Feverish Feeling

**Feverish Feeling** was an Alternate Reality Game (ARG) meant to tease the announcement of Pathologic 2.

## Description

The *Feverish Feeling* Alternate Reality Game (ARG) was run in late 2014. It was created through a set of emails sent by a character called only "Voronika" to interested participants who signed up to be part of the ARG. It involved discovering puzzles and clues as well as hidden videos with secret messages. It began on August 8th 2014 and concluded on September 4th 2014. The Feverish Feeling Alternate Reality Game ultimately led to the Kickstarter page for Pathologic 2.

## Characters

* Voronika
* Unnamed Inquisitor
* A. G (Alex Godoy)
* Yakov Fokin
* Eugene Annikovsky

## Plot

**Many domains used in the Feverish Alternate Reality game are now under new management and are not the same as they were 2014. The Feverish Feeling website can no longer be accessed and the .info domain mentioned in later emails is not the same either.**

The Feverish Feeling ARG was begun through a link to the the feverishfeeling.com domain in the description of a video posted by Ice-Pick Lodge on August 8th 2014.

There was a secret page on feverishfeeling accessed by clicking on the cow-skull of the girl on the left or at feverishfeeling.com/secret/. This page brought up a simple empty text prompt. There was a counter on the Feverish Feeling page, slowly ticking down the seconds until the end.

### First Email

Soon, participants received their **first email**. It read:

### Second Email

On the 11th of August 2014 a **second email** was sent. It read:

The email keys and doors and pointed heavily towards the latin quote within the text that read "*sine me, liber, ibis in urbem*". This phrase is the opening line from the poem Tristia (Sorrows) by the Roman poet Ovid. It was through this that participants discovered that "Tristia" was the access code for the secret page.

On the secret page was nothing but this image:

Many speculated that the picture seemed torn and is therefore incomplete. When participants reverse Google image searched the picture they found nothing, implying that the image was created by Ice-Pick Lodge for the purposes of the ARG. The original image was called First secret photo.jpg when saved.

### Third Email

Some time later participants received a **third email** from Voronika. It read:

In the message was the clue *Saint Petersburg, 7th Line of Vasilievsky Island, 18. July 31, 1998.*. It is speculated that the location was Poehl pharmacy, which was connected with the Griffins' tower, a city legend. This was thought so as "19th century pharmacists supposedly dabbling in alchemy and seeking immortality could tie in neatly with Pathologic's lore.". It is unclear if this was the true conclusion to the mystery.

### Fourth Email

A **fourth email** then arrived. It read:

Though this was unique in that it was involved two participants it was concluded that in the end there was no puzzle in it to solve.

#### Participant Emails

It should be noted that some participants around this time attempted to reply to Voronika's emails through her domain *voronikav@hotmail.com*. Their exchange went as such:

This is where the email thread ends.

### Fifth Email

A **fifth email** arrived. It read:

This email mentions a group of 2 fours. After some sleuthing by participants they discovered the first four is the Beatles as "Liverpool is definitely not a place you want to walk alone and The Beatles wrote two songs, Revolution 1 and Revolution 9." The second group is the four Evangelists: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John who wrote the gospels. Voronika states that her favourite writing is that of John, which connects to the namesake of John Lennon from the Beatles. When participants took into account the 'adding your teeth' clue it became simple to take the number of the revolution (9) and add to the number of teeth in the human body(32). Participants noted that while this seems like a bit of a stretch, Voronika did include a self check in the title and 9/32 did indeed equal 0.28125.

9:32 can be taken as a book code (page, line) or, as some speculated a bible verse. Given that Voronika already mentioned John's writing as her favorite, it seemed likely that the five word phrase they needed was in John 9:32. This was supported by her p.p.s which states all of Voronika's readings are of originals which is important information when referring to a bible verse or book code.

Through this participants were able to discover that John 9:32 in the Greek version of the new testament when split exactly as Voronika described it gives the following two titles: ἐκτοῦαἰῶνος and τυφλοῦγεγεννημένου. Searching these phrases on Youtube leads to the following two videos:

The text and audio in the first video translates to:

*"[The building Motormouth is standing in front of is the Department of Public Health City Hospital No.4: Infectious Unit]*

*"The cause of this unusual outbreak remains a mystery. Although they still haven’t given us an official comment, the medics are sure it isn’t ebola fever. We were able to have a talk with one of the doctors on duty."*

*[The insert identifies this guy as Yakov Fokin, doctor on duty.]*

*"It’s obvious that this infection is transmitted via airbone droplets and is extremely virulent, i.e. contagious. With that in mind, it is not recommended to leave your homes, even covering your face with a gauze mask.""*

The text and audio in the second video translates to:

*"[The building Motormouth is standing in front of is the Department of Public Health City Hospital No.4: Infectious Unit]*

*"Nothing is known at the moment. A official announcement has not yet been issued. Let’s try and get some comments. Let’s go."*

*"Excuse me, please wait - !"*

*"Working! Don’t bother us!""*

### Sixth Email

Following this discovery a **sixth email** was received. It reads:

#### Hopscotch Enthusiasts

The group mentioned by AG is a Facebook group called HopscotchEnthusiasts. AG stands for Alex Godoy. The following images detail the sordid history of the group found in their Facebook page:

* The Internal Memo PDF linked in the previous image
* An enlarged image of the document from the previous image

**Note**: As images were collected in April of 2020 it is possible that some information has since been removed or is otherwise inaccurate to the original format during the Alternate Reality Game's run in 2014. Several accounts have been deactivated since the Alternate Reality Game, deleting their activity in the group: *Alex Godoy*, *Nata Zaltseva*, and *Walter Kopacz*.

### Seventh Email

A **seventh email** email is received. It reads:

The P.P.S. contains information about the sender of a package, one "Miraculous". When "Miraculous" as well as the date and location from Voronika's earlier Vasilyevsky Island e-mail are put into the delivery tracker website linked on Hopscotch's Facebook page it linked to a PDF. According to participants the report appears to make it seem that the boy from Vasilyevsky Island that Voronika originally described in the third email and that A.G referenced later is the courier from the report: Eugene Annikovsky.

#### Courier PDF

* The PDF in its original form can be found

The Courier PDF reads:

### Eigth Email

An **eighth email** is received. It reads:

### Ninth Email

Then, later, a **ninth email** is received. It reads:

Here Voronika is revealing her motivations. She is trying to get the attention of her father who, as is revealed both later and in Pathologic 2, is an Inquisitor. She wants to be saved.

Following this email she also leaves a note:

The note is a pictograph representation of a youtube URL. It translates as cq7QWu1bJfU which leads to this video that features the same hospital as earlier videos:

Shortly after the video starts an audio track begins with a message encoded in Morse code. The message reads *742138760NEXTBUTONESQUAREDINFO*. When each digit is squared it leads to the domain 494949.info. It is unclear if the domain that currently exists is the same one the participants of the ARG saw. According to participants the .info website pops up a simple login prompt when accessed.

"Need login details for 494949.info."

### Tenth Email

The counter on the Feverish Feeling website reads with only 24 hours left. The **tenth email** is the last one from Voronika. It reads:

Voronika now seems assured of her death. She blames herself and she blames her father. Participants of the ARG discover that the clue is once again in the title: "Clamavi ad te Domine" is from Psalm 130 called "De Profundis" (in Latin meaning "From the depths"). "De Profundis" serves as another password to the long ignored secret page participants used to uncover the first clue in her earlier email when Voronika first spoke of doors and keys. The result is the following image:

The image of the plane has the latin word "Gaudium" (joy) mirrored and imposed over the hedges to the left edge of the photo. This ends up being the password to the .info website from the image attached in her *ninth email*. The username and password turn out to be:

Login: veronicavira

password: gaudium

### Final Letter

Within the website is this note:

The note is presumably from Voronika's father. It is written in Russian and translates to:

"*Veronica,*

*I won't ask for forgiveness. For what I've done forgiveness is not asked. The virus of death is in every human, but it sleeps almost all our life long. And it has woken up in you just because you are special. You know it's true.*

*Everything will end soon. We ("We" is crossed out)* I *have the panacea. I don't know who and what you are. I do, though. You are my happiness and I always love you."*

### Conclusion

The Feverish Feeling Alternate Reality Game ultimately links participants to the Kickstarter page for Pathologic 2.

## Notes

* The Feverish Feeling ARG has been archived on the Pathologic Reddit

## References

1. ↑ https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1535515364/pathologic
2. ↑ http://forum.ice-pick.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=14430#p133190
3. ↑ http://forum.ice-pick.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=14430#p133186
4. ↑ https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1535515364/pathologic
5. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/pathologic/comments/2d8gj8/are\_you\_feeling\_feverish\_pathologic\_remake\_arg/