Ghosthunt SOLVED!

Congratulations to all the played this years Ghost Hunt! You successfully followed the clues, dodged the red herrings and solved the final clues and you did this all in the coolest way possible – by working as a team! It was awesome to watch you all playing and enjoying the hunt as it played out across the 7 days leading up to Halloween.

So I guess you all want to know what the hell was going on right? Well in true detective show tradition I’m gonna put on my Columbo style coat and explain all…

Prologue

Fella, deviantARTs trusty mascot has a twin, Frank. Like all good stories about twins (except the film Twins which was just rubbish), Frank is Fella’s EVIL twin. How do we know he is the evil twin? (apart from the haunting and the kidnapping obviously) well, like all evil twins he has the English Accent and the little goatee beard!!!

Having been banished to England very early in his life, Frank has to watch whilst his American twin takes the spotlight, lands a dream role as dAs mascot and lives the LA dream. Bitter at his success Frank decides to take his revenge by playing a prank on his goody goody twin by haunting dA


Act One – The dA-Vinci Code

Hiding himself in the Collective Rectum deep in the bowels (*snort*) of dA, Frank manifests himself as a ghost and begins manipulate the system to send anonymous notes to people across the dA sphere.

It is at this point that we send out a plea for help in this news article: Ghostly Goings On!

But the Collective Rectum is not a good place to hide. Imbued with an intelligence all of it’s own, the Collective Rectum starts to sabotage the notes as they go out, revealing a piece at a time to the ghost hunters where Frank is hiding.

Meanwhile, Fella begins to suspect that something is going on and begins his own investigation into the hauntings, suspicious that it’s not really a ghost at all, but his evil twin. He starts to pull his research together and begins to take notes in his staff blog.

Realising that things are not going his way the clues that Frank sends out become darker and hint at the real reason behind the haunting. But as the community start to crack location Frank realises the collective rectum has been working against him and that his hiding place is about to be revealed and this tips him over the edge. He decides to kidnap his brother!


Act Two – Return of the Rectum

After a struggle in Fella’s apartment, Frank subdues him and drags him to the Collective Rectum, throws him in a cage and sets the bomb timers to midnight on the 31st October!

We pick up the story in this news article here: Fella Kidnapped!

Frank challenges the community to find Fella before it is too late, because if they fail then Fella bites the big one and gets blown up along with the pesky Collective Rectum, thus bringing dA to it’s knees and at the mercy of Frank. Only the correct pass phrase spoken in the collective rectum will stop the bomb and free Fella.

He puts in to place a trail of clues so fiendish, or so he hopes, that the community will fail and his plan will work. But he forgot just how resourceful the community here is!

With clues getting increasingly difficult and even with red herring trails, the community still manages to solve the phrase, unlocks the cage and stops the bomb!

In true Scooby Doo style, no mystery would be complete without the line

“And I would have gotten away with it, if it wasn’t for you meddling kids!”

Congratulations to KarenB for being the first to solve it.


I hope all that played had a great time following all my clues and twists and turns. Many thanks to you all for making it so enjoyable for me to watch you solving the clues!

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the following people, without whom this hunt would not have been possible:

spyed - For allowing me to hold this event.

lolly moonbeam13 and Heidi - For allowing me to bug their team members day and night for the past 4 weeks and for taking an active part in putting this together.

dionyziz and micahgoulart - Firstly dionyziz for his incredible work with the little added bits and pieces around the hunt and the awesome timer script for thecollectiverectum. Secondly micahgoulart for stepping up and helping when dionyziz was away. You guys RULE.

fourteenthstar - For helping keep me sane during the planning of this as I paniced my way through each and every rhyme. Plus for taking time to help in the #ghosthunt chatroom.

Tachy-on For writing the scripts for MNbot and making my favourite clue of the event possible.

maxwell-heza - For keeping a track on the clues everyday in her journal. For spending way more time than needed helping out in #Ghosthunt and especially for the rhymes she helped with. You rock

The MN@ Team – For helping out in #ghosthunt above and beyond your regular duties

ALL the Clue Holders – to everyone that took a clue in their journals, many many thanks. Without you all this would not have been possible.

And lastly, but most importantly, thank you to coshdaddy and imperfect - The first ghost hunt last year was their brainchild, and without this idea, none of this years events would have taken place. Thank you both for inspiring me and giving me the drive to make this work.

So after 48 clues, two acts, one haunting, a kidnapping and a very unhappy rectum, I can’t wait until next year!