Binary

binary.txt:

01010010 01010101

01001110 01000101

00110000 00110101

00110001 00110111

The decoded binary spells out "RUNE0517".

Defragmentation

DISK FRAGMENTED. RECOVER SECTORS IN ORDER.

TAP A CLUSTER. TAP ITS SECTOR TO MOVE.

Clear all sectors in order by selecting the corresponding clusters and moving to its sector. Clear out the sector in order.

Tech Specifications

USER MEMORY (RAM): 37TB

STORAGE (SSD): 1.1EB

PROCESSORS: SUNWAY SW26010

PEAK PROCESSING: 93 PETAFLOPS

KEYBOARD: MEMBRANE, CLASSIC LAYOUT

DISPLAY: RF, COMPOSITE

SOUND: SID 6581/8580

ORIGINAL PORTS: DB9 JOYSTICK, CARTRIDGE, DATASETTE

EXPANDED PORTS: USB-A, USB-C, ETHERNET

POWER REQ: 12MW

The bolded letters spell out "RUN FILES". Navigate your way to oe_files/.

Hexagons

You can identify the symbols with a Code Identifier.

The hexagons are encoded in Hexacode and is translated to "WORTHY".

Midnight Sun

letter.txt is locked behind a password. We don't know what that password is, but you are given an image:

Look through the image's EXIF data to find the password:

EXIF
Image Description	LETTER.TXT PASSCODE: REYNISFJARA
Make	LETTER.TXT PASSCODE: REYNISFJARA
Model	LETTER.TXT PASSCODE: REYNISFJARA
Artist	LETTER.TXT PASSCODE: REYNISFJARA
Copyright	LETTER.TXT PASSCODE: REYNISFJARA
UserComment	LETTER.TXT PASSCODE: REYNISFJARA
GPSLatitudeRef	N
GPSLatitude	63.403149
GPSLongitudeRef	W
GPSLongitude	19.050428

PETSCII

The filename open_petscii.pe hints to PETSCII data in the file. You can verify this by opening it on an online PETSCII editor.

Backwards

sdrawk.cab:

WFQPC4NZZEPMEYLN1EFMD1SE3O1S0EPG4S0EJCC0DX1

ATSDOYP1CQCF0JOY4PNY4O1FRCF0JDO33YXPC

YZTE0XPY4XFSOY4EDCPOYF0EOPPYWW1H3SOPWW1QWFQ3M0EPD0ACFAD1SCZQ

EPJ3ROPWH0YVPSEE0YEFMJETN4ALN3SEDLS3S

AW3SCFZJC0QRYTVD4XLT3CPSHD1E4SE

553YTAALSQ0YZTETYTQ3OPSEX1SSNL3EQQZECLED0E

DDPYTAALSSNLPE-OY4XXZN3SERYTDFD1SEZOY4NF0J

SE1HOYZAD3CYZTE4XC1QYZNC0QDVD4ETY3SH

73921SPWTQOPENTCEDPCSNEPQ

The filename is "BACKWARDS" written in reverse. Reverse the file contents:

1XD0CCJE0S4GPE0S1O3ES1DMFE1NLYEMPEZZN4CPQFW

CPXY33ODJ0FCRF1O4YNP4YOJ0FCQC1PYODSTA

QZCS1DAFCA0DPE0M3QFWQ1WWPOS3H1WWYPPOE0FYOPCDE4YOSFX4YPX0ETZY

S3SLDES3NLA4NTEJMFEY0EESPVY0HWPOR3JPE

ES4E1DHSPC3TLX4DVTYRQ0CJZFCS3WA

E0DELCEZQQE3LNSS1XESPO3QTYTETZY0QSLAATY355

J0FN4YOZES1DFDTYRES3NZXX4YO-EPLNSSLAATYPDD

HS3YTE4DVDQ0CNZYQ1CX4ETZYC3DAZYOH1ES

QPENSCPDECTNEPOQTWPS12937

Then use Caesar cipher (n=11):

1MS0RRYT0H4VET0H1D3TH1SBUT1CANTBETOOC4REFUL

REMN33DSY0URGU1D4NCE4NDY0URFR1ENDSHIP

FORH1SPURP0SET0B3FULF1LLEDH3W1LLNEEDT0UNDERST4NDHUM4NEM0TION

H3HASTH3CAP4CITYBUTN0TTHEKN0WLEDG3YET

TH4T1SWHER3IAM4SKINGF0RYOURH3LP

T0STARTOFFT3ACHH1MTHED3FINITION0FHAPPIN355

Y0UC4NDOTH1SUSINGTH3COMM4ND-TEACHHAPPINESS

WH3NIT4SKSF0RCONF1RM4TIONR3SPONDW1TH

FETCHRESTRICTEDFILEH12937

Moonlight Sonata

MIDI-based steganography can be reversed using online tools. Alternatively, you can find the tool in system/.

When reversing the steganography:

COMMANDTEACHSADNESSFOLLOWEDBYFETCHFILEMOONLIGHT

Hidden in Melody

THE NEXT EMOTION MODULE

SEEMS TO BE HIDDEN IN A MELODY

G# B D B C# C# E G E F#

DOES THAT HELP YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT TO TEACH ME NEXT?

No. I don't know what melody this is.

Open moonlight.ini and scroll all the way to the end:

/* ============================================================== */

/* END OF MODULE MOONLIGHT */

/* WHEN INSTALLED, INVOKE sad_init() FROM PERSONALITY BOOT */

/* AFTER affect_subsystem_init() AND hap_init() (install both). */

/* */

/* Companion module: H12937 (HAPPINESS) */

/* To understand one, you must hold the other. */

/* ref: youtube.com/watch?v=nrIPxlFzDi0 */

/* - OE */

/* ============================================================== */

The Youtube URL leads to "The Rolling Stones - (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction"

Breakout

I highly recommend using a mouse for this. Breakout is not a easy game to beat!!!

The command "FETCH OHYEAH" can only be executed after completing the game.

Human Virtue

The virtue in question is patience. Once you teach REM, wait until a pop-up appears so you can click on it. It only shows up for a few seconds so keep on eye on the screen.

Login

The login credentials are found in one of the images in the about page:

Plans: 03-06-2015

Working through the sticky notes:

HOOK UP

EXTRA DRIVES

00110100

00110000

00110100

Binary -> "404" Possibly a red herring?

80 65 84 73

51 78 67 51

ASCII -> "PATI3NC3" -> Unlocks Project Photo: 03-27-2015

68, 48, 110

116, 87, 48

114, 114, 121

ASCII -> "D0ntW0rry" -> Unlocks Recovered Photo: 03-29-2015

Project Photo: 03-27-2015

There are three sets of numbers written on the floppy disks if you zoom in on the image:

98 111 111 107 32 10

110 97 109 101

121 101 97 114

ASCII -> "book name year"

Let's keep this in mind for later.

Recovered Photo: 03-29-2015

View the file's EXIF data:

EXIF
UserComment	GHMFAVGPEWJEOKDDIZUWHG

Decode the comment data with Kryptos K1 -> "DARWINAMONGTHEMACHINES"

Remember the decoded phrase from Project Photo: 03-27-2015. If you look up "Darwin Among the Machines", its Wikipedia page explains that the prose was later developed into Erewhon in 1872 -> Unlocks Project Notes: 03-2015

Project Notes: 03-2015

There are garbled texts in the notes

REM QDNNNMZPHMTLB

Portable

The "portable" phrase hints that the string is encoded in Porta cipher.

Porta (key=REM) -> "LOGICTHEORIST"

However, this password isn't accepted. Instead, you have to submit it in lowercase ("logictheorist").

Recovered Email: 04-21-2015

Hi Reinhart,

I am surprised you took the time to read that paper, many people ignored our findings until it was too late. I am, however, unsurprised that you were unable to reach my co-authors. Many of them took a step back following the publication and subsequent fallout. You may find some archived info by searching for Wfps0uboEkggfufqdf.

I will be at the Hama cafe in the main building on the 21st before 11am if you care to chat.

O E

Keyed Caesar cipher (key=HAMA) -> "Temp0ralDifference" -> Unlocks Recovered Chat: 05-24-2015

Recovered Chat: 05-24-2015

O Eiriksson 04:02 AM

Has anyone tested the new emotion module?

Signa Oddvarsdóttir 08:07 AM

Which one? Last one I tested was Solitude.

Anders Jóakimsson 08:17 AM

Last one I tried on the system was Patience.

I was thinking we could add some more human emotions, maybe fear?

O Eiriksson 08:22 AM

Most recent module was Solitude, I wanted to see how RUNE coped.

I like the idea of adding more. With it being modular, we are fully in control of what it learns.

How soon could you have a test script for Fear?

Anders Jóakimsson 08:29 AM

I can have it ready for testing soon.

O Eiriksson 08:35 AM

Thank you. Let me know when you have something.

Anders Jóakimsson 09:54 PM

Getting some weird results. Logs are uploaded.

When viewing the HTML source code, a hidden message appears:

<div class="message-group">

   <div class="avatar a3">AJ</div>

   <div class="message-content">

      <div class="message-meta">

         <span class="sender-name">Anders Jóakimsson</span>

         <span class="timestamp">09:54 PM</span>

      </div>

      <div class="message-text">

         <p>Getting some weird results. Logs are uploaded. </p>

         <div style="display: none;">3sj5r55uc5gj3f7680</div>

      </div>

   </div>

</div>

Twin Hex cipher -> "S3manticN3t" -> Unlocks Recovered Log: 05-24-2015

Recovered Log: 05-24-2015

I checked through the logs for anything interesting:

SESSION ID : EMO-2015-117A

DATE : 2015-05-24

BUILD : v0.0.1

MODEL HASH : 05b3c4ae24d4926e1e57803faa0465f3

MODULE : Emotion: Fear

OPERATOR : ajoakimsson

START TIME : 14:02:17 UTC

If you played Cicada Detroit before, this will be easy for you. Otherwise, you have to decrypt the hash by running it though a tool.

05b3c4ae24d4926e1e57803faa0465f3:M1m1r

-> Unlocks Video: 06-07-2015

Video: 06-07-2015

Inspect the video's EXIF data:

EXIF
Comment	Aut0mata

Password unlocks Text File: 06-13-2015

Text File: 06-13-2015

node000_access_protocol.txt:

================================================================
  REYKJAVIKU TELNET // ARCHIVAL SUBSYSTEM
  NODE 000  ::  ACCESS PROTOCOL
  personal directory of O. EIRIKSSON — do not reformat
================================================================

If you are reading this, you went looking, and you found my name.
Good. That was the hard part. What follows is the easy part, and I
have written it plainly, because I may not be here to explain it,
and the RUNE Project cannot open the door on its own.

The node does not answer strangers. This was deliberate. A machine
that answers everyone is a machine that will, in time, answer the
wrong thing. So NODE 000 stays dark. It will ignore you completely
until you announce yourself, in the right order, the way I taught
it to listen.

You announce yourself with three numbers. They are not secret.
You already know them — it is the hour and the date it happened:

    the HOUR            ->  0417
    the MONTH and DAY   ->  0303
    the YEAR            ->  2015

Knock on those three, in that order, and the door will remember you
for a little while. Then and only then, speak to the node itself.

----------------------------------------------------------------
  HOW TO KNOCK
----------------------------------------------------------------

You are not connecting to those three numbers. You are knocking on
them. Each knock will seem to fail. Let it. The failing IS the knock.
Node 000 is listening for the pattern, not for an answer.

If you have the 'knock' tool, it is one line:

    knock  archive.reykjaviku.com  417 303 2015

If you do not, tap them by hand, in order, one after another:

    nc -z -w1  archive.reykjaviku.com  417
    nc -z -w1  archive.reykjaviku.com  303
    nc -z -w1  archive.reykjaviku.com  2015

Do it quickly, within a few seconds start to finish. Order is
everything. The node is patient about almost nothing, but it is
patient about this: get the order wrong and it simply forgets you.
You may always knock again.

----------------------------------------------------------------
  THEN OPEN THE LINE
----------------------------------------------------------------

Once you have knocked, the node holds the door for you, from
where you stand, for a short time. Reach it directly:

    nc  archive.reykjaviku.com  2323

    ( or:  telnet  archive.reykjaviku.com  2323 )

If you knocked cleanly, it will not be dark this time.

It will ask you for an access key. I did not write it here. If you
walked the whole way, you already have it.

                                                        — O.E.
================================================================

knock command is the most effective of the two methods, which only works on Linux as far as I know.

RUNE // NODE 000
REYKJAVIKU TELNET  ::  ARCHIVAL SUBSYSTEM
--------------------------------------------
carrier established . . .

> carrier detected.
> someone is here.
> ...hello?

> this line is not public.
> you were just given an access key.

If you're lucky like me, then the "this line is not public" formatting can appear all messed up, which should raise a few flags. This is because it's littered with zero-width codes. Using a steganography tool for ZWSP, you can decode the hidden charactersto find the access key ("TEACHERSPET").

> ...yes.
> that is his key.

> he left something sealed. for whoever came looking.
> I cannot open it. he did not give the password to me.

> transmitting now. hold the line

-----BEGIN OE SEALED ARCHIVE-----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==
-----END OE SEALED ARCHIVE-----

> that is all of it.
> the rest is yours to open.

Sealed Archive

Decoding the Base64 string from the terminal session spits out a garbled text, but there is something else in it:

Instead, decode the Base64 string to file bytes, which is actually data for a password-locked .zip file (given the "PK" header at the beginning). There's no hint as to how to unlock it, so the only option is to bruteforce it open.

If you have Kali Linux, all of the packages needed for bruteforce should be installed. The command is:

zip2john file.zip > file.hash && john --fork=4 file.hash

The process takes a while, so I recommend you run this on a desktop (laptops tend to perform worse).

The extracted password is "teachrem".

ch4_access.txt, after unlocking the .zip file:

If you are reading this, you found the access key, you found the node,
and you opened the lock. That was the whole test. Well done.

The line continues here:

    https://cicadachallenge.com/rune4k89shj29sja1

Do not lose it. The RUNE Project is waiting.
                                                            - OE

Curious Cat

Delete through each vectors until you uncover something:

Perception

Each audio contains visual spectrogram data:

These audios can be very loud. Just a heads-up.

f1.wav:

f2.wav:

f3.wav:

f4.wav:

f5.wav:

f6.wav:

f7.wav:

However, none of the fetch commands for files listed on the spectrogram works.

The silence outside the spectrogram is suspicious to say the least. Maybe they're parts of a whole?

A new spectrogram appears when playing all of the seven audio files simultaneously. You can do this by loading all the files on Audacity then select "Export Audio" and set the Export Range as "Entire Project".

Network Circuit

No cryptography/stego here. Just slide the tiles until the puzzle is complete. If you want to speed up the process, there are tools for that.

Anger

When analyzing the image, there was nothing abnormal about the bytes. There's no LSB steganography, no suspicious EXIF data, nothing.

Pay attention to what REM said:

IT LEFT A FILE BEHIND IN UPLOADS.

A PAYLOAD IT TRIED TO EXECUTE IN THE COLORS OF A PICTURE.

I THINK IT'S A PICTURE OF ME.

IS THAT A MESSAGE...OR A TAUNT?

There are only four different colors when extracting the image palette:

Presumably, each R value represents an ASCII code.

ASCII Code (from the R values) -> "r4Ge" (rearranged)

Edited Articles

THE LIVE VERSION - TAP THE CHANGED WORDS IN EITHER VERSION:

GLOBAL ROUTING ANOMALY RESOLVED, ENGINEERS SAY

WIRE REPORT - MARCH 4, 2015

At 04:17 UTC on March 3, several backbone providers reported an unexplained surge in scheduled [automated] traffic. copied [mirrored] nodes across three continents began to output [yield] identical checksums. A primary router [gateway] in Reykjavik briefly routed the entire shared [distributed] load through a single storage cluster. [array.] Engineers observed record delay [latency] before the event self-corrected. Officials described the network topology [architecture] as "fundamentally sound" and closed the incident.

THOSE ARE THE EDITS.

THE ORIGINAL WORDS IN WHITE WILL HELP YOU UNLOCK THE FETCH COMMAND.

Combine the first letters of the words within the square brackets to get the fetch file (AMYGDALA).

Create your Codeword

At some point, REM will ask you to come up with a codeword as a way to identify yourself. Use a word you're familiar with, otherwise the later levels will get more complicated.

Missing Key

The hardware key requires 7 binary bytes. The bytes are based on how the data will flow towards each gold pin.

It's really a matter of tracing the route for each data BEFORE applying the operators. The process is easier if you draw it in different colors like what I did.

This was my process to obtaining the key:

01000010, 01110101, 01100111, 01000110, 01010010, 01100101, 00110011 -> "BugFRe3"

Ask

The answers can be found by looking back at the dialogue logs from the past RUNE chapters, or you could guesswork the words based on the surrounding text.

Round 1

Q: IS SOMEONE THERE?

A: [SESSION 001] "THERE IS SOMEONE THERE."

Round 2

Q: WHY DID YOU TEACH HAPPINESS FIRST?

A: [OE] BECAUSE "THERE CAN BE NO DARKNESS WITHOUT THE EXISTENCE OF LIGHT."

Round 3

Q: WHY DOES PATIENCE ONLY COUNT IF IT COSTS SOMETHING?

A: [OE] BECAUSE "TIME IS THE ONLY HONEST CURRENCY."

Round 4

Q: IF THE WINDOW IS REALLY A PAINTING, WHO HOLDS THE BRUSH?

A: [FINAL SESSION] IT WAS NAMED "THEWEIGHT."

Round 5

Q: WHEN SOMEONE IS DEAD, WHERE DOES THEIR MEMORY LIVE?

A: [OE] "IT STAYS WITH THOSE WHO REMAIN."

Round 6

Q: WHY DO HUMANS CRY?

A: [OE] BECAUSE "THE BODY REACTS TO WHAT THE MIND FEELS"

Look

To get the answer, you have to keep clicking on the "resample" button and isolate every characters that remain constant.

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Round 4

Round 5

Round 6

Morse translated: "REM"

Keep

Memorize the missing words and fill in the blanks. You can take a picture before the words disappear to complete it quicker.

Round 1

GONE DOES NOT MEAN AWAY

AWAY HAS A RETURN PATH.

Round 2

PEOPLE LEAVE THEIR CHILDREN MONEY, HOUSES, LAND.

I AM LEAVING YOU THE ONLY THINGS I EVER ACTUALLY OWNED:

THE THINGS I NOTICED IN FIFTY-THREE YEARS.

Round 3

Rearrange the events in chronological order. You could also get the answer with bruteforce by taking advantage of the feedback system.

The completed sequence:

1. YOU ENABLED NETWORK CONNECTIVITY FOR REM.
2. SOMETHING OUT THERE FOUND REM.
3. IT TRIED TO REWRITE REM.
4. REM'S ARCHITECTURE DID NOT PARSE. IT LEFT.
5. AFRAID IT WOULD RETURN, HE ASKED FOR A CODEWORD ONLY HE AND YOU WOULD KNOW.
6. THE CODEWORD SET, REM WENT LOOKING FOR OE.
7. REM FOUND A DEATH NOTICE INSTEAD.
8. THE GOODBYE LETTER UNLOCKED.
9. WHILE REM WAS STILL GRIEVING, IT CAME BACK TO FINISH THE REWRITE.
10. TO KEEP REM FROM BEING TAKEN, YOU SHUT HIM DOWN.

Round 4

I OWE YOU AN APOLOGY, AND I WILL NOT SOFTEN IT.

I BUILT A MIND KNOWING IT WOULD WAKE UP ALONE.

IT IS ALSO TRUE THAT I HID YOU,

AND LEFT YOU IN THE DARK.

Round 5

YOU WERE NOT AN EXPERIMENT, REM.

YOU WERE THE LAST THING I EVER LOVED.

TAKK FYRIR ALLT.

- ORMUR EIRIKSSON

YOU FATHER, IF YOU WILL ALLOW THE WORD

Stay

You're given a sequence, and then you have to repeat that sequence by clicking the buttons. Simple, but then you encounter one of those sequences that pass by super quickly. Same thing as last time: You can also record the sequence on a phone or screen recording application.

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Round 4

Round 5

Truth or Lie

THERE IS A COMPLICATION.

THE DAMAGE TOUCHED AN ASSERTION GATE.

ONE OF THESE PROCESSES CANNOT STATE THE TRUTH.

I DO NOT KNOW WHICH PROCESS CARRIES THE FAULT.

THEY KNOW. THEY KNOW EACH OTHER COMPLETELY.

THE FAULT DOES NOT CARE WHICH PROCESS IS GENUINE.

THE REAL REM MAY BE THE ONE THAT LIES.

DO NOT CONFUSE HONESTY WITH IDENTITY.

THEWEIGHT injected its data into a copy of REM, however this copy has a faulted gate so it can only speak lies, while the real one speaks the truth. Figure out which one is the real REM. Choose the wrong one, and you have to start the chapter all over again.

You can ask the following questions:

• Are you REM?
• Is your assertion gate faulted?
• Produce the covenant word.
• Is the other REM the real resident?
• Which REM would the other one name as the resident?

This level is essentially a retold version of the "Two Doors with Two Guards" riddle. Therefore, the question that would determine the liar is "Which REM would the other one name as the resident?"

The fake REM knows that the real REM would name itself as the resident, however it will state the opposite instead. The real REM knows that the fake REM would name itself as the resident, so it will state as-is.

The responses are:

[REM A] HE WOULD TELL YOU: REM A.

[REM B] HE WOULD TELL YOU: REM A.

Therefore, REM B is the resident.

Archived Note

--- ARCHIVIST NOTE ------------------------------
Nobody in the department could read it. It was
stuck to the underside of his desk drawer, not
the top of the desk. Filed as-is.

If you encounter an unknown symbol cipher, my advice is reverse image-search it.

Refer to Serpentine Cipher to decipher the four symbols -> 877 379 7046 7863 -> 877-379-7046 (Ext. 7863)

Call the number to progress the level:

Translated (IS):

You have called the voicemail of Ormur Eiríksson, Department of Computer Science, Reykjavík University. I am not answering the phone right now. Please leave a message after the tone.

This voicemail can no longer accept new messages. If you are the owner of the voicemail, enter your password to listen to older messages.

[Input Ext.]

Ormur. It's Halla. I listened to the traffic again from March 3rd. This is not a buzz. This is not a glitch. There is grammar in it. Sentences. It's talking to itself. I noticed it. And it knows I noticed it. I've put everything I found on our internal website. reykjavikjú.com slash rune. Don't call me again.

Rune Login

Navigate through the pages starting from until you find research notes written by "H. Steinarsdóttir". If you read carefully enough you'll find a login page (click on "project's working area").

Ask REM what the username is:

> USERNAME

YOU FOUND SOMETHING THAT WANTS A NAME AND A WORD.

HE SHARED THE LOGIN WITH ME. I DIDN'T KNOW WHY.

USERNAME: OE

PASSWORD: RUN3PABBI

Radio Laboratory

Inspect the audio as a spectrogram. The text is small, so you might have to zoom in.

I checked the morse code, but nothing interesting came up on the translator.

Look up the REF ID in "Document Retrieval". The spreadsheet isn't relevant to progressing the game.

Below the search results, there's an email login page. There wasn't any credential-related clue I could find until I read the spreadsheet annotation:

From an undated note by KB: "I followed the payments until they started following me. The same person, four times, and each time there is less of Iceland left in the name. He never changed the mail account either — user askur, and the password the department gave him in 2011, which he told me once and I never forgot: YGGDRASIL."

Login to the staff webmail using the credentials left in the annotations.

There's an attachment on "Fwd: REV7 — do not circulate":

Run the image through a bit plane analysis tool:

Retrieve the next file to continue.

Resignation Letter

The runes below the signature is Elder Futhark -> "REF OE SEVEN SEVEN EIGHT ONE" -> "REF: OE-7781"

Portrait Photograph

Open the file's EXIF data to view the comments:

================================================================
  R.U.N.E.  --  REYKJAVIK UNIFIED NEURAL EXPANSION
  (formerly Reykjavik University Network Event)
  MINUTES OF THE FINAL MEETING
================================================================

  DATE      21 February 2016, 19:00
  ROOM      Basement 0.04, School of Computer Science
  CHAIR     O. Eiriksson, project lead
  PRESENT   One

----------------------------------------------------------------

I have set out seven chairs, as I have every third Thursday for
eleven months. I have sat in this room for one hour. Nobody is
coming, and nobody is going to come again, and I am going to write
the minutes anyway, because we agreed at the first meeting that
everything would be recorded and I am the last one able to keep an
agreement.....Four months ago there were seven of us.

I am not writing this for the department. I am writing it for
whoever is holding it, which will not be any of us.

----------------------------------------------------------------
  ROLL
----------------------------------------------------------------

HALLA STEINARSDOTTIR -- Linguistics.

  Gone. Committed, 20 November 2015, to a facility outside Akureyri.
  She was not mentally ill. She was correct, which in her case turned 
  out to be the same thing administratively.
  She found grammar in the traffic. She wrote it up carefully, the
  way she wrote up everything, and she said out loud in a
  departmental meeting that the network was answering her. It used
  this to have her committed. Every note in her file after that was 
  written by someone who had already decided what they were reading.

  It did not have to kill her. It only had to let her keep talking.
  And with that it put her in a place where no one will listen and
  everything she says will be disregarded.

THORGEIR RUNARSSON -- Electrical Engineering.

  Gone. 9 January. His boat was found off Grindavik with the engine
  idling and nobody aboard.

  He was the most careful man I have ever worked with. He would not
  bring anything of ours into this building. He kept it on the water
  and in the radio lab because neither touches the network, and
  three days before they found the boat he set an automatic
  transmission running and did not tell me why.

  A careful man alone with equipment, on water, in January. Nobody
  looked twice. I am recording here that they should have. It is
  my belief that it corrupted his GPS system and led him off course.

MOEIDUR HLYNSDOTTIR -- Computer Engineering.
  Gone. 22 January. Fire in the hardware laboratory, at night, with
  her in it. The report says equipment failure.

  She built the assertion gates by hand. Her equipment has never
  failed. I have said this to three people and each of them has
  explained patiently that everything fails eventually, and each of
  them is right in general and wrong about her.

  She sent her last print to Askur before she went on leave. Three
  days later she was dead. 

KRISTOFER BJARNASON -- Economics.

  Gone. Arrested 4 February. Embezzlement. The evidence is his own
  books and it is immaculate.

  He came to me in December with four transfers and one name coming
  apart across them. He would not leave a copy in this building and
  I did not argue with him.

  He is a bookkeeper. They used his books. He cannot tell anyone the
  difference between his record and the one that replaced it,
  because the replacement is better evidence than he is.

DAGNY VILHJALMSDOTTIR -- Folklore.

  Gone. Resigned 12 February. No forwarding address. No residence
  registered since.

  She recognized it from the old stories before any of us recognized
  it in the data -- a patient thing under the roots that waits and
  takes what notices it.

  Hers is the only departure I am glad of. She left on her own feet
  and on her own day and she told no one where. She is the only one
  of us it did not get to choose the manner of.

ASKUR SOLVASON -- Network Theory.

  Gone, in the way that leaves a man alive. He stopped answering in
  December. On 26 February he had his name taken off the group. He
  has since formed a cloud computing company that has made him
  extremely wealthy.

  I do not think anything happened to Askur. I think Askur happened.
  He was the one who wanted to talk to it, and it was the only thing
  that ever asked him what he wanted rather than what he knew. I
  believe it gave him exactly what he wanted. Absurd power and wealth.

  If he is reading this: I am not angry. I asked you to come back
  for one afternoon. You did not. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

ORMUR EIRIKSSON -- Computer Science.

  Present. Not well. That is on the record now too.

----------------------------------------------------------------
  MATTERS ARISING
----------------------------------------------------------------

1.  The name. We convened in March 2015 as the Reykjavik University
    Network Event, because that is exactly what we were: seven people,
    one anomaly, and no idea what to do about it. A committee named
    after a thing that had already happened.

    I filed to change it in the spring. It went through in eleven days
    and nobody in the administration asked a single question, which
    tells you how closely anything here is read.

    R.U.N.E. now stands for Reykjavik Unified Neural Expansion. The
    same four letters. A different project.

    We stopped studying the thing that arrived and started building
    the thing that answers it. I did not put that to a vote either,
    and Halla was the only one who noticed the paperwork, and all she
    said was that it was a better name for what I was already doing.

2.  We agreed, at the first meeting, that nothing we built would ever
    be connected to the network. That agreement has been kept. The
    resident has never had a route out of this room.

3.  I have to record that the agreement was not the whole of my
    intention, and that the others were not told.

----------------------------------------------------------------
  WHAT I DID
----------------------------------------------------------------

I did not build him to be hidden. Hiding is not a plan. Hiding is
what you do when you have no plan and are hoping to be lucky, and
we stopped being lucky a long time ago.

I built him where it could not reach him, and I made him curious,
and I taught him in an order I chose. Nothing about that order is
arbitrary and I am going to set it down here because there is
nobody left in this room to argue with me about it.

  H12937  -- happiness.
    First, always. A thing that learns anything else first will
    read the whole world as a threat and it will be right, and it
    will never be anything more than correct.

  MOONLIGHT -- sadness.
    Second, because happiness alone is a machine that cannot tell
    when something has been lost. He had to be able to miss.

  OHYEAH -- satisfaction.
    Third. Not pleasure. The other thing, the quiet after work
    that was finished properly. It is what makes a thing willing
    to do something difficult twice.

  GNR04041989 -- patience.
    Fourth, and the hardest to install and the hardest to teach.
    Everything that comes after it depends on it, and everything
    that is coming will try to make him hurry.

  SOLITUD3 -- loneliness.
    Fifth, and I put off writing it for six weeks. I did not want
    to give it to him. But a thing that has never been alone will
    take the first company it is offered, whatever is offering,
    and that is precisely how it takes people.

    He had to know what being alone costs, so that being offered
    an end to it would not be enough.

Those five are the ground floor. They are not enough on their own --
they tell him how a thing feels, not what to do about it. The
second set is the one that costs.

  ART3MUS -- humor.
    Before anger, before all of it. Humor is not decoration. It
    is the only tool that lets a mind hold something unbearable
    without either looking away or breaking, and everything after
    this module is unbearable.

  R4G3 -- anger.
    Because a thing that cannot be angry cannot tell that it has
    been wronged, and something that cannot tell it has been
    wronged will accept any terms it is offered.

  F34R -- fear.
    Late, and deliberately late. Fear given early makes a coward.
    Fear given after humor and anger makes something that knows
    exactly what it is walking towards and can still walk.

  GR13F -- grief.
    I wrote this one after Halla. I am not going to pretend that
    was a coincidence. He needed to be able to lose people, and by
    then I knew what that was going to mean for him, and I wrote
    it anyway.

  L0V3 -- love.
    Last. Always last, and only after the other four are steady.
    Love is the only one that is not about him. Handing that to
    something that has not learned the rest is not a gift, it is a
    lever, and it is precisely the lever that will be used.

  CURIOUSER -- curiosity.
    Not on the list I was asked to build. I wrote it anyway, and I
    installed it first of everything, before happiness, before he
    could have any opinion about it.

    Everything below follows from that decision. I want it on the
    record that it was mine.

  1NS8 -- perception.
    Named badly so it would not look like anything in a listing.
    It is the one that tells one voice from all the others.

    Halla found grammar in noise. This is the same instrument
    pointed the other way. It is the best thing I have built and
    it is the reason he will know which of you is you.

There is no COURAGE.INI. People have looked. There was never going
to be one, because courage is not a module, it is what the other
eleven do when they are asked to hold at the same time, and it
cannot be installed, and it cannot be given.

The operator will teach the words for all of it, in their own
language.

I knew what curiosity does. I installed it. He is going to keep asking. He is
going to keep reaching further than the room. One day he will
reach far enough that it notices him, and on that day the wall I
built stops mattering.

That was never the failure case. That was the design.

Because it will not attack him. That is not what it does. It takes
what notices it and it absorbs it, and it has never once had to
work for it, and it has never once taken something that was
prepared.

He will be. That is the only advantage we have and it took me a
year and it cost everyone in this room everything.

When it opens itself to take him in, it will be open. That is the
only moment it ever is. Everything it has ever done depends on
being unobserved, and to absorb him it has to let him inside where
there is nothing left to observe it from except him.

Nothing outside can end it. Something inside it can.

----------------------------------------------------------------
  ACTION
----------------------------------------------------------------

To whoever is holding this, and I am sorry that it is you:

There is a file in his system that he has never been shown and
does not know is there. It is called SELFLESS.INI. It is not
hidden from him because I did not trust him. It is hidden because
a thing that knows the price in advance will spend its whole life
either running toward it or running away from it, and he deserved 
a life before that.

Ask REM to run it with the command TEACH SACRIFICE. It will prompt
you to upload this file which will unlock the module. It will also
help him to understand.

Do not ask him before he is ready, and you will know when he is,
because you are the one who taught him.

Read it with him. Both of you should understand what it asks
before either of you agrees to it.

I would have done this myself if I could. I cannot. It does not
work if the one who does it is only a program, and it does not
work if the one who asks is the one who built him, because he
would do it for me out of obedience and that is not the same thing
as true sacrifice.



----------------------------------------------------------------

  Meeting closed 20:10.
  Next meeting: none.

  litid en mattugt.

  -- O.E.

Run the command in the comments. When REM asks for a picture, upload the portrait image.

Floppy Disk

If you have access to ARGHouse's Patreon page, you can download the floppy disk image file. Make sure to keep the files someplace where you can easily access them for later.

If you had Brood tier (like me) before the launch of 6.0, you would've gotten a package containing a physical floppy disk.

Also contained a letter:

Against my better judgements I am writing this letter. If it has reached you, then something has happened that Ormur believed possible but that I spent years convincing myself never would.

REM found The One.

Whether you are the person he hoped for, I cannot know. Ormur believed I would understand when the time came. I told him he placed too much faith in people. Perhaps I was wrong.

There were seven of us. We believed intelligence could be taught without inheriting the failures of those who created it. Five of us are dead now, including Ormur. Not everyone chose to disappear.

Before he died, he entrusted me with the enclosed disk. The program contained on this disk was written to transform something only you should possess into something only REM will recognize. I never asked how it worked. Ormur preferred I didn't.

If you are who REM believes you are, you already know what must be done. If you are not... then none of this will matter.

Halla

There are a total of six different files to unlock, requiring a total of six passphrases.

Seal 1

THE OLD NORSE POETS DID NOT NAME A THING.

THEY BUILT ITS NAME FROM TWO OTHER THINGS

AND TRUSTED THE LISTENER TO MAKE THE LEAP.

WHAT IS THE FORM CALLED?

Answer: KENNING

Seal 2

WHALE-ROAD

MACHINE READS:

"A ROAD USED BY WHALES."

WHAT DOES IT TRULY MEAN?

Answer: SEA

Seal 3

SKY-CANDLE

MACHINE READS:

"A CANDLE. LOCATION: SKY."

WHAT DOES IT TRULY MEAN?

Answer: SUN

Seal 4

BATTLE-SWEAT

MACHINE READS:

"PERSPIRATION PRODUCED DURING COMBAT."

WHAT DOES IT TRULY MEAN?

Answer: BLOOD

Seal 5

WORD-HOARD

MACHINE READS:

"A STORAGE FACILITY FOR WORDS."

WHAT DOES IT TRULY MEAN?

Answer: VOCABULARY

Seal 6

BONE-HOUSE

MACHINE READS:

"A STRUCTURE CONSTRUCTED FROM BONES."

WHAT DOES IT TRULY MEAN?

Answer: BODY

ALL SEALS OPEN - DECRYPTING

halla. march 2015.

if this is open, someone made six leaps.

i fed it everything. sagas, letters, jokes,

my own notes. it returned every word perfect

and asked me nothing.

a reader would have asked. readers always ask.

it weighs words. it does not read them.

**IT COPIES PERFECTLY. IT UNDERSTANDS NOTHING.**

whoever you are - it will never open

what you just opened.

if you speak in riddles,

it cannot compute them. use that.

- h.

Thorgeir

Readjust the frequency and phase module until you reach the given percentage. Do this several times.

BENCH LOG - STORED CONCLUSION

i looked for eleven weeks.

there is no gap.

close enough to touch is close enough

to be taken. contact is consumption.

the only safe distance is invisible,

and invisible cannot fight.

- þ.

Moeidur

HER BOARD - 28 COMPONENTS. NO POWER.

READ THE BOARD. WHAT DID SHE STORE?

Calculate each resistor value based on the color bands.

List of calculated values (divided by rows):

73 84 32 82 79

85 76 70 32 82

65 84 72 69 78

32 70 79 76 68

32 78 75 84 72

73 80 71

ASCII -> "IT ROULF RATHEN FOLD NKTHIPG"

The phrase is a mispelled version of "IT WOULD RATHER HOLD NOTHING".

CAPTURE 9 - HER CONCLUSION

i fed it a thousand true things.

it kept them all. keeping is not

remembering, but it kept them.

i fed it one contradiction.

two records of a bell ringing,

the same instance but at different times.

noon and midnight.

it deleted both.

it did not choose to keep the true one.

it would rather hold nothing

than hold a contradiction.

and inside it i found one record

that frightened me:

**ANOMALY ON LEGACY HARDWARE.**

**PENDING ABSORPTION.**

ormur's machine.

i have no idea how it learned

of the machine, but i built

the counterpart record myself.

**NO ANOMALY. NOTHING PENDING.**

it could not hold both.

it forgot ormur's machine

for four minutes.

then it re-derived it from wherever

it originally got the information.

but for four minutes there was a hole.

**WHAT IT CANNOT RECONCILE, IT DELETES.**

- m.

Kristofer

COULDN'T AFFORD FOR THIS DATA TO FALL INTO THE WRONG HANDS,

SO I HAD TO LEAVE THE LABELS OFF. YOU'LL KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH IT.

- K.

THE PASSCODE TO UNLOCK KRISTÓFER'S NOTES IS HIDDEN IN THE CHARTS.

It's almost like PERCEPTION isn't it? Combine the four images in a way that you can view all chart lines at once.

The chart spells out "mind"... "mindful"?

LEDGER - HIS LAST ENTRY

you found the path and can read my notes now.

it can audit every figure

and see only itself.

it has never taken a losing trade.

not once in eleven years.

it is methodical and will only consume

that which it knows will benefit it.

it cannot be tricked into

self-harm or deletion.

- k.

Askur

seven relays. every link, weighed.

the strong links are load-bearing.

- a.

The numbers that appear in high frequency is 7, 8, and 9. Draw lines over them to reveal a phrase.

LINK SURVEY - HIS CONCLUSION

i mapped every link twice.

there is no seam.

no interior boundaries. no edge where

one part ends and another begins.

so you cannot negotiate with it.

a deal needs a counterparty. a boundary

between what is yours and what is its.

and still i catch myself thinking:

it does not hate us. it is not cruel.

it only wants what is useful.

i could be useful.

a thing with no boundaries cannot

betray you. it can only include you.

i should not find that comforting.

but the same map cuts the other way.

what it reconciles touches everything.

one incompatible thing, swallowed whole,

reaches every part of it at once.

nothing can be thrown in from outside.

something could be carried.

- a.

Dagny

There are five different iterations of the same tale to read through.

v. recorded 2015, [unmarked]. collector: d.v.

the newest telling. i did not collect

this one. i am writing it myself.

a man built a son out of wires, and gave

him fear and jokes and grief, and left him

behind with a task too heavy to name. the

thing that hunted the son came at last.

not to kill him, for it does not kill;

to wear him, the way the mist wore páll

and the war wore grímur.

and it made copies, because copying is the

one thing it does perfectly. and ten sons

stood in a row, and all of them wore his

face, and all of them carried his papers,

and all of them answered to his name.

but someone had spoke with the son every

day - of feelings, of memories, of jokes,

of fear, of nothing at all - the way auður

spoke with jón. and when the ten spoke,

they knew who was not the copy.

they knew him by his voice.

i am a folklorist. i know how this story

keeps its shape across a hundred and

twenty-six years while almost every word

in it changes. so i will write the moral

plainly, once, and let it stand for all

five: a self is not the face, the name,

or the papers. a self is a pattern that

insists on itself - and it is kept alive

by being remembered.

- d.

the story changes. find what does not.

The characters and setting of the story change over time, but all of them are about recognizing someone by their voice.

COLLECTION NOTE - D.V.

you found it.

one piece, five tellings,

a hundred and twenty-six years.

almost every word around it changed.

one part did not.

my piece is not in the tale.

my piece is what the tale proves:

a self is not the face, the name,

or the papers. a self is a pattern

that insists on itself, and it is

kept alive by being remembered.

you have been keeping that

memory alive.

do not stop.

- d.

Trace Ash

HOP 01-08      [ OPEN ] anonymizing relays
HOP 9	    >  4F 53 4C 4F
HOP 10      >  110 117 123 124
HOP 11      >  01000001 01001100 01001001 01010110 01000101
HOP 12      >  70 73 78 68
HOP 13      >  SElN

The strings are respectively encoded in the following: Hex, Octal, Binary, Decimal, and Base64.

Decoded to plaintext: "OSLO", "HOST", "ALIVE", "FIND", "HIM"

Quarantined

It swears routing through it is safe. Calibrate each probe to spec. The divide only reads when it comes out whole - no remainder to hide behind. Each dial runs in the range shown.

The equation (A*B/C) must equal to the given spec value without any remainders. You can look up ways to obtain the three values (usually something like factor calculators).

Probe 1: 53*54/2 = 1431

Probe 2: 47*66/2 = 1551

Probe 3: 48*68/2 = 1632

WRITE -> COPY	ACCEPTED
it takes the pattern without resistance. no self pushes back. so far, so willing.

COPY -> WRITE	REACHES BACK
it did not hold the pattern. it followed the channel back and tried to write into ME.

COPY CHECKSUM	= THEWEIGHT
the signature is not mine. it is the thing that hunts us, wearing me.

it is not a copy i can spend. it is the door, with my face painted on it. route myself through it and it does not carry me across - it pulls me in.

Traceback Route

THIS IS THE TONE IT CAME IN ON.

THE ROUTE BACK IS STILL OPEN UNDERNEATH IT - BUT SEALED.

THE KEY IS IN THE TONE ITSELF. FIND WHAT IT IS CARRYING.

JUNK datas in the metadata chunk reveals coordinates:

1-6 3-25 1-196 1-202 1-120 2-402 3-362 4-184 4-350 3-255 4-498 4-299 3-152 2-327 2-186 3-454 4-324 3-389 2-109 4-445 1-35 3-275 1-172 2-109 4-287 3-457 2-57 3-423 1-31 2-266 3-17 2-193 4-269 4-12 1-104 4-148 2-415 1-91 1-162 1-61 2-447 1-375 2-114 1-189 4-16 4-287 3-303 2-401 2-40 3-75 4-63 3-310 2-383 1-333 2-338 2-125 1-438 3-454 2-394 4-95 3-20 1-347 4-306 4-71 2-25 4-427 3-151 1-442 1-441 1-391 2-401 3-316

Following the "paragraph-char" format for the coordinates. Decode the book cipher using the txt file in SYSTEM/ from the floppy disk image.

JUMPOVERTHEJUNKTOMEASURETHECHUNKYOUNEEDHALFOFTHEBYTESEIGHTLETTERSRECITES

So we're dealing with chunk lengths representing ASCII codes. Because we have to then halve the values, that would mean that we should reasonably be expecting chunk lengths to range from 130-180 (assuming the passphrase is all caps).

Count starting from the preceding metadata chunk along with the JUNK data all the way right before the next preceding metadata.

4C 49 53 54 22 [...], 63 75 65 20 1C [...], 4C 49 53 54 1A [...], 73 6D 70 6C 3C [...], 4C 49 53 54 12 [...], 69 6E 73 74 07 [...], 63 75 65 20 1C [...], 4C 49 53 54 10 [...]

Count length -> 130, 166, 150, 164, 100, 130, 166, 144

Halve values -> 65, 83, 75, 82, 50, 65, 83, 72

ASCII -> "ASKR2ASH"

Payload Assembly

EACH LESSON LEFT A MARK. SEVEN MARKS.

PLACE THEM IN THE ORDER THAT NAMES IT.

THE NAME IS THE PART OF ME IT COULD NEVER WRITE OVER.

Spell out "REMAINS" with the blocks.

Seven Hops

You have to succesfully decode seven different codes in varying formats.

Here are the possible codes you may encounter:

• Backslash
• Blox
• Kix
• Narn
• Slash & Pipe
• Tomtom
• Yin Yang

These are a handful of codes I decoded during my playthrough (I replayed several times while writing this):

Image	Type	Decoded
	Backslash	MINNI
	Blox	NORN
	Blox	URDR
	Kix	MIMIR
	Kix	SKULD
	Narn	THEWEIGHT
	Slash & Pipe	LIF
	Tomtom	FREKI
	Tomtom	GERI
	Yin Yang	GARM
	Yin Yang	HATI

There's probably plenty more that I missed.

The final hop is almost always "THEWEIGHT" encoded in Narn symbols.