My friend and I both got decks, but he got his faster, so I will have to
content myself with images until mine arrives, much has he has had to do with
the postcards, so all's fair I guess. Harumph.
The cards at first glance are a standard deck, 52 in all, the 4 standard
suits. The back of each is the same (no 'marked' cards here!), with a border
of roman numerals that we expect to be a simple A=01 (or I) substitution, but
we don't dive in just yet. The face cards are all highly decorated, many with
what look to be a variety of ciphers. I see runes, pictograms, cards suits,
pigpen, and probably a variety of others that I'm missing at first glance.
There are also 10 number cards with calligraphic letters in their centers, but
they are not the only ones referenced on the face cards.
The cards are prefaced with a spare card, a note from someone who has been
watching our puzzling progress - so glad someone is reading this
blog! Her name is
Lisa Drygg, and she
is purportedly the Director of Operations for Infiniti Institutes, and based
out of Seattle. We get the institute's address from the email she gives us to
contact her assistant, Cori Tanem, who is listed as the Inter-Organization
Operative, based in Austin TX. I look closely at the names and locations -
this is Ouroboros! The locations of each of their operatives matches those of
the agents of Ouroboros in the Wish You Were Here universe. Hats off to Enigma
Emporium for building a great world.
We decide that the back is probably the place to start - I have my companion
read me the roman numerals while I swap them for A=01. We luckily started at
the correct corner:
If these cards g(h)ave come to you then we are quite sure you know what
to do.
Hmmmm, some clearer instructions might have been helpful! However, I think I
recognize the world image from a place on the Infiniti Institutes website - a
'where we work' type of page. I start to poke around the
Europe page, and get
distracted by the Crossword Codenames section, which doesn't seem to be all
English letters...
A digression for another time, as my companion notices that the King cards are
all in Pigpen (also known as Freemason or Napoleonic), and have at their heart
a key to decoding Pigpen if needed.
I stick a pin in that, as I'm back on the website poking around. There's a
reference to a deck of cards...
The deck of cards you currently hold is truly a wondrous curio. We
believe that it was used previously for intra-organization communication
of some variety, but have yet to decipher the nuance of who, where, or
when. That task is yours.
The first clue we must unravel is who was the first to receive this artifact.
To the Kings!!
Given the pattern on the back of the cards, we expect that we will have to
start with the hearts, then clubs, diamonds, and spades. However, the King of
hearts doesn't have Pigpen around his border, instead there is interwoven
language in red and black. I start with black:
Black: My Dear Queen It Is A Pleasure to know you.
Red: Our love is poetry like Venus and Adonis
We had thought to stop there, and go play ESO, but no, the patch remained
broken, Greymoor far from us, so my puzzling partner took up the mantle of
transcribing the Pigpen, starting with the King of Diamonds, and I looked
around for a suitable passtime. I found the Queen of Clubs... She has around
her several sets of what appear to be gibberish, but to me looked like they
would make sense if stacked. So, I made an Excel sheet (any poor reader of
this blog will be anything but surprised:)). Using the pattern on the back of
the cards - hearts, clubs, diamonds, spades, I stacked them accordingly, then
read up and down, left to right.
Once Your Own Fate Is Known, Pass The Cards To John Paul Jones
Who is this John Paul Jones and why am I giving him my cards? Meanwhile, my puzzling partner has determined that it is NOT a standard Pigpen grid, and it is, instead, a dastardly variant. He set immediately to work putting together the composite. Smart! Also, evil on the part of the creators of this deck, whatever mysterious organization they may, or may not, belong to.
And then, finally, ESO was up and Greymoor awaited. Time for more puzzles another day - have to draw them out!
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