ARG part 2 - Welcome to Lavender Town
Most of the day was uneventful. Whether it was because I had not picked up on certain clues or simply because there was nothing to pick up on wasn’t clear. But that left me plenty of time to focus on the clues I did have and try to make sense of them.
Clearly, anything physical was going to be useful in a timely fashion, so I could put those aside. But I still had 2 numbers and a sentence to piece together.
The first thing that came to mind was of course the Bible.
I mean, in what other context does 14:17 or 17:14 sound right to you? Besides, The Binding of Isaac’s ARG had used a very similar numbering system for a Bible clue a few months back. So I started looking for a section that would refer to lovers and/or distance.
Revelation 17:14 - Something about Kings and Lambs.
John 17:14 - “They are not of the world any more than I am of the world.” I don’t get it…
Romans 14:17 - Apparently, it’s not about eating and drinking, but peace and joy.
Job 14:17 - His bad behavior is sealed in a ray of light, or some shit?!?!
Jeremiah 17:14 - “Heal me, LORD.”
Yeah, whatever. I wasn’t going anywhere. Most definitely missing something important. Sometimes, when the pieces of a puzzle don’t fit, it’s a good idea to review the premise you’ve previously established.
I had assumed the numbers and note were the pieces I had to play with. But in doing so, I had completely disregarded the packaging in which I had found them. It was not a Chinese fortune cookie message with a phrase and numbers at the bottom. I had a white sphere, a black sphere, sand, a funnel and a glass vase.
What if the note was a clue as to HOW the elements where linked? Or how to use them? Or simple a poetic parallel to something else?
The longer I thought about it, the more I seemed to remember a story about a little something black and a little something white, lost in an endless dusty desert…
In videogames, you refer to something hidden that has no real purpose in the game aside a good joke, a reference or a secret message as an easter egg. Warren Robinnet was the first one to do such a thing in the Atari game Adventure in 1979. He hid his name in a secret room after Atari refused to list it on the cartridge.
Of the many game to have strange easter eggs, Earthbound for the Super Nintendo kinda comes near the top of my list. In the Dusty Desert, you can encounter a black sesame seed. How big is a sesame seed? Well…it’s one pixel square. Anyhow, if you speak to it, he will tell you that he got in a fight with the white sesame seed and wishes that he could see her one more time.
If you are crazy enough to look for her, she’ll tell you that even though they left each other, she still loves him. Go back to the black sesame, tell him all about it, he’ll be super happy and say he has to find her now.
And…
That’s it. You can’t pick them up. You can’t bring them together. Nothing to do at all.
BUT!!!!
12 years later, Mother 3 (aka Earthbound 2) was released for the Gameboy Advanced. Near the end, you go through a weird museum on a boat and one of the exhibit is the two sesame seeds finally reunited.
SOOOO… what more than distance separates the 2 lovers? Time of course. Do you see where this is going?
I was still at work at that point. So even if my excitement was reaching orgasmic proportion, there was really nothing to do about it. I had the seam ripper and the WetOnes with me, but not the vase or the funnel.
So I tried to focus on the “much more” important task of running a business (geez) for the hours left before I could excuse myself to go play with some sand.
As I was about to leave the office, I received a text message from someone I didn’t know.
Unknown person: Just sent you an email.
Me: Sorry I don’t have you as a contact, so I don’t know who you are :P
Unknown person: I am Error.
Me: So you’ll lower the bridge?
Error: Sorry, I’m not in the right town for that. I’m in Lavender town. I though we could chat there.
Me: I didn’t get an email though :(
Error: I don’t have much battery left. Here’s the link Us20.chatzy.com/21575453251483
Me: Thx
That didn’t require a lot of explaining. The link brought me to a chatroom. I chose Forehl as a username of course and waited for someone to arrive. Didn’t have to wait long at all.
Error joined the chat
Forehl: Hi. Ever heard of the lavender town syndrome?
Error: I did! I love the song though.
Forehl: Which Error are you btw. Zelda or Isaac?
Error: Zelda’s. What’s your favorite song?
Forehl: Trick question. Do I get a scope in which to answer?
At that point I was fishing for a direction. It’s one thing to just answer stuff, it’s another to know in which direction to steer the conversion. If you don’t play your cards correctly, you’ll end up with more irrelevant stuff than useful information.
Error: I just want to get to know you better since this is the first time we meet.
Forehl: Indeed. Let me think about it. Well, can’t say I have a favorite song. It varies with my mood from day to day. But I really like “I don’t want to set the world on fire” by The Ink Spots right now.
Error: I see. What about your favorite game?
Forehl: Damn these are hard questions lol. As a child, E.V.O. Search for Eden. As a teen, Final Fantasy 7. As a yound adult, Fallout 3 and Nier. And now… old Zeldas, Super Metroid, Binding of Issac, Terraria (retro or retro-looking stuff).
Error: Loved Nier. Great soundtrack.
Forehl: Indeed. And they are planning a Nier 2. I might buy a PS4 just for it :P What about you? What’s your thing?
Error: I’m a big Tetris fan. I could go for days. Is there a color that you really don’t like?
Forehl: Yes, highlighter Yellow. They make shoes in that freaking color.
Error: Well, it’s easy to see in the dark.
Forehl: By the way, I just bought Tetris on the Gameboy just for the soundtrack. I also have an original Tengen cartridge for the NES. You should come play sometimes.
Error: Maybe, we’ll see. What’s your worst fear?
Forehl: Having a heavily handicapped child.
Error: Hum… I don’t want to appear heartless, but g2g.
Forehl: I understand.
Error left the chat
Well. I had officially failed. I had talked mostly about myself and managed to get mostly nothing out of him. I was pondering about what I could piece from the conversation when someone else joined the chat room.
Bagu joined the chat
Bagu: …I missed him, didn’t I?
Forehl: Yes lol.
Bagu: Error is my friend.
Forehl: I know he is. He wouldn’t lower the bridge though.
Bagu: Yeah, he’s picky about that. What where you talking about?
Forehl: He wanted to know more about me. What I like, what I fear.
Bagu: That’s just like him.
Forehl: Kinda nice of him. But I didn’t get to know much about him.
Bagu: First time we met, it was as if he knew all about me lol. What is your quest?
Forehl: To seek the Holy Grail.
Bagu: You want to live forever?
Forehl: Not especially. I could be seeking it for someone else.
Bagu: For whom?
Forehl: 2 seconds, still at work.
The office phone had rang. I couldn’t just not pick it up. Spending time solving puzzles in the middle of the day is one thing, but not answering clients is another.
Emile: Orangerine, hello?
Random Annoying Person Calling To Sell Me Some Shit I Care Nothing About: Hi, can I please speak to the person in charge of making decisions about your internet and communication services?
Emile: Yes, that’s me.
Person I Wish Was Dead So I Could Talk To Bagu More: Oh, great. We have an offer right now…
Emile: Not interested, please don’t call again.
Emile has hung up the phone.
So, I went back to my desk and looked at the screen.
Bagu: It’s ok, I should go, I don’t want to make the king angry. It was great talking to you.
The message had a 53 seconds ago time-stamp. I mentally ripped out the soul of that person that had just wasted a potential extra 53 seconds of good information.
Forehl: No wait!
Bagu: Ok, I’ll stay for 2 sec.
Forehl: I am probably seeking the grail for Arthur. Else I would be seeking something else.
Bagu: That’s very loyal of you. It’s something very important to me too, serving one’s king.
Forehl: I understand.
Bagu: Talk to you again some other day, k?
Forehl: Should we meet IRL and discuss this further?
I was dying for more time. I felt like there was nothing in there to guide me at all.
Bagu: Maybe we’ll get to it.
Forehl: But I’m also looking for food.
Might as well drop a line about it in case my grail thing was completely off the mark.
Forehl: I only have 4 days left.
Bagu: Oh, that’s not a lot of time. Wish I could help, but I don’t want to piss the king off too much.
Forehl: Can you help?
Bagu: I don’t know how.
Forehl: Damn. Can we speak again? I feel like I have very little to go on…
Bagu: Really sorry, but the king is mad at me. I don’t know when I’ll be back. If you need me, ask Navi about it, she’ll know how to find me.
Forehl: Sorry about that. I will.
Bagu has left the chat
Crap crap crap crap CRAP!!!!!
WHAT WAS I SUPPOSE TO DO WITH THAT %*@&?#CONVERSATION!
Ok, take a breath. Copy paste that thing somewhere. Save twelves copies in various location, print 3 versions, one for the office, one for home, one for…whatever. That entire thing needed to be analyze, cut down into piece to find repeating patterns, themes, anything really. I was at a loss.
Thankfully, I could still solve one thing today. Well, if my Earthbound theory was correct after all.
So I went home (no longer felt like rushing at that point to be honest). I took out the vase, the sand, the funnel, an extra bowl, some duct tape and the timer app from my phone. Filled the vase with the sand, taped the funnel to the vase opening and voilà! I had a makeshift hourglass. I timed the time it took to empty the vase of all its sand and I got a third number. 31.
Just to make sure, I did it again.
27.
Well, that sucks…
A third time? 28. At least is closer to the second number. So I figured that if I did it about 10 times, I could simply pick the number that came out most often as the most probable one (and keep the others as backups).
I ended up going with 28. So now I had 14–17–28. Great! But what was I suppose to do with those now? Only time would tell.
Time. You get it?
Will Forehl find what Error and Bagu where trying to tell him? What exactly was the point of those 3 numbers? Would the telemarketing person call back again? TUNE IN TOMORROW. SAME BAT-TIME, SAME BAT-CHANNEL.
Third part is out. Read it now: https://medium.com/@emilearragon/arg3-its-dangerous-to-go-alone-1aa1571515d3#.y1anztcf5