The Watcher ARG

## What happened

Prime mysteriously goes missing, and the Grape Clones start to freak out after she doesn't return for 2 entire weeks. After this 2 week time period, something weird happens to the Tangerine account in the DK Crew Server. The profile picture changes to a completely black screen, the role name changes from tootie fruitie to 64 and the role color is changed to black.

The account then posts a message in base64, and when decoded translates to this:

"Foreign I may be, but my message must be sent

...

One that rose from the grave and lived again

...

Under the grip of a soul that has stolen countless vessels

...

Ruthless it will become, as was foretold in hazy dream

...

Soon it will come, it cannot be stopped

...

But this beast from within is not as it seems

...

Eventually it will show it's true face, and the one it worships

...

Doomed we all are when the eye is unchained from the void"

This image is sent soon afterwards, along with another base64 message. It shows the Soul of Light with a hangman's game below it, six spaces and the message: "Let's play"

Hangman's Game

"The holy light

...

It is the only way to unveal the truth

..."

Once the image had been brightened, another image is posted, and part of the base64 code showed the letter "a"

Clue for Hangmanfinal hangman imagePeople started guessing letters, until they eventually spell out the word BARREL.

Then after this part of the puzzle is solved, the account posts another message:

"there is another clue to assist you on your quest

hidden in my words is a code t
o the answers you seek

search carefully and you shall find them"

This is hinting at the very first base64 decoded message, where when you take out the first letter of each line, it spells out FOURSBED. On the server itself, there is a key leading to the underground lab that's inside of the Clubhouse. In that lab there is a book, which mentions a mysterious concoction known as the Elixir of Clairvoyance that she used to try to find some answers about Primes disappearance. Shel writes down what she witnessed after taking it, but the words are scrambled by the crazy ass moving text. However, once this text is unscrambled, the log looks like this:

===== LOG 3 =====

the results were... strange to say the least. the fInal elixir was much more similar to The failed ones than i intially would Have thought. there were a few crucial differences however. one of which wAs the floating, that was different.. and the blinding light that happened after 10 Seconds... i'm beating around the bush aren't i? look the reAson I don't wish to talk about this is that i saw something that i shouldn’t have. theRe was darkness all aRound me after the blinding light. i felt like i couldn’t breathe, like i was drowning In an endless black sea. it hurt so much, that I could barely eVen focus. but i felt like someone or something was there… watching mE suffer. every second i could feel it Drawing closer

The capitalized letters within this log spell out IT HAS ARRIVED and when discovered yet another image was sent. It depicted 13 eyes, with the message "another word for decay" below it.

brightened version of the ROT13 puzzlethe brightened image of the accounts profile picture.Once this image is sent, ???’s status changes to “Who am I?” This is a clue about the file name of the image, which is in rot13. When decoded, a message is revealed, “I AM VESTA”. This is also when the profile image of the account is brightened to reveal Vesta's face.

A message from the account is then sent:

"you have discovered my name and my face, you move closer to the truth.

there is another barrel, that possess the keys to see something more to this puzzle

it lies outside the pond, but doesn't stray too far"

Outside of the pond, in the mailbox for the Grape's now contains a map, a compass and a sword that will lead to a graveyard with 13 gravestones in them. (-2425 71 2276.584). The compass and the maps purposes are self explanatory, but the sword must be slotted into the biggest gravestone and turned to open a hole in the floor. Inside of the grave contained 8 different books with one word inside of them each.

wooden

falling

Yearn

identity

0

Jail

You

decrypt

The grave also contained a book called "Book of the Void", which contains the following message:

"In the spire of darkness, the unholy eye of madness carves out its own vessel. This creature who's hunger for attention grows more desperate takes more of the world with it to satisfy its own appetite. I fear that even the purest of souls aren't safe anymore...

...they are watching me ... I cannot stay here ...

I can't speak here. I'm sorry, I must go ... far away from this realm. Somewhere primitive, some place old. The land of stolen words, a place of many voices but none are ever heard. Copy and Paste. A site of a million lines. A container for them all. Meet me there."

The beginning of each letter spells out a pastebin link when the books are arranged correctly by their numbers (https://pastebin.com/wfYiJ0Yd). A message encoded in a caesar cipher (key is 13) appeared in the ABOUT ME section of Tangerines profile. When translated, this is what it said:

"eight phases.

once in brilliance, now in darkness.

hides its face away from the world but still watches over.

appeared once before your eyes.

who am I?"

When NEWMOON is typed into the locked pastebin password box, it reveals this next clue:

"This time it wasn't her fault

...

The soul's condition worsens as the beast grows stronger.

...

I can sense that The Darkness grows more frustrated as each day passes.

...

Even she cannot stop it, in spite of it being of her own creation.

...

The Soul of Pure Light cannot be harmed.

...

It is impossible... or so it was told.

...

My vessel must continue to form.

...

Please be patient with me, o cursed vitis primus.

...

deraps eb lliw uoy"

About a day after the pastebin was cracked another message from the account is sent out:

"Material from this vessel has fallen into the world without end.

10 parts scattered across the world, they must be located.

When found, they must be placed within the core in the center of your little town.

This first one is simple.

Lying between the holy sun and the skull of the blessed, within its mind it resides."

This is a clue that the 1st shell fragment is in the skull of the Gykallis statue. The 2nd is an image of the Garden of Light that is heavily distorted. it also came with another message:

"Do you remember?

The witch's garden?

The soil full of magic twisting plants into weapons of destruction.

He is ashamed of it.

Land full of regret, land of new beginnings."

Distorted Garden of LightVesta sends out yet another message which basically just tells the players to get the fuck onto the server:

"the fool has seen her last and final vision.

you will see her there.

what will you say, after all she's done?"

The 3rd is found with Shel, where she goes to the center of Gykallis's island battle arena. She's pretty fucked up from all the glimpses of the future thing, and she is very much not sane. Pretty simple stuff.

The 4th clue is in the form of a video (https://youtu.be/azk-8t4ekJM) that has Morse code laid on top of it. When translated, it gives a set of coordinates to the Fountain of Souls, where the 4th piece is.

The 5th fragment clue is actually an Instagram post which is linked here: (https://www.instagram.com/p/Ca-nr7xPE4A/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=). The caption translates to the following:

"towers above the rest

adorned with scarlet berries of mystery

ancient wall of runes, purpose lost long ago

unspeakable horrors lay beneath the surface

...where am I?"

Basically it tells the reader to go to the Forgotten Meadow for the 5th piece

The 6th clue is just another simple message, nothing fancy this time around its pretty clear that the piece is just at the old ass statues in that one mountain.

"ancient statues of a battle long forgotten.

only now being uncovered once again

the answer lies with S.H.I.T"

There was no 7th clue because someone accidently found the fragment, whoops.

The 8th clue is kinda weird and is as follows:

`W H E R E  ?`

Sagittarius

Microscopium Scorpius

Corona Australis

?????

Indus Ara

Pavo

An image of Aukallus with the Telescopium constellation behind them.The message is actually a map of constellations and the missing constellation is Telescopium, which is a hint to go to the telescope at the Apothecary to find the 8th fragment.
The 9th clue is the 1st image posted in the gallery, when the runes are translated, it becomes this:

The 9th ClueThe 9th Clue (brightened)Alphabet for dumbiesthe official alphabet I made"OUTSIDE THE LABS LAND DEFORMED FROM PARANOIA LAYS THE NINTH PIECE" Obviously, this leads to the outside of Slimey's lab.
The 10th clue is an unholy combination of all the stuff they learned in the past nine clues. It starts with an image which has strange dimensions. In the image is a picture of vesta, and another hangman game, but this time its numbers instead of letters.

uncompleted imagecompleted imageThe numbers it spells out is the z axis of the coordinates of some place, and the length and width of the image are the x and y coordinates respectively.

When the player teleports to the location, they will be in a room that has a chest full of paper, an anvil, and a locked door that can have paper put inside it. On the @phantom\_grape instagram page, there are some posts with random letters in the captions. When these letters are put together they spell out “RETURN” which is the password to the door. In the next room there will be a ton of paintings and you can go through some of them, however only one will lead to the next proper place. When that is found. There will be a chest containing a compass that points towards the last and final shell piece, which leads back to the Grape Clubhouse.

When all of the shell fragments are fused together, they form an item called The Divine Egg. Slimey and Shel take this egg to The Gate, Shel tosses it down, and in her delirium, also throws herself down the hole as well. A few moments later, Clementine (aka Vesta but with a body) comes out of The Gate with Shel's body in her arms. She explains that she once fell into a pit much like this, and that she hasn't forgotten about Rai trying to save her.

She brings Slimey and Jack to her room that Shel built for her, dips tf out and boom, Prime is back but in REAL bad shape. Prime freaks the hell out because for the entire time she had been missing, she had been tortured endlessly by an entity known as the Watcher and recounts some of the things it did to her. She is then told to go back to bed by Slimey. Clementine briefly comes back, name drops The Watcher and then retreats back to her egg. Shel then wakes up on the floor, and explains the entire plot line through her perspective.

It starts off with Prime going missing and Shel making the Elixir of Clairvoyance, and seeing the first vision. She describes feeling The Watchers presence, and feeling like she was Prime in these visions, but also not quite like her. Then in subsequent visions, Vesta started to reach out to her, and from there they would communicate. Then Shel mentions that Vesta wanted to help get Prime out of her whole kidnapping situation, and the two of them worked together to make that happen by getting Vesta a vessel.

Shel also notes that Au'ora is frustrated about this entity because it seems to be specifically targeting The Soul of Pure Light, aka Prime's soul. SO after that Shel goes over to Prime's bed, dresses the infected patches of skin with some bandages and gives her an eyepatch for her fucked up eye. Slimey also takes a skin sample from her hand, which kinda just flakes off. Also Slimey observes that Prime's infection is grey, much like a plant, which is the first time Shel is like oh shit we are DEFINITELY plant based. Slimey and Jack both dip, and the ARG concludes.