The Witch's Epigraph, Chapter Two: The Helix and the Rose

[WitchOfSecrets]

Inspired by When the Seagulls Cry (Umineko no Naku Koro ni)

The difficulty of this chapter is Reasonably Solvable. Would you care to guess?

The story so far...

In 2011, eight members of an exclusive riddle club competed for a great prize. However, misfortune after misfortune struck the group: allegations of cheating were made, an earthquake and a storm struck, a valuable ring was stolen, and a trusted servant came to an untimely end. To complicate matters, the events of that night have been cloaked in a mantle of silence, leaving behind only mysteries and a set of typed pages of uncertain accuracy.

Ten years later, in 2021, a boy met with an enigmatic Witch to try to discover the truth of that night. At this gathering, he and a group of humans fought a series of duels to dispel the Witch's illusions. However, when the first duel ended, the boy unexpectedly defected to the Witch's side, leaving the players seemingly alone to face the bizarre mystery.

A Note for New Players:

I'm trying to keep this game relatively open for new players, so the first several puzzles can be solved without even glancing at the earlier threads. Later, I will generally link to prior posts in some form when they’re necessary to solve a puzzle. That said, the new thread will include spoilers for the earlier ones.

If you don't want to fish through all the earlier posts, here are a few tips:

* The narration is not literally reliable. Some scenes are exaggerations, and others are metaphorical. However, statements in red are true.

* There are two layers to this story, at the very least. We are reading sheets of paper describing supposed events of 2011. We are also attending a Witch's Banquet devoted to grappling with the mysteries raised by those sheets of paper.

Synopsis/Key Post Index:

The index/synopsis below might help you catch up with the plot. Since you probably don't want to go fishing through 26 pages on two threads, here are links to all of the posts with major plot/character details. All character intros include a puzzle.

Prologue:

page__view__findpost__p__312523

page__view__findpost__p__313047

page__view__findpost__p__313189

Chapter One:

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page__view__findpost__p__313525

page__view__findpost__p__313684

page__view__findpost__p__313797

page__view__findpost__p__313905

page__view__findpost__p__314036

page__view__findpost__p__314074

page__view__findpost__p__314104

page__view__findpost__p__314188

page__view__findpost__p__314283

page__view__findpost__p__314333

page__view__findpost__p__314369

page__view__findpost__p__314380

page__view__findpost__p__314391

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[Potok]

Oh, gods, another edit

Jupiter is the roman god of thunder ..

[Morningstar]

That seems right, Potok. However,

There is a kind of road called a "ring road" which runs all the way around the edge of a city. It probably refers to that, not roundabouts.

[Aziraphael]

Potok, in answer to your confusion over the last connection:

Darkness is as you say probably a reference to it being furthest from the Sun, Pluto was also the ninth planet in the solar system, except it's no longer classed a planet....

But yes, well done to your friend there! I'd only got as far as:

Mercury being the difference.

Edited May 16, 2012 by Aziraphael

[Aziraphael]

Cant edit the prev post, so here is an add-on:

The tilt of the planet Uranus's poles is the correct connection, i'm pretty sure. Saturn is a model of one of GM's cars. Pluto and darkness not connected yet, altho it is revealed in the next line of the riddle, but darkness may be related to it having the biggest distance from the sun among all the planets.

See above post, sorry. bodged the 'quote' function :/

[Potok]

I apologise for all the spam / putting 1 post into 3. As for morningstar, that explanation was covered in the 2nd post and is in my opinion better than the one from the 1st/yours.

[Molly Mae]

Five I've found

And three I've placed

Six I seek

Time not to waste.

Edited May 16, 2012 by Molly Mae

[Yoruichi-san]

Nice job, Potok, and nice misdirection on the part of WoS. I'll have to be suspicious from now on...

Oh, and it's xin not shin...I should know, I've been writing it on homework/forms since I could write ;P.

Looking forward to the next selection!

Edited May 17, 2012 by Yoruichi-san

[Potok]

Molly Mae is that a riddle ? For everyone ?

[Time Out]

Is there any significance to the pictures. The one with the numbers intrigues me. Is that a letter F in there.

[fabpig]

Is there any significance to the pictures. The one with the numbers intrigues me. Is that a letter F in there.

I'd spotted that, too. Looking at it again, it looks like it might be ASCII

Edit............Yeh, tis......it sez "Witch of ciphers" . Oh wel.....

Edited May 17, 2012 by fabpig

[Potok]

We need to figgure out which symbol belongs to which witch ? Molly already knows about 5 of them, 3 of which are "placed"?, and we're looking for the remaining 6 ?

[WitchOfSecrets]

(Fantastic going! I'll be updating this weekend, or possibly earlier!)

Edited May 18, 2012 by WitchOfSecrets

[Potok]

Ha, good one there Molly Mae

let's for sake of explanation start with the 3 "placed" Sapphire - Doubt, Opal - Promises (boy from part1,2021), Crimson - Secrets we add 2 to get the 5 "found", Ruby and Ochre, we know of their existence, now we need 6 more to reach 11, the amount of symbols on the 1st page of this topic

[Morningstar]

Ha, good one there Molly Mae

let's for sake of explanation start with the 3 "placed" Sapphire - Doubt, Opal - Promises (boy from part1,2021), Crimson - Secrets we add 2 to get the 5 "found", Ruby and Ochre, we know of their existence, now we need 6 more to reach 11, the amount of symbols on the 1st page of this topic

The Crimson Apprentice is the Witch of Hope, not Secrets. The Witch of Secrets' symbol is pretty much confirmed by WoS's avatar, and the symbol with ASCII spells out Witch of Ciphers. I think that's the five.

For convenience, how about we refer to the witches' symbols by numbering them clockwise from the top.

[Potok]

May i direct you to the ending credits of the 1st story, morningstar ?

[spoiler=an apprentice is no witch, huh ]Annabel, the Sapphire Witch, Witch of Doubt Thalassa, the Crimson Witch, Witch of Secrets ????????, the Opal Sorcerer, Witch of Promises

the one of ciphres was decoded kinda early, even before the post from Molly Mae

i wish the text in spoilers could be formatted a bit better i'm editing and inserting several spaces to have it look better

fml even that didnt work

Edited May 18, 2012 by Potok

[Molly Mae]

I tried to label it so others can understand, but it isn't exactly straightforward (I moved a lot of stuff around to make it clearer).

We still need 3 names and two colours.

If you found something that I've missed, feel free to add it.

[Molly Mae]

Adding Potok's info from above...

Thalassa == the Crimson Witch == Witch of Secrets

???????? == the Opal Sorcerer == Witch of Promises

Those could be our last two colours.... and probably is.

An obvious observation, then, is that Shin was the Apprentice who became the Opal Sorcerer. What happens to Esper?

EDIT: Actually...it could be asked "What happens to the Opal Sorcerer if such a one exists?"

EDIT2: It's hard to follow the tenses of the verbs while not knowing an exact timeline. =P

Edited May 18, 2012 by Molly Mae

[flamebirde]

Can witches die...?

[Molly Mae]

Can witches die...?

I actually considered that (see my edits for the second post [#43] above).

[flamebirde]

oops, sorry. didn't see the edit.

[Molly Mae]

oops, sorry. didn't see the edit.

No worries, it's great that we're thinking of the same possibilities.

[Morningstar]

May i direct you to the ending credits of the 1st story, morningstar ?

[spoiler=an apprentice is no witch, huh ]Annabel, the Sapphire Witch, Witch of Doubt Thalassa, the Crimson Witch, Witch of Secrets ????????, the Opal Sorcerer, Witch of Promises

the one of ciphres was decoded kinda early, even before the post from Molly Mae

i wish the text in spoilers could be formatted a bit better i'm editing and inserting several spaces to have it look better

fml even that didnt work

look at the bottom of the first page. It says "ESPER, the Crimson Apprentice, Witch of Hope. (It's the one with the feather.)

[Molly Mae]

look at the bottom of the first page. It says "ESPER, the Crimson Apprentice, Witch of Hope. (It's the one with the feather.)

We're obviously dealing with two different times. In one, both are apprentices. In the other, Shin has become the Opal Sorcerer. Esper hasn't yet become the Crimson Witch. The general conclusion is one of the following:

1. The Opal Sorcerer who preceded Shin died, allowing him to become the full Sorcerer (this is based on the assumption that Shin is the Opal Sorcerer/Witch of Promises that Potok linked to).

2. Thalassa, who is alive in both the present and the future, has not died. Esper remains the Crimson Apprentice until Thalassa dies (or perhaps relinquishes the position--I don't know Witch's politics in their entirety--I'm just taking a crash course.)

3. Both of the above.

If both of the above are correct, our two missing colours in the WHEEL are Crimson and Opal (for the full-fledged Witch and Sorcerer in the present). Crimson could immediately be applied to Thalassa and another would be placed.

[fabpig]

i wish the text in spoilers could be formatted a bit better i'm editing and inserting several spaces to have it look better

fml even that didnt work

Have you tried the 'code' format? Originally intended (I think) for computer code so that you could keep the relevant indents, it has a fixed width font

And it looks like this.

Notice the 'i' and 'm' are the same width as the other characters.

Edit - Oh, and you can select More Reply Options, in the bottom right, then Preview Post before finalising.

Edited May 19, 2012 by fabpig

[Aaryan]

Wait, can someone explain what we're doing now?

I'm not following what's going on here.

Edited May 19, 2012 by Aaryan