Something Wicked This Way Quacks, Part 3
There have been whispers floating around for days that something truly frightening was waddling its way towards us. I heard people were already placing bets. *gulp*
When it arrived today it looked like a duck, and it quacked like a duck, walked like a squid, and smelt like KLOO! Red origami cats? Green origami dog? Cryptic note? Time for some puppetmaster kung-fu combo moves!
Maybe it was something in the odd expression in the faces of the cats that seemed suspicious. Maybe Providence's floppy ears were arranged just a little too jovially. Or maybe it was the hint that something was right under our nose. KLOO? How do I make a spoiler tag on this blog?
Let's start with the note:
I checked my nose. No clue. Then I checked the cat's nose. KLOO!
The cats are each hiding a letter stuff up their noses (M-A-D-I-X) and the sneaky dog is hiding a date (9.11.2001). Hmmm, but how do those fit together to find a new webpage on sidtheduck.com?
<spoiler>
Go go anagram strike!
http://www.sidtheduck.com/ADMIX.html
Hmm... looks like something is hidden there if select all!
</spoiler>
Doh! Foiled again by the tricky Duckozos! Something about not remembering that the cats are unlucky. We fire up our secret spoiler stomp power -- a date and five characters, huh? That sounds kind of suspiciously familiar. Hmm, why does our super sekrit Lucky 5 simulator not solve this?!?
<spoiler>
What about Sid's Lucky 5 calculator:
http://sidtheduck.com/BSeeingU/lucky5/index.html?month=9&day=11&year=2001
Hello! Something looks odd here, the details say the key for that day should be "Sotho" yet Sid's calculator says the key is "ADMIX"!
According to that, we should be looking for 98.101.110.106:121 but that doesn't seem to work at all.
When is an IP address not an IP address? When it is encoded! Crypto Chung-Fu Chop!
If you ASCII encoded 98/101/110/106/121 you'd get five characters again, but this time they'd be:
benjy ... which is a name that brings back old memories!
</spoiler>
Okay, so now we're getting somewhere ... in fact we're getting to:
<spoiler>
http://www.sidtheduck.com/benjy.html
Those who didn't play "Who is Benjamin Stove?" might now be utterly confused. What the heck is this? It is a birthday greeting for a character from a totally different ARG we developed :)
</spoiler>
Woot! Thanks so much for the incredibly cool puzzle: everyone here is just always floored at the creativity. Now when is the PM chat?
Yay! I finally figured out how to use my LJ account to sign in and comment! I'm glad you enjoyed my little "treasure hunt". It sure was fun creating it (I tried not to make it *too* hard). Also, it was even better getting to IM with Brooke during the solve! w00t!
Anyway, I had a blast! (and thanks for the foldy squid in return!) :D
p.s. in case you were wondering, I did actually make most of the Ben Stove B-day party while WiBS was live. I tried to finish it before Ben's *actual* b-day (sometime in April IIRC) to post to the Happy Birthday thread on the WiBS forums. But, alas, I did not finish it in time for his birthday. I'm so stoked I was able to resurrect it for use somewhere else! :P