Memory Fragments

## Realistic Letter

An email from a throw-away address was sent to Scots with the subject line "Realistic Letter"

"Don't remember this place in seclusion. 6 4 5 -> 12.3 F?????H???A?.???"

If we take this and break it into pieces:

* Don't remember = Forget
* this place = Here
* in seclusion = Alone

Fitting this into the given format we get the website forgethereal.one

## Memory Fragment 1

The first fragment was waiting to be solved when we found the site.

The initial state of Fragment 1This version with everything assembled
#### Solution

Each box on the left hand side corresponds to one of the "rune" shapes in the center. To determine which rune corresponds to box you connect the letters in each box alphabetically and the pattern will match that of a rune.

For example, Box 5 has the letters "A-B-E-E-H-L-R-U-Y" and the pattern through the letters corresponds to the 3rd rune.

An example of how to determine the rune for a given boxDoing this for each box of letters gives the following assignments:

* Box 1 = Rune 1
* Box 2 = Rune 2
* Box 3 = Rune 6
* Box 4 = Rune 4
* Box 5 = Rune 3
* Box 6 = Rune 8
* Box 7 = Rune 5
* Box 8 = Rune 7
* Box 9 = Rune 9

We then arrange the boxes of letter in the corresponding place to their runes and do a little magic.

The lines and columns of letters after placing them in the correct positionsThe "X" in the bottom-right matches the one in the image, and the last row and column contain the letters A-H. The image also mentions sorting, which results in:That would have been a nice place to end, but apparently it's not right yet. You can almost see words like "FORGET", "TRUTH", and "CYCLE", and with some brute-force rearranging you get:The final phrase we get from this is:

> **"The truth in a flask, bound for a cycle alone. Here lies the secrets that I forget."**
>
>

## Memory Fragment 2

The next fragment followed not too long afterwards:

The initial image was a scattering of letters in both black and white, in 2x2 pieces.After rearranging the pieces to form meaningful sentences.
#### Solution

> Much simpler than Fragment 1, this simply required the arrangement of the letters into meaningful words. This revealed that the black tiles showed the symbol for the Watcher and the message:
>
>

> **"There once was a great vessel that traveled amongst the stars seeking unseen"**
>
>

## Memory Fragment 3

We were initially provided with the following image, a scattering of letters in groups of 3. We then noticed that if you arrange all the pieces in alphabetical order it creates the shapes of numbers (1, 2 and 3) specifically. Using this as inspiration we arrange the letter pieces such that the first columns of each set of 3 would spell out the first Fragments solution, the second column the second Fragment solution thus leaving the third column to spell out the new Fragment 3 Solution.

The original hint given for Fragment 3Arranging the letter groupings in alphabetical orderThe solution for Fragment 3The third fragment was shown to be

> **"It hailed from a world of alchemists who had brought forth their final demise."**
>
>

## Memory Fragment 4

Again, the fourth fragment gave us a scattering of letters, in pieces of varying shapes. These shapes could be fitted into an 8x8 grid as shown below.

The original scattering of letters for Fragment 4The fitted grid of all the letter piecesThe fitted grid would have vigenere encoded cipher text when read from left to right. The solution would be to sequentially decode the ciphertext using each of the previous Fragments as the key from 1 to 3 to reveal the fully decoded Fragment 4.

> **"The Shatter, a place the pass between reality, send through on of the fragments."**
>
>

## Memory Fragment 5

The website updated for Fragment 5 but had no puzzle shown, only the address to submit the solution to as usual, so to test it we sent the previous fragment again and received a response of "2". We made the assumption that this was telling us how many correct letters were present in the answer we submitted, so we began to send messages in an attempt to narrow down what letters were where in the solution. After finding out how many of each letter was in the answer we got a different response "16 attempts remain until response type shifts" and on our 17th guess we began to receive a large number alongside our guesses:

> XXLLLLLLLLLLLLLLXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
>
>

> 1/16: 1152921504606846976
>
>

This large number could then be displayed in 64-bit binary to give:

> 0000010000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
>
>

This number would show us which positions were correct by the placement of the 1 in the string, meaning that in the guess we just made, the 6th letter was correct. From this we were able to combine our knowledge of letter-count, wrong letters, English language likelihoods and possible content to determine the message to be:

> **It fled from darkness and in doing so undid its own creation. The project alone.**
>
>

## Memory Fragment 6

The puzzle for Fragment 6 simply stated "TEXT RECORD"

So, looking at the DNS TXT records for the website we found the message "Look for another domain."

After a few failed attempts we looked up the DNS TXT records for the website itfledfromdarknessandindoingsoundiditsowncreationtheprojectal.one (the answer to fragment 5) and found:

> **"The voyage shattered vessel and alters history so alchemy had no progenitor."**
>
>

## Memory Fragment 7

Fragment 7 functioned exactly like Fragment 5 but had only 4 attempts to get the correct answer. In the end we got stuck with one attempt left and no real way to get further without "complete and permanent system shutdown" so in order to proceed a deal was made with the Dealmakers to get Fragment 7 in exchange for one morphic key (which we had many of)

Fragment 7 was:

> **"The remaining few had but moments to save themselves as others were giving up."**
>
>

## Memory Fragment 8

Fragments 8 and 9 shared an image though only the top part is relevant to fragment 8:

Fragment 8The overlapping letters at the top can be split into two lines, as indicated by the splitting of the DNA helix below it:

> S M E T R D T S S T E S R N L C T D L E H R S M L E N H S A L O
> O E N E E S A I O H R T A S O A E E S W E E O E I O T E E F O R
>
>

 And when read left to right this reads

> **"Some entered stasis, others translocated elsewhere, some lie on the sea floor."**
>
>

## Memory Fragment 9

Fragment 9 required the use of the bottom half of the combined 8 and 9 image.

The first line which was Fragment 8 is not of use in this, rather one has to trace the shape of the DNA helix over the block of text below to reveal the message.

>
> **"The Ark crash forced the travelers to survive in the world that they came to."**
>
>

## Memory Fragment 10

Fragment 10 was pretty much entirely math, so I will outline the steps for solving it once. The following formula was present for Fragment 10 with a text field to enter a number.

∑

# i
0

63

F
i

∗

x
i

{\displaystyle \sum\_{i=0}^{63}F\_i\*x^i}

when the value of 63 is entered for x, the result is `4594756481115229140062713082413927821823140847615442236532722027145486469523332472724064595038667228332129762087338`

Which is a ridiculously large number, so to start off we rewrote the equation as follows:

(

∑

# i
0

62

F
i

∗

x
i

)
(

F

63

∗

x

63

)

{\displaystyle (\sum\_{i=0}^{62}F\_i\*x^i)+(F\_{63}\*x^{63})}

and noticed that the right hand side was much larger in comparison to the smaller left side of the addition, therefore:

F
(
63
)
≈

F

63

∗

63

63

{\displaystyle F(63)\approx F\_{63}\*63^{63}}

and we can isolate for

F

63

{\displaystyle F\_{63}}

and solve it using the number we got from the form, rounding it off to a whole number we get

F

63

=
20

{\displaystyle F\_{63}=20}

which is equivalent to the letter T, this was then performed for each position via a computer program for ease to determine the final message.

> **"The wisest amongst their number imbued vials with their minds for a new start."**
>
>

## Memory Fragment 11

Again, there was no immediate puzzle so we emailed the previous fragment and got back

"Unable to parse image" so of course we then sent an image, which gave the response,

"Unable to find constellation."

Submitting an image of Ursa Major returned: "49" and submitting an image of Lynx returned: "4/41"

The logical conclusion was that these were the positions of the first letter of each name in the fragment solution, so we sent a number of constellation names until we had:

> A: Andromeda 15/24/53/61
> E: Eridanus 5/9/13/18/34/38/44/57/63
> H: Hercules 2/8/23/46/51
> L: Lynx 4/41
> S: Scorpius 11/59/64
> U: Ursa Major 49
> \_H\_LE\_\_HE\_S\_E\_A\_\_E\_\_\_\_HA\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_E\_\_\_E\_\_L\_\_E\_H\_\_\_\_H\_A\_\_\_E\_S\_A\_ES
>
>

Following this the prompt changed to "classical alchemical symbols" and "Egyptian numerals" which we followed until we had enough letters to guess the final phrase:

> **"While others remained in that primitive time to live through many new stages."**
>
>

## Memory Fragment 12

Fragments 12, 13, 14 and 15 all came at the same time, with instructions for all 4 in the same image. A specific page dedicated to Fragment 12 would return one of two responses depending on the current second of the clock and these responses would change every 15 minutes past the hour. After using an automated script to gather all of the data we had a range from 6pm to 1am the following day, from then the pattern repeated. Organizing the data collected as the image for Fragment 12 will yield a phrase which when read along the diagonals says:

> **"This new world bereft of the alchemy they had been dependent on was a new arena."**
>
>

## Memory Fragment 13

From the top right quadrant of the image we can see the image has an envelope with the letter E on it, this implied to us that the answer required email. From the small table on the image we also deduced that we would need to send examples of Photos, Words, Audio and Video which represented each of the classical elements Fire, Water, Earth and Air. Doing so gave a 4 letter set for each correctly submitted item.

 Water
 Earth
 Air

Taking this chart and reading the first two letters of each set on a given row followed by the second pair of each set would yield the following phrase:

> **"In my flask I waited for this time where science was ready to take the next step."**
>
>

## Memory Fragment 14

The image for Fragment 14 lead us to a file named F14.dat which contained a very large number followed by "=2^?\*..." using this and the fact that the number is expressed on a 37x37 grid (37 being a prime number) indicated to us that the large number is a multiplication of many prime numbers.
Since prime numbers are only divisible by themselves, if you multiply primes together, you can always tell which primes got multiplied.
For example, start with the prime number 5 and multiply it by the prime number 7 to get 35. No matter which other prime numbers we multiply 35 by, the result will always be divisible by 5 and 7. And since none of those other primes are divisible by 5 or 7, we know that multiplying by 5 and by 7 was involved to get the final number.
Similarly, if you multiply a by a prime **multiple times**, you can still tell how many times that prime was multiplied by.
For example, start with 5 \* 5 (= 5^2) and multiply it by 7 \* 7 \* 7 (= 7^3) to get 8575. No matter which other prime numbers we multiply 8575 by, the result will always be divisible by 5 two times and by 7 three times.
So with =2^?\* the puzzle is asking "How many times is the number 2 (aka the first prime number) multiplied into this big number? And then, how many times the next prime? Etc."
Applying this method for every n'th prime we get the phrase:

> **"And I stumbled across a flask in ancient ruins where two minds became a single."**
>
>

## Memory Fragment 15

As Fragment 15's quadrant contained the same E envelope we decided to email something random as a submission and got

> Does not match "1" or "2".
>
>

So submitting the number "1" we received in reply:

> Selection Confirmed
> 1/2:THEJOININGOFTWOMINDSREVEALEDMANY
>
>

Sending the number "2" then simply resulted in an error message that the "Selection already confirmed" and repeating the previous message, so instead we reached out to an avenue that would query realities beyond our own via the inter-reality portal known as "Twitter" tweeting the following.

> Fragment 15 1/2: THEJOININGOFTWOMINDSREVEALEDMANY
>
>

> Does anyone have 2/2?
>
>

> #spatiotemporal
>
>

Shortly thereafter we received a message via the Tower interface which read:

> Spatiotemporal Message:
>
>

> The fragment had secrets but for my head was far too much.
>
>

Combining the two to yield the final message:

> **"The joining of two minds revealed many secrets but for my head was far too much."**
>
>

## Memory Fragment 16

The final fragment was, fun to say the least, as when it was added to the website it was already shown as solved without having been posted. Though we soon noticed that the website itself had changed and the R and L in the websites header linked to emails for characters R and L of the REAL

Emailing L did not end up giving us anything worthwhile:

> > Hi. Sorry. Your address showed up on the website. Do you know anything about Fragment 16?
>
>

> < No, you'd have to ask R.
>
>

> > So, you're used to talking to R. How exactly do you ask a question you'd like them to respond to?
>
>

> < It usually just works out.
>
>

Emailing R on the other hand leads to a mind-bending conversation where R responds to messages you haven't yet sent due to their being slightly out of sync with current reality. This leads to conversations where you lead R by essentially talking backwards, trying to get R to reveal details in this way.
An example conversation with R:

> Scots: Ok, so that's the solution!
> R: With that, go back four.
> Scots: Right, so if we do that now. Then what?
> R: Correct! For completion, I've included the fragment encoded with the last part (not the back four one): BHQPFGNFKWFJLLRKXHPBYEBBUVRXZIELFFWXXLXSEUIEYQRGMZMPMSZOZCZRLEPM
>
>

By giving reasonable responses and keeping R talking we got the above information. The "last part" refers to the last letters of all previous Fragment (15 back to 1) which spells "HEPASTORPRESENT". After adding a "T" for the current fragment (which hadn't been solved yet, but due to R being out of sync was still used for this solution) we got "the last part". Using that as a key for a vigenere cipher the fragment can be decoded to read:

> **"I am a fourth of the REAL, my mind gathers my sixteen fragments, I am again intact."**
>
>

.

Additionally if instead of taking the last letter of each fragment we go "four steps back" in each we get the phrase "ONEMANIFESTATION" which would later be used during the Actual Tower Run to access "the entrance to the secret space at the Tower's top." Thus concluding the 16 Forgotten Fragments puzzle.