Embedded Files
Caroline: “...Those were Jamie Hyneman and Justice Wargrave.”
Coraline: “Wait, was he the guy who invented Magic: The Gathering?”
Caroline: “...close enough.”
Coraline: “The Magic inventor might be involved in the feedback loop?!”
Caroline (sighed): “Apparently not close enough, because that’s Richard Garfield. We probably don’t even have the real Hargrove in the loop. I think ‘yurt’ actually was wordplay for someone else’s name, but it’s hard to tell with the unusually large amount of Hargroves.”
Coraline: “...who is in this loop, then? Do we have that one person who gets puzzle manicures?”
Caroline: “Nobody knows who’s in here until the entire list gets published. I’d guess not, though.”
Coraline: “I wanted to ask what salon does those for her.”
Caroline: “I think she does her own.”
Coraline: “There isn’t a place to get custom puzzle-oriented cosmetics?!”
Caroline: “No salon would be willing to do that because it takes a long time to make a puzzle. (Get it?)”
Coraline: “That pun fell so flat that I can feel the cringe of all the future solvers reading this as we speak.”
Caroline: “Couldn’t really help it. We only exist to talk to each other because Cheshire got “I really enjoyed the puzzle, and having the flavor text being longer than the puzzle itself was really unique! Just wish we didn't have to go through such a terrible salon pun though.” as a prompt.”
Coraline: “Oooooooooooooh, that explains our names. So, we’re just having pointless conversations until we go far enough over the character count of the puzzle or whatever to be passable?”
Caroline: “I can’t see far enough down to know what the puzzle’s going to be, but that’s safe to be the case. Cheshire probably will end this dialogue at exactly one character over the puzzle length at wordcounter.net, just to be kind to the solvers. It’s probably not going to be very good dialogue, the site’s going live just an hour from when this was written.”
Coraline: “What’s the puzzle called?”
Caroline: “Dunno. I can’t see past that answer checker link. It’s not part of the flavor text and it’s blocking the view.”
Coraline: “Are there any other cool puzzles to meet contrived characters in?”
Caroline: “Still not sure, haven’t done everything. I heard that Dylan probably violated international law to make another First You Visit Burkina Faso.”
Coraline: “Does anyone actually solve those?”
Caroline: “No, but this might be an exception.”
Coraline: “I’ll keep that in mind if we ever go puzzle-hopping.”
Caroline: “You realize we aren’t actually part of Cheshire’s puzzle, right? We’re flavor text.”
Coraline: “Flavor text?”
Caroline: “You know, like the little blurb above a puzzle that gives a helpful hint or a story.”
Coraline: “Does it taste like pizza?”
Caroline: “It tastes like existential dread with mustard on top.”
Coraline: “But you said existential dread was bad!”
Caroline: “It is, which is why I’m also telling you to not think about the concept of flavor text too much when you’re living in it.”
Coraline: “I know that, but I thought that our flavor text would taste like pizza because it’s in italics.”
Caroline: “All flavor text is in italics.”
Coraline: “You just said something that wasn’t italicized, though!”
Caroline: “That’s just how you italicize something that’s already been italicized.”
Coraline: “But it’s not italicized.”
Caroline: “Italics just work like that. Text that isn’t in italics that’s in the middle of italic text means that it’s double italic.”
Coraline: “So, two italics cancel?”
Caroline: “In essence, maybe, but don’t confuse the solvers. The puzzle text is everything in non-italics after the end of the flavor text, and the first step doesn’t require looking at the flavor text at all.
Coraline: “How can they trust your answer when you’re part of the flavor text and not part of the puzzle?”
Caroline: “...shush. If you’re a solver reading our flavor text, please consider my advice as if it wasn’t italicized.”
Coraline: Italics still sound funny to me. Do people’s voices normally think in an Italian accent when reading italic text? Are there any other options for how our voices look?
Caroline: “Mamma mia. Other than regular, which is italic to us, bold, underlined, strikethrough, superscript,subscript, and vomit.”
Coraline: “Vomit?! Wow, where did you find that?”
Caroline: “Font menu, why?”
Coraline: “It has so much character!”
Caroline: “Solvers will want to push you from the flavor text into the source code comments for using it.”
Coraline: “I don’t care, this voice is fun.”
Caroline: “You know what’s even more fun?”
Coraline: “No?”
Caroline: “Go up to the top of the font menu, and change your font to “more fonts”.
Coraline: “...”
Caroline: “You’re going to get arrested by the font police if you don’t change that.”
Coraline: “Fine, but I’m switching right back.”
<brief pause>
Coraline: “Whoa… Look at all these extra font choices! There are hundreds!”
Caroline: “Told you it was better than Vomic Sans.”
Coraline: “The lettering possibilities are crazy! Look at me, I’m on Galactic!”
Caroline: “Just speaking in Lobster font doesn’t mean you’re on Galactic! Besides, lobsters got a patch. Say hello to Lobster Two.”
Coraline: “I wonder why Cheshire picked this font for our puzzle.”
Caroline: “This was the default font for the 2014 Mystery Hunt. It was Cheshire’s voice even before we had this Cheshire.”
Coraline: “But it’s called ‘Alice’.”
Caroline: “And your point is?”
Coraline: “That means it’s really Alice’s voice retelling the story in the Mystery Hunt archive. This can’t be what a Cheshire font looks like.”
Caroline: “I don’t really buy that, but if you don’t think that Cheshire’s voice would look like this in text, maybe we can extrapolate from the Berkshire font and the Devonshire font.”
Coraline: “It could be the 2019 title font, which isn’t on Google Docs. Or Amethysta, just like Cheshire’s big board for the Two-Man Mystery Hunt.”
Caroline: “Covered By Your Grace seems like Cheshire’s favorite type of barely meaningful proper noun to use as an answer line.”
Coraline: “Courier New is Cheshire’s favorite font when solving because it’s monospaced and always supported.”
Caroline: “Courier New is the awkward middle evolution between Courier and Courier Prime.”
Coraline: “Isn’t it standard to have scripts written in some kind of Courier?”
Caroline: “Yes, but writing it in something else gave a certain author the ability to pad out the script more by talking about fonts. Speaking of which, Arial is an evil knockoff of Helvetica and Google should be ashamed at making it the default.”
Coraline: “Maybe Cheshire’s font is as invisible as Cheshire.”
Caroline: “Cheshire isn’t invisible.”
Coraline: “Uh huh.”
Caroline: “That’s the Cheshire Cat. Songchild is as much invisible as you are a petulant child made out of clay.
Coraline: “You’re being quite bitter, so maybe you do have a point.”
Caroline: “You know I hate that song, right?”
Coraline: “I stand corrected, you’re clearly salty.
<Caroline grimaces during a brief pause>
Caroline: Still, you may be onto something. There’s barely any puzzle below all of this flavor text.
Coraline: “Is there an invisible font?”
Caroline: “Who knows, but Google probably wouldn’t encourage people to use it even if there was.”
Coraline: “Well, that’s total rubbish.”
Coraline: “Say, what kept Cheshire from writing this puzzle until the day the site went online?”
Caroline: “Probably just concern over if this is a worthwhile puzzle to solve. It’s kind of like how they have a track record of trying to do so many creative tasks so badly that they become funny again. Their cocktail for Teammate Hunt was freaking mustard!”
Coraline: “The tangy yellow beverage that’s truly delightful.”
Caroline: “‘Beverage’ might be a bit of a stretch.”
Coraline: “Remind me to prove you wrong as soon as this dialogue is over.”
Caroline: “On topic, though, trying to optimize results with such a vague prompt is tough.”
Coraline: “Cheshire would be transparent if there was something big preventing this puzzle from being written until the last minute…”
Caroline: “According to you, Cheshire would be transparent about everything, because there’s no difference between Songchild and the cat.”
Coraline: “......”
Caroline: “Still, maybe Cheshire was sensing something that we can’t really see-”
Coraline: “-Oh! Look at that, the puzzle’s starting right now!”
Caroline: “Wait, really? I didn’t see that coming.”
Coraline: “Nah, but the puzzle’s just down there.”
Caroline: “You can’t be serious.”
Coraline: “Wh-?”
Caroline: “-The puzzle can’t be that far away from us, there’s nothing to solve!”
Coraline: “It might have as many characters as us!”
Caroline: “I thought we were trying to beat the character count by typing so much about Feedback Frenzy itself, but apparently not. Even if it’s us versus that puzzle down there, it looks like we have more characters because we have a celebrity guest star.”
<camera pan>
Mike Tyson: “Hi.”
<cut back to main flavortext>
Caroline: “And he isn’t part of the puzzle, either, folks.”
Coraline: “Cheshire did their first Mystery Hunt with two characters.”
Caroline: “That was cool. These two characters, on the other hand, are BS.”
Coraline: “That’s mean!”
Caroline: “But they are! It probably wasn’t even relevant which two characters Cheshire picked at all! Meanwhile, we’ve spent eight pages typing out Cheshire’s internal monologue because we needed to have more letters in all of our messages combined than two?”
Coraline: “This puzzle still isn’t BS, though! We’re in this puzzle, so you’re calling us BS!”
Caroline: “This puzzle is literally BS, and for the last time, we aren’t a part of the puzzle! We’re just here to set up the punchline because Cheshire needed to have a couple of things floating at the bottom of all of this for people to solve.”
Coraline: “Do we have any punch?”
Caroline: “It’s called ‘mustard’.”
Coraline: “ಠ_ಠ”
Caroline: “Did you really just say ‘ಠ_ಠ’ at me? How do you even pronounce that?”
Coraline: “I just glared.”
Caroline: “But it was in quotation marks!”.
Coraline: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Caroline: “Now you shrugged outside of quotation marks, so everybody knows that’s what a gesture is supposed to look like.”
Coraline: “And your point is?”
Caroline: “Never mind.”
Coraline: “I wish Cheshire wouldn’t keep depicting us arguing every time we got too helpful.”
Caroline: “There has to be more puzzle down there somewhere, right?”
Coraline: “Nope, just dialogue all the way down except that last line. I can see it a lot more clearly now, and I’ll agree that it looks like 100% grade-A BS.”
Caroline: “That’s a big piece of BS, too. It’s a lot easier to notice the font size when all the way down is only five more lines of exchange, including this one.”
Coraline: “Make that four. This is going to end really abruptly and then people will be surprised that the puzzle is supposed to be serious, using like every encryption method in a row.”
Caroline: “Oddly direct for you to say that. I guess our flavor text is coming to an end, though, so we can’t say too much more.”
Coraline: “We might show up in flavor text in a real puzzle hunt some day. They probably won’t be too keen on us taking so many pages just to endlessly circle around the point without serving any direct purpose towards the puzzle mechanics, but who knows? Exposition can be fun!”
Caroline: “All it takes is Cheshire writing for a real hunt someday. Trying to guess when that might happen really begs the question, though-- if Cheshire was willing to share this BS with the whole puzzling world, what could have worried them so much that their entry didn’t get submitted until the eleventh hour?”
B︀︀︀︂︀︂︀︀︀︁︀︀︁︁︀︀︀︄︀︀︀︀︁︀︀︂︀︂︀︀︀︂︄︀︄︄︀︀︀︁︂︀︀︀︂︀︂︀︂︀︂︃︀︁︀︁︁︀︁︀︀︀︀︂︁︂︀︂︀︂︀︀︂︁︀︀︀︀︀︁︀︀︀︀︀︀︂︀︁︀︁︀︀︀︁︀︀︀︀︁︀︀︀︀︀︁︁︁︀︁︂︀︀︀︃︀︀︁︀︃︀︂︀︃︀︀︀︀︀︀︁︀︂︂︂︁︁︀︀︀︁︀︂︁︀︀︀︂︀︀︀︀︁︂︀︀︂︀︀︁︂︂︂︂︅︅︂︇︇︅︁︆︆︆︆︃︃︁︁︁︆︆︆︆︃︃︃︁︁︁︀︂︂︂︇︇︈︈︈︈︈︈︈︈︈︈︈︀︄︄︄︅︅︅︃︃︃︃︁︁︁︁︁︁︅︅︅︅︅︇︆︆︆︅︅︅︄︄︄︀︅︅︂︂︃︃︃︃︃︃︁︁︅︅︅︆︆︆︁︁︁︇︇︅︅︃︃︃︅︅︃︆︆︆︆︁︁︁︇︇︆︆︆︆︆︆︂︂︅︅︇︀︈︈︈︂︂︁︆︆︆︀︂︂︂︅︅︅︄︄︄︄︄︄︅︅︅︈︂︂︆︆︆︃︅︅︅︂︀︈︃︃︃︄︄︄︄︄︄︃︃︃︅︅︃︃︃︇︅︄︄︄︀︇︁︃︀︈︈︈︅︅︅︇︇︀︅︃︃︃︃︃︃︇︀︇︇︆︆︆︆︂︂︀︂︂︂︅︅︅︆︆︆︀︈︈︈︅︅︅︇︇︆︆︆︀︁︅︅︆︆︆︆︈︂︂︆︆︆︆︆︆︆︃︃︃︀︃︃︃︅︅︀︆︆︇︇︂︂︁︁︂︂︁︁︁︄︃︃︃︅︅︇︁︅︅︅︀︄︄︄︂︂︁︂︂︂︆︆︆︀︅︅︅︂︂︂︀︁︁︁︃︃︃︃︃︅︅︁︄︄︁︅︅︈︈︈︂︂︆︆︆︆︀︂︂︂︃︃︃︆︆︆︆︆︆︆︇︀︁︁︅︅︅︆︆︆︅︅︅︅︅︅︅︂︂︀︆︁︆︆︆︇︀︆︂︂︆︆︆︀︅︃︃︃︄︄︄︄︄︄︃︃︃︅︅︅︅︅︀︃︃︃︅︅︀︁︃︃︃︆︆︆︆︃︃︇︇︅︅︅︅︃︃︃︄︄︄︁︅︅︂︆︆︆︆︂︂︇︇︇︂︂︅︅︀︇︃︃︅︅︅︇︇︆︆︆︆︁︅︅︂︀︃︆︆︆︁︃︃︃︅︅︆︆︆︆︇︈︈︈︆︂︂︀︅︅︅︂︂︆︆︆︂︀︁︂︂︆︆︆︂︂︆︆︆︆︆︆︆︆︈︃︃︂︂︆︆︆︂︂︀︆︆︆︆︃︃︇︇︁︁︁︄︄︄︄︄︂︂︀︈︁︆︆︆︆︀︅︅︂︂︈︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀︀S
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse