#upon investigation alex is either 34 or 35

[chelsgalaxy]

guys I can't stop thinking about van being a dad 😭😭😭

also realized that the interns are probably supposed to be around my age which is both comforting and horrifying at the same time

[humansoulsarg]

Spice Girls Fan Club Snail Mail Solve

In the not so distant past, on a Valentine’s Day, this solve was discovered http://humansoulsarg.tumblr.com/post/157261188208/spice-girls-fan-club-valentines-day-post-solve leading several Pangent Technologies Sister location members to submit their information to Pangent HQ (via tumblr) trusting that this information would be used for good and not evil.

Since then, the concept of Lockers has come up, with 54 lockers available. As of this time, 25 of those lockers have been reserved, again for unknown purposes, but the hope is that good will prevail (despite any player-caused locker management shenanigans which may or may not have occurred)

It was theorized that the first four player lockers reserved were for those who had submitted Spice Girls Fan Club Questionnaires, and this theory was given more credence when This solve dropped: http://humansoulsarg.tumblr.com/post/159513845803/ revealing four locations would soon be receiving media mail.

Also in this solve: http://humansoulsarg.tumblr.com/post/158762278828/, this solve: http://humansoulsarg.tumblr.com/post/158761814153/, this solve: http://humansoulsarg.tumblr.com/post/159475658093/, and this solve: http://humansoulsarg.tumblr.com/post/158764977618/, which confirmed reservations of Lockers, the contents were possibly hinted.

Lo and behold the four packages did arrive, and were quickly documented and investigated by the Pangent Remote Location Crew. A true team effort followed as the contents were catalogued and puzzles solved. This post will attempt to document some of the excitement and joy of this process while providing a recap of the hidden mysteries uncovered in this quest.

Speaking of quests, this is not the first Pangent mailing to multiple recipients leading to intertwined puzzlings, see http://humansoulsarg.tumblr.com/post/150433706803/the-heart-and-the-crown-solve for The Heart and the Crown Solve, a very worthwhile quest to enjoy when you have a few quiet moments.

So the four recipients documented their packages in imgur albums as follows:

Lucario: http://imgur.com/a/6evg8

Randomiser: http://imgur.com/a/Eshx7

timescape: http://imgur.com/a/7rGAf

Renpy: http://imgur.com/a/T7QKE & http://imgur.com/a/L4I4z

Some common themes are found in the packages. Each contains several pages, some Spice Girls related material, Original Stressed Penguin artwork and sketches, the Heart and the Crown pencils and inks, a book (revealed earlier in a facebook post), and some other more cryptic content.

WELCOME TO THE SPICE MOVEMENT!

FIRSTLY MASSIVE THANKS TO ALL THE RESPONSE WE’VE HAD FROM YOU NUTTERS OUT THERE - IT’S GOOD TO KNOW WE’RE NOT ALONE!

WE TAKE IT YOU CAUGHT THE VIBE, LIKE THE SPIRIT OF OUR MUSIC, WHATEVER THE REASON, WE’RE GLAD. ONE WAY OR ANOTHER SPICE GIRLS ARE ON A MISSION AND WE WANT YOU TO CLIMB ABOARD. SPREAD THE POSITIVE FEELING INTO LIFE - FOR GOD’S SAKE, LET’S ENJOY IT!

ANYONE CAN JOIN OUR ADVENTURE. WE’RE ABOUT FEARLESS EXPRESSION, JUST GO FOR IT MAN!!!!

WE ARE VERY PROUD OF OUR RECENT SUCCESS - IT’S A SIGN OF THE TIMES!! IT’S A REFLECTION OF THE PEOPLE’S CHOICE, IT’S SUCH A GOOD FEELING TO KNOW YOU ALL FEEL AND WANT THE SAME AS US.

GIRL POWER!! ENERGY & FUN!!

BUT ON A SERIOUS NOTE THERE IS ALWAYS A METHOD IN OUR MADNESS AND IF YOU CARE TO READ BETWEEN THE LINES, THE MESSAGE IN OUR LYRICS IS STRONG AND PROFOUND. ALL THE SONGS WE HAVE EVER WRITTEN ARE BASED ON OUR LIVES, JUST LIKE YOURS.

FOR FUTURE SPICE INFO AND GOODIES KEEP HOLD OF YOUR SPICE GIRLS ID CARD

“Flash this card for instant Girl Power!”

So, on to the mysteries…

In Lucario’s pages is this gem:

which contains a seemingly straightforward letter from Charlotte to Alex and then some reversed text in green.

The text reads:

leslie check this out. field trip idea? http://tinyurl.com/controltowermilllanenewport

Which was a bit of a mystery until it was discovered that the Spice World bus is on display at this address http://www.island-harbour.co.uk/spice/

On 18 July 2014, The Spice Bus was put on permanent display at Island Harbour Marina. This is THE actual bus used in the Spice Girls’ 1997 film, Spice World

The rest of the backwards text is as follows:

13 arriving 17 thing 23 nest 25 warm 32 swim 31 Antarctic 35 Adélie 39 emperors 43 young 46 relatives 5 birds 3 Scientific 11 ice 13 coast 14 gather 18 finished 26 creché 33 leopard 32 water 23 mate 43 stay 45 sea 17 collecting 28 take 25 chicks 24 eggs 32 cold 28 ready 48 front 35 leaving

This was discovered to be a modified book code using the blue penguin book in Randomiser’s mailing, where finding the word given on the page number listed, counting words from the beginning of the page provides numbers:

33 78 34 62 36 34 70 75 63 70 68 36 78 64 79

These can be interpreted as hex for 3x4b64pucph6xdy which is a mediafire link to http://www.mediafire.com/file/3x4b64pucph6xdy/weirdo.zip

A Pangent themed music video to KT Tunstall’s Weirdo featuring Lottie and Eric having various happy moments around and about the house. A possible slender man is spotted on the bulletin board outside before Lottie is seen posting ‘LOST CAT’ posters requesting help for finding Mayor Sassenheim (okay, so maybe not all of the video is happy moments!)

This song had been previously referenced by Pangent in this post: http://humansoulsarg.tumblr.com/post/159512439613/

Side note from Lucario’s Pokemon book, Scholastic’s address is listed as 555 Broadway, New York, NY 10012. Sounds very Pangent-esque but appears legit.

Next up we have this page of mysterious Pokemon text from Randomiser’s mailing:

These sentences were found in the Pokemon book included in Lucario’s mailing, and by writing down the page numbers each sentence appears on, a new code is found.

119 113 116 99 112 50 105 106 106 49 111 102 ? ? ?

The last three sentences were stumping Lucario in the quest of discovery, but Randomiser was able to use a little bit of Pokemon knowledge along with some brute forcing to determine the last three digits. Of the missing sentences, #1 and #3 may refer to Meowth, #2 to Mr. Mime. Mr. Mime had already been given, so with only 36 possible values (a-z+0-9) another mediafire link was discovered decoding these digits as decimal ASCII.

119 113 116 99 112 50 105 106 106 49 111 102 111 106 111

http://www.mediafire.com/file/wqtcp2ijj1ofojo/flow_nine.zip

Another Pangent music video! This time it is of Lancelot walking around the ‘Flow’ art installation by May Sun in Pasedena California to the musical accompaniment of George Harrison’s Cloud Nine. If this is anything like this previous May Sun art installation video http://humansoulsarg.tumblr.com/post/155323795428/ we will need to decode the walked upon symbols somehow.

Moving on, we now look at the Penguin Land codes from timescape’s mailing:

Using the previously revealed ‘code’ for these symbols from the order in which they appear in the Penguin Land manual, these can be transcribed according to this image:

Code #1 is:

74 69 6e 79 20 75 72 6d 20 6b 61 70 70 61 20 73 75 64 6f 6b 75 20 73 75 6c 20 6f 66 20 6e 75 6c 62 65 72 73 20 6f 6e 20 63 6f 76 65 72 20 69 67 6e 6f 72 65 20 72 65 64 2f 62 6d 75 65 20 62 61 63 6b 67 72 6f 75 6e 64 20 6e 75 6c 62 65 72 73 20 6c 75 6d 74 69 70 6d 79 20 74 69 6c 65 73 20 69 74 73 65 6d 66

Code #2 is:

74 69 6e 79 20 75 72 6d 20 70 6f 6b 65 6c 6f 6e 20 62 61 72 62 6f 20 73 75 6c 20 6f 66 20 70 6f 6b 65 6c 6f 6e 20 6f 6e 20 63 6f 76 65 72 20 6c 75 6d 74 69 70 6d 79 20 74 69 6c 65 73 20 69 74 73 65 6d 66

both of which can be interpreted as ASCII hex values which become:

#1:

tiny urm kappa sudoku sul of nulbers on cover ignore red/bmue background nulbers lumtipmy tiles itsemf

#2:

tiny urm pokelon barbo sul of pokelon on cover lumtipmy tiles itsemf

Hmmm… strange things are afoot in Penguin land, and it was discovered that our trusty decoder ring had the ‘C’ and ’D’ swapped, which ends up swapping ‘l’ and ’m’. So the corrected version is somewhat more readable.

#1:

tiny url kappa sudoku sum of numbers on cover ignore red/blue background numbers multiply times itself

#2:

tiny url pokemon barbo sum of pokemon on cover multiply times itself

These appear to be referring to the Soduku book in Renpy’s mailing and the Pokemon book in Lucario’s mailng.

After some trial and error (and master Pokemon knowledge) the following tinyurls were discovered.

http://tinyurl.com/kappasudoku27556

and

http://tinyurl.com/pokemonbarbo3034564

Both of these tinyurls redirect to imgur albums, the first to images of the May Sun ‘Flow’ installation along with the presentation of several of the books from the mailings that were previously shared on facebook, and the second to a slew of Lancelot pics.

Included in the May Sun images is this one providing a bit of a decoder ring for the 'flow_nine’ video from earlier:

These codes appear to be the first 6 braille characters, so either 1-6 or a-f. A binary grid was discovered in flow_nine, only visible for a frame:

This grid decodes to tinyurl/513 so we’re going with digits instead of letters for the symbols.

Stringing together the digits from Lancelot’s stroll (including a very helpful overlaid fish in the frame when Lancelot manages to all but obscure the symbol in question) a tinyurl is discovered:

http://tinyurl.com/5133221334631536164622644421

Which redirects to another mediafire, this time of tweeter.zip containing yet another Pangent music video. This time George Harrison is joined by the rest of the Traveling Wiburys as they perform Tweeter and the Monkey Man as we are treated to Lancelot graciously allowing himself to be filmed in the yard, the car, and possibly even dangerously close to the Cube!

Next up we have this brick of text from Lucario’s mailing:

It was discovered that each of these sentences could be found in the white Penguin book included in timescape’s mailing. After looking up each page, the string of page numbers is:

11 18 12 14 11 10 12 09 12 16 11 12 08 09 12 15 08 15 12 13 08 14 11 17 11 07 11 11 08 08

But the first page of the book is actually page 6 so 5 is subtracted from each page number, and then the values are converted to hex by making anything over 9 0-F:

6C 79 65 74 7A 67 34 70 30 78 39 6B 62 66 33 -> lyetzg4p0x9kbf3

Another mediafire link:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/lyetzg4p0x9kbf3/fanclub.zip

This link provides a treasure trove of Spice Girls Fan Club material including high quality images of the Spice Girls related Fan Club material we’ve seen in the mailings as well as new images and paper crafts of each Spice Girl in two formats. Girl Power!

This takes us to the next phase of our decoding quest, the Sudoku solutions given in timescape’s mailing:

Boy, you sure said something there, Stressed Penguin, what is this is right!?

After a few days in stumped-ville, some patterns begin to emerge and assumptions made based on the nature of the other puzzles led to finding the page numbers of the puzzles for each of the 45 solutions given. The puzzles were in the Sudoku Book from Renpy’s mailing, and can be given as:

p1: 30 4 40 43 9 42 32 51 53 34 6 41 44 29 8 31 52 2 24 10 48 23 50 55 5 p2: 36 19 18 2 26 8 9 33 4 17 24 13 4 7 5 25 20 6 21 29

The twist is that to get to page numbers, 5 needs to be added to the regular ones, the locos need 60 and the sumoku’s need 75 added. This leads to a page number string of:

35 64 45 48 69 47 37 56 58 39 66 46 49 34 68 36 57 62 29 70 53 28 55 60 80 41 24 23 7 31 13 14 38 9 22 29 73 79 12 10 30 25 11 26 34

Again with the assumptions, we now have 45 numbers and are looking to get to a 15-character mediafire ID so each three numbers were summed to give octal values:

144 164 151 151 151 155 152 143 145 61 65 60 164 65 71

which decodes as: dtiiimjce150t59

Leading to http://www.mediafire.com/file/dtiiimjce150t59/flow_texture.zip

Another George Harrison song put to Pangent video this time showing another walkthrough of the May Sun Flow art installation set to His Name Is Legs (Ladies and Gentlemen).

Decoding the symbols in the same way as before takes us to another tinyrul (not-so tiny as it’s the maximum size of 30 characters) http://tinyurl.com/124446224666146351364331223315

This leads to a filename you may remember from Lottie’s letter to Alex way back in the first of this post:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/itwjolkfxa0cqxx/555_Flash_Interface_Semi_Final_Build.zip

And while words do not come easy to describe this masterpiece, it does seem to provide a pretty good answer from Lottie to Alex RE: the Cube. With hex title 'adelescence’ this is a Grand Finale worthy of Pangent for this Spice Girls Snail Mail Mystery Quest, providing yet another music video. This really needs to be viewed by as many Pangent fans as possible, even though George Harrison is not featured in the soundtrack.

This video has been reposted for ease of viewing here: https://vid.me/OjrR

With that our Pangent themed Spice Girls Fan Club Snail Mail quest is complete, and all we can say is Thank You for your continued efforts, Pangent Technologies!!