) and it says come back June 26th for the next seal. Yay!

And... that was exhausting to try to explain ><


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## hamerfan (Apr 24, 2011)

Good Lord!
I'm with balaspa. Pass the aspirin....


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## Scheherazade (Apr 11, 2009)

It was pretty crazy, the other ones haven't been this hard but we're coming up on the final seal (on the 26th). Imagine all of the above playing out over nearly 4 days with 500 people online at any one time, 24/7, all trying to work together to figure it out. It was a lot of fun, but I think we broke the world record for "watching paper on a wall". That's what the live feed was, paper on a wall for 3 days straight. I'd say we got less than 5 or 10 minutes of action total during those three days on the feed, but it was still a fun experience.

You can actually still watch the recordings of the livefeed on the link I put in the post above. They had the wall near an open window, so we got to see the day/night cycles play out and breezes blowing the paper. At night lights would mysteriously come on, a couple of times people with flashlights came into the pitch black nighttime shots and added clues that we only saw flashes of, at one point we saw a silhouette with a gun. It was all really bizarre.

They gave us a lot of red herrings, seemingly, as well. We got clues pointing toward steganography of a photo that never panned out into anything with the clue π.33 as the code which started a whole Masonic numerology conspiracy. The seal screen had a lemon on it that looked orange colored due to the light and it's still being argued what it was... everything has been proposed from an orange to strychnine fruit. There was also the shadow of a cross which, based on other shadows in the shot, seemed to be floating upside down but people argued it wasn't. And the entire time they were drawing a symbol on the board which turned out to be the word ANAGRAM written in a sectioned heptagon. We're still not sure what that has to do with anything.

Here's a walkthrough for Seal 3 which was a little easier, we got it in a few hours. http://crygaia.com/a-new-mission-seal-3/


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## Brownskins (Nov 18, 2011)

Wow... this sounds like a convoluted JJ Abrams TV series... a crossover of Alias and Lost.

I need to restrain myself as quarter end is approaching... keep us all posted...


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## Tony Richards (Jul 6, 2011)

Brownskins said:


> Wow... this sounds like a convoluted JJ Abrams TV series... a crossover of Alias and Lost.


You forgot Fringe. Except that this sounds even crazier than Fringe is.


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## Scheherazade (Apr 11, 2009)

Well... tomorrow is the last seal opens and we find out what it's all about. Doesn't cost anything to join in and help us figure stuff out! They usually open up around 12-1pm EST time. You just go to funcom, click somewhere on the screen that isn't a link to make sure your keys are being input into the site itself, and click these runes (http://imgur.com/FS1HT minus the last rune since it repeats) on the gateway that pops up then hit the center circle. This direct link for the lazy may or may not work when the seal opens http://www.thesecretworld.com/33/index.php/5120293407 . We're actually still trying to puzzle out some stuff from last week, but not sure if we can or not until the seal opens.

I'll even let you in on the secret chat room most folks don't know about if you're interested in joining, just Google mibbit, click on Chat, and enter #33 as your chatroom. Most people discuss the seals on the boards, but a core group of folks seem to use the chat and we have official agents pop in now and again to give us more clues when we're stuck.


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## Scheherazade (Apr 11, 2009)

So for those curious, the last seal just started and here's our clues... http://www.thesecretworld.com/33/index.php/5120293407

It's basically showing a purple and white polka-dot dress, what looks like a waning crescent moon, the date June 24th, coordinates that point to somewhere in Russia, the time of 10:47am, and some pictures that make it look like we need a date and maybe the name of a satellite? This all makes much more sense if you click on the link rather than me trying to describe it.

The goal of the puzzle is to get a passcode from those clues. Your username can be anything.


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## Scheherazade (Apr 11, 2009)

We don't have any leads yet, but the wall video feed is back. http://new.livestream.com/blackwatchmen/End

We also just got a disturbing video that leads to the above page if you go in through the proper portal. http://www.thesecretworld.com/33/index.php/video/44355708


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## Susan in VA (Apr 3, 2009)

hamerfan said:


> Good Lord!
> I'm with balaspa. Pass the aspirin....


Save some for me. I like games, but egads this is convoluted.


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## Scheherazade (Apr 11, 2009)

We're actually still stuck on it.  All I can figure is we need to find the year that the waning crescent moon was at 10:47am on June 24th.  But I've literally looked from 1600-1999 and come up with nada.


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## Scheherazade (Apr 11, 2009)

It was Immanuel Kant for the passcode. Still not entirely sure why. Leads us to https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3fjtmiwizffTUdWVkk1V1pMejA/edit?pli=1# and http://www.thesecretworld.com/33/index.php/hex


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

Scheherazade said:


> The Hollow Hills one ended up being Bela Lugosi. It pointed to a song by Bauhaus, and they have a song who mentions him, and he played a bloodsucking vampire. It was kind of convoluted.


Sometimes when you find out the answer to a tough riddle, it makes you think, boy, if I had just thought a little harder, I could have gotten it.

This is not one of those times.


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## Scheherazade (Apr 11, 2009)

swolf said:


> Sometimes when you find out the answer to a tough riddle, it makes you think, boy, if I had just thought a little harder, I could have gotten it.
> 
> This is not one of those times.


This is true... someone managed to, though, somehow. We finally reached the supposed "end", the hex was supposed to use numbers that we had collected throughout the process to match with a list of phrenological emotions on http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/phrenology/phrenology_frames.html which led us to http://www.thesecretworld.com/33/index.php/23fdfg0torksdaqe4456tggr where we have to vote to save the agent that has been working alongside us on the case or open the mysterious gate and hope it doesn't melt our faces or something.


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## traceya (Apr 26, 2010)

OK it all sounds a wee bit above me now... think I'll leave you to it


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## Scheherazade (Apr 11, 2009)

So the ARG ended, at least that part of it, and the actual MMO has launched, but a few of us are still trying to work out something that the evil mastermind behind the puzzles told us we didn't figure out.  As far as we can tell we're supposed to be finding an Anagram using the following letters that we think should also follow the spacing of the letters.

R AP KER EBUM MAU ARN

Is anyone out there some wizard with words and can see these magically dance around into something that makes sense?  We've been trying to work it out off and on for a week now and getting nowhere.


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## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)

All those short words are rather odd.  I can't think of many sentences that would begin with "A" followed by a two letter word. "I" followed by a two letter words would be more likely, but there aren't any I's in the sentence as given.


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## Scheherazade (Apr 11, 2009)

Yeah, it's strange.  Thinking it might be some sort of abbreviation?  Or maybe Mr.  It would be an oddly worded sentence, but "A Mr. ..." would work.


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## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)

Scheherazade said:


> Yeah, it's strange. Thinking it might be some sort of abbreviation? Or maybe Mr. It would be an oddly worded sentence, but "A Mr. ..." would work.


Mister would have a three letter last name. Unless it is a totally-contrived sentence, I wonder if you are mistaken about the spaces being right. If you ignore the spacing, "keep" or "number" but not both, could be in the sentence. "name or "rename" are possible. But the sentence is short enough that sticking in even one larger word sucks up a lot of available letters.


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## Scheherazade (Apr 11, 2009)

Yeah, we could be entirely off with the spacing.  I've tried just about everything I can think of.  The letters come from runes, too, so we thought maybe RUNE was a word in it as well.


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## Tony Richards (Jul 6, 2011)

I agree with Claw. I do a lot of anagrams, and a one letter word (it can only be A) followed by a two letter word simply doesn't make sense.


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## Scheherazade (Apr 11, 2009)

It ended up being three words that pointed to the last rune code we needed to open the door. So our theory about it matching the layout of the runes we got ended up being wrong.

R AP KER EBUM MAU ARN

PARKER - EMMA - AUBURN

Which points to... http://lovecraft.wikia.com/wiki/Parker: Parker is a fictional character created by H. P. Lovecraft, who makes his only appearance in the 1928 short story "The Call of Cthulhu". He is a member of the Emma of Auburn, although his role is uncertain. After Donovan is successful in opening the vault discovered by the crew in R'lyeh, Cthulhu emerges, killing Donovan, Guerrera and Angstrom. Second Mate Gustaf Johansen recounts that during the slaughter, Parker slipped and was "swallowed up by an angle of masonry which shouldn't have been there; an angle which was acute, but behaved as if it were obtuse."

So those three clues were supposed to lead us to CTHULHU which was the final code for the last seal. We figured it out by a clue about R'lyeh before the fact, though, so we solved that one out of order which may have made it more difficult to see. It didn't help that the core of our group wasn't very up on Lovecraftian lore either.


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## Susan in VA (Apr 3, 2009)

Glad somebody solved it.  I was looking at this thinking it couldn't possibly be both an anagram AND follow the spacing of the letters, and was about to ask whether they may have meant a cryptogram (maybe a substitution cipher or book cypher) instead.

There are some puzzles in which, once you have the answer, every part of it makes sense.  But these just stay obscure.  Each time it sounds like, okay, here's one answer, but you could have invented something else equally as far-reaching and it would be just as credible.


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## Scheherazade (Apr 11, 2009)

Yeah, we ended up needing like three more hints to solve this one.  There were so many directions to go and so little to go on, but it was a lot of fun.  Of course most people considered it solved a month ago when the actual game released, but there was still a handful of us who just wouldn't rest until we knew every bit of it.  I'm really hoping this isn't the last they do with this.  There are a lot of puzzles to solve in the actual game as well, but I feel like the ARG was really well done and a lot of fun.


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