CodeMageddon DAY 2 SUMMARY
Around 4pm GMT, Discord user Davekara made his way to The Crooked Horn to find last night’s clue. He went on a two-hour trek to find the correct totem pole, where he was met by Agent Ci, one of the CodeMageddon creators! Ci streamed the event on Perisocope: https://www.pscp.tv/BlackerySplodge/1MYxNAmAZXzJw
After a lot of searching, Davekara was able to locate the coded clue!
This was a combined cipher of Vigenere and Caesar, two ciphers seen in the show. With the key ‘Time’, this decodes to MANY RUMOURS TELL OF GIFFANY’S PRESENCE IN THE CITIES OF PINES MALL (Solved by Discord user HopeCvon).
Upon closer inspection with a blacklight, Davekara noticed that there were dots above letters decoded as M, O, and A. This led us to the Mall of America in Minnesota! (Shoutout to discord user Shaduf who guessed this location before the blacklight message was discovered.)
Discord user Sodapop ( @imessedup-bettertryitagain ) and one of our mods Papu ( @colors-of-summer ) met up in the mall and began to search for the next clue in places that related to Gravity Falls and Giffany (aka arcades, GameStops, anime stores). This too was streamed on Periscope: https://www.pscp.tv/ColorsOfSummer/1OwxWAVoPOnGQ
Eventually, with a bit of searching, the next clue found was inside of Eagle Anime Store, in the form of a QR code which the Time Agents symbol in the center.
This led to a dropbox with a audiofile titled “Ciao Ed Duo.mp3” from Blendin that was in Morse Code.
The first part of the recording was solved quickly by Discord user MDave to be “J O I N T H E T I M E A N O M A L Y R E M O V A L”, but the second part was at a quicker tempo and took much longer. But MDave eventually came through and decoded http://8agency.org/bblandin/.
This led to a website of pure evil. This website led to many CodeHunters feeling confused, and it was quite overwhelming––but nevertheless, our CodeHunters pushed through! After nearly 9 grueling hours of code cracking and easter egg hunting by the entire team, hidden in the codes of the site / an ascii Bill / an ascii axolotl: were not one, but two locations!
Through viewing the source code, CodeHunters figured out that a majority of the information was a red herring and that they needed to focus on “choosing the correct path”. There were literally pages of Latin text, random ciphers, music puzzles, and sets of coordinates, which were all fake paths.
This was quite challenging because the site acted as a maze––if you clicked on even one wrong page, you would get trapped in an endless labyrinth of useless pages, and would not be able to get back to the correct path without restarting!
CodeHunters started to team together to map the entire site, but eventually decided this was a futile effort. While this was happening, other hunters pieced together the correct sequence of messages, which was:
“Choose the correct path
Its very simple
All you have to do
Is Hold Out Your Hand
And make a deal
I’ll make everything right again
Make the right choice
What do you chose”
Now CodeHunters just needed to find a way to link those messages together in the website.
Eventually, the correct path was found:
START http://8agency.org/bblandin/17-8593.html
START http://8agency.org/bblandin/17-8593.html
cuarj http://8agency.org/bblandin/04-4623.html
sv http://8agency.org/bblandin/02-2473.html
qgm http://8agency.org/bblandin/20-1696.html
estyv http://8agency.org/bblandin/21-7897.html
drsxu http://8agency.org/bblandin/01-4535.html
oek http://8agency.org/bblandin/02-6298.html
ukq http://8agency.org/bblandin/21-7915.html
jxyda http://8agency.org/bblandin/20-4288.html
or http://8agency.org/bblandin/12-8470.html
dtz http://8agency.org/bblandin/03-5011.html
ftmf http://8agency.org/bblandin/10-8507.html
ogmdv http://8agency.org/bblandin/19-9383.html
vav http://8agency.org/bblandin/05-6131.html
tjp http://8agency.org/bblandin/04-2549.html
hzfwo http://8agency.org/bblandin/14-7788.html
sghmj http://8agency.org/bblandin/20-3295.html
This source code led to coded messages.
When one set of messages was decoded, it revealed Clue A.
http://8agency.org/bblandin/03-5011.html : “aWalk Past”
http://8agency.org/bblandin/01-4535.html : “aMabel St”
http://8agency.org/bblandin/04-4623.html : “aBetween the”
http://8agency.org/bblandin/02-2473.html : “aPortland, ME”
http://8agency.org/bblandin/02-6298.html : “aFind the Boulder”
http://8agency.org/bblandin/04-2549.html : “athe crossroads”
http://8agency.org/bblandin/05-6131.html : “asmallest”
http://8agency.org/bblandin/10-8507.html : “atwin pines”
Discord user Shaduf was able to piece this together to reveal a location: 5 Mabel Street, Portland Maine.
Sorted by number lowest to highest: Mabel St, Portland, ME Find the Boulder Walk Past the crossroads Between the smallest twin pines
The second set of coded messages were part of Clue B.
When put in the correct order, the clue revealed this set of numbers which would need to be “used at the place the map indicates”
12-8470: /D.png
16 of 33, 2
14-7788: /C.png
9 of 92, 6
17-8593: 33 of 33, 3
0
64 of 64, 1
19-9383: 30 of 30, 2
27 of 92, 4
20-1696: 26 of 64, 2
15 of 42, 3
20-3295: <None>
20-4288: 26 of 30, 7
19 of 33, 1
31 of 92, 3
21-7897: 16 of 64, 2
23 of 42, 3
7 of 30, 4
21-7915: 87 of 92, 3
47 of 64, 8
The clue also consisted of a blot image, which CodeHunters laid over a map to reveal a location in Washington DC. Specifically: the George Mason Memorial.
This was all solved around 8:30 EST, which was deemed too late for the hunters to begin searching the locations, and the hunt was originally put on hold until tomorrow.
But it turns out our intrepid CodeHunters just weren’t ready to quit! They were able to remotely solve the DC clue by finding a website online that contained transcripts of the memorial’s inscriptions: https://www.nps.gov/nama/planyourvisit/george-mason-memorial.htm
Using the code from the Time Agency website, Discord user Shaduf was able to determine: “each paragraph on the description had a number of words that was like 33, 92, etc so the first number was what word and the second number was the letter within that word”
This led CodeHunters to https://cm2017soos.tumblr.com, and the password was correctly guessed to be fixinit1. This tumblr contains both some Stanfiction written by Soos, and a number puzzle.
Our intrepid CodeHunters quickly got to work trying to figure out this number puzzle!
The first box in each row corresponded to a Stanfic. The second number indicated the paragraph, third the word, and fourth the letter! Using this method, CodeHunters were able to put together:
DISNEYROSEGARDENSIXTOEIGHTPM
This leaves us with two clues to locate tomorrow:
5 Mabel Street, Portland, Maine
Disney Rose Gardens, Anaheim, California, from six to eight pm
And our hunt is once again on hold until then!
Credit to Discord/reddit user SenseiAurelius and @deviouslydoomed for helping compile today’s summary post!
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snowghoul
blakekathryn
discoholicmusic
germansingergirl
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areudirty
theartofmadeline
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