Nothing out of the ordinary has happened in the office since my last post, just the usual sounds (and smells every now and then, like flowers maybe? Perfume?) so just normal haunting, not full on poltergeist materialization. NBD.
But… Something else has been happening. Something I hadn’t picked up on at first, but looking back has been going on for a couple weeks now?
Every once in a while I would think about going back to the storage warehouse Orvin and I visited. The rundown Lower Eastside former apartment building where we found some old mundane paperwork about this version of Ackerly Green, as well as the pins, which I suspected were from the other version of Ackerly Green. My mind kept wandering back to the little room where we found everything. The room we’d cleared out and stop paying the lease on months ago. It belonged to someone else now, but every now and then the idea of going back would consume me…
It happened again this morning and then I realized… I was wearing the Hippocampus pin. And I can’t be sure, but I think every time I thought about that room I’d been wearing the pin. The pin was trying to tell me to go back.
Far weirder things have happened, and if these pins really were from The Book of The Wild, The Lost Age, well, maybe they have some residual magic in them?
I just want to go on the record that I personally don’t think it’s breaking and entering if all I had to do was lean against the locked door of the storage space to open it. Like, a hard, repeated leaning.
I broke into the storage room.
It was already full of someone else’s boxes. I have to say I thought that maybe the ghost with the mustache was gonna be there to give me some useful and profound piece of magical information. But instead the place was stacked to the ceiling with banker’s boxes from the bookkeeping firm who’d taken it over. I looked around the boxes, seeing if I’d left anything, but I (with Orvin’s tsking supervision) had been pretty damned thorough when I cleared it out. There was one small window in the room, the only light aside from the strip of fluorescents on the ceiling. A gray stream of cold winter light was cutting through a gap in the stacked boxes to the floor in the far corner of the room. I went to the window, looked out, for a sign, a ghost…
When I turned back, I’d blocked the light and could see, stuck in the space between the wall and the baseboard, was the edge of a yellowed piece of paper. I shimmied it out and found it was a folded up sheet of aged carbon paper. For all the non-old Mountaineers, carbon paper was how you made copies of things back in the day. You’d put it behind a sheet of paper you were writing or typing on to make an exact copy.
It was a copy of a letter that Warner Green himself had written decades ago! An exact typed replica. He’d probably put the carbon paper in the typewriter himself.
It had faded with time and sun, but I could make out that it was from the desk of Warner Green, it was written sometime in the 60’s, and it was a draft of a letter to readers who’d bought the pins!
Welcome to The Ackerly Green Secret Society
________ and as you know, elemental [materials] sometimes hold onto magic, and these pins, made of the rarest of metals, I’ve been told contain traces of magimystic energy. __________ and when the time comes, the pins may call on you to find what they have been asked to find __________ Something missing worth rediscovering. Further instructions are included within this mailing.
__________TOO FADED TO READ_____________
All you truly need to know is that this must be kept in the strictest of confidence. ____________________ The pin, its purpose, even your membership in this society, must be kept secret from those who cannot bring themselves to believe. But we believe. Magic is real, and it is up to us to seek it out, perhaps learn to use it, but most of all protect it.
Your friend and fellow member,
Warner Green
Okay. So the pins are from The Book of The Wild, and either they were never mailed, or this was outstanding stock that hadn’t been used. Also, confirmed by Warner himself, the pins have some trace of magical energy. (I mean, I guess it could all be make-believe, new readers think I’m making all this up, but we know there’s something weird about these pins, which lends credence, not only to their power, but also that Warner Green himself knew about magic.)
Also, we’re all just casually wearing relics of The Lost Age!
So you’d think that would be enough, right? Enough magimystic adventuring for the day? Nope. I didn’t notice until I checked later, but pretty much the second I walked into the storage room I got a text message on my phone. A notification.
It said “I looked across the cold and silver swirling sea.”
I have no idea what it means. You? I mean, we know that the Silver took up residence across the sea in Neithernor. But what does the sentence mean?
And the bigger question…
How in the name of Herman did the notification come from the Ackerly Green app?
34 Comments
The answer your last question is rather simple when you think about it @Saberlane …
Magiq!
There was an ocean on the eastern wilds wasnt there? maybe we cross the sea.
My first thought was the eastern sea as well. I haven’t seen it for myself but I hear its really something!
Also, I’m like… Mildly freaking out I’ve been wearing a rare magiqal artifact on my denim jacket. Ya know. Like its no big deal.
Hmmm. If we could cross the sea, which I suspect is dangerous, I wonder what we would find on the other side… It blows my mind that not only are we all wearing a magiqal artifact, but the very material they are made if is extremely rare. Maybe the Silver could be in trouble… But would they knowingly ask for our help?
I honestly highly doubt it, I think that bridge was burned in the War of Neithernor.
I think… Not to sound like I’ve totally lost it… But I think maybe it’s the ghosts of old Secret Society members giving us this clue, to uncover the work they left undone?
EDIT: I googled the verse and found nothing. If its part of a poem or a “bigger picture” my guess is its magical in nature.
I mean, it could be the ghosts. But are they really ghosts, magiqal contructs, or something else? I’m looking to far into this at the moment, but it’s nice to get it out. It is most certainly clues, but to uncover what? Maybe there’s something over there that hasn’t been completed?
Just because I tend to overthink these things and jump off the deep end real quick, have we considered it could be a ref. to Ebenguard?
That crossed my mind for a hot second.
I’m also thinking it’s saying silver as a color rather than Silver as, well, The Silver.
I’m sure it has nothing to do with it (particularly since it’s only 9 years old), but there’s a Silver Beach in Michigan (which would be cold), and though it’s not an actual beach on an ocean/sea, there’s this:
whirlpool compass fountain grand opening – Google Search…1…mobile-gws-wiz-serp…0j0i71j0i22i30j33i160j33i21.UATjAa7ldiQ%3D#imgrc=M-vjz3JMSjXpXM:
It came up when I tried looking for a northern whirlpool that had something to do with silver in the name.
This has been your nightly tin foil report
So, the app is becoming sentient, or someone’s using it as a way to get a hold of Ackerly Green? That’s…fun.
Actually, that made me take a second look at the app and…Sabes, I have a quick question for you – were you the one who added in that chronocompass? When you tap the lil’ Herman at the bottom, it leads to a spinning chronocompass. I thought maybe it was a nod to the knocks we did on the Dawson site, but… if the app is communicating with us, maybe it’s relevant and we need to have the right knock pattern to unlock something further?
We didn’t put a chronocompass in the app.
I can see the spinning chronocompass as well, Rev. This time, however it’s spinning much faster than I think it ever did during all that time magiq, and the center is also spinning … if anyone cares
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Well, it, this is a lot to find. Also the chronocompass does seem like it could be important, though I’m not sure if right now is the time to use it…
I put the regular image of the chronocompass in the app, under “About Ackerly Green” but not the moving one. I don’t even have access to that image or video or whatever it is.
I will say this though, the process of developing the app and putting it together was really easy, even though I’d never done anything like it before. There were times when it felt like it was already made and I was just assembling the pieces. Maybe I accidentally performed some kind of spell? I don’t know how I would’ve done that… there’s probably a more magimystically logical explanation. Thoughts?
The one thing…
The chronocompass @Revenir found looks like the one that appeared over the messages to Knatz and Augie. Not the kind you solve, but the kind that was already doing something.
Hmm… So the spell itself opened up a line of communication with…something. Possibly the ghost, possibly this “AG” figure from the Instagram, or maybe the mystery texter is one and the same with both of those.
I do think you’re onto something with the spell path, though. After all, programming is a creative outlet and that’s how we’ve traditionally anchored some of our spells, at least. Maybe you accidentally tapped into something, or maybe the spell was already set up for you by whoever is trying to contact you and the app development was the result?
One thing I’ve gotta ask, though – if this is the Silver, what do they want with us? Aren’t we supposed to be, like, mortal enemies or something after we beat their Storm? Or is this going back to our debate over whether all of the Silver are bad guys or not? But whoever this is, they don’t seem to be doing anything malicious…just mysterious so far.
I think we can all, sort of, agree that the people in the Silver who controlled the Storm are bad, bad people. They sacrificed innocent lives to advance their cause of hoarding magiq.
Remember, however, that what changed our world to ban magiq did so retroactively. The Silver became who they are today in the Book of Kings because magiq became threatened. And for some reason, they reacted by hoarding it.
What might the Silver have become in the Book of the Wild? Where magiq was never threatened? Who might the Silver be there?
Robert, this might sound weird (which sounds odd saying to you given some of the things you have posted on here
), but I didn’t know I could enjoy a theory or postulation so much. We really have no idea what the Silver were like in the Book of the Wild. We obviously have glimpses, but I don’t think we can equate them to the Silver we have known.
I need to wrap my head around this and spend some time trying to figure out how to this could tie into my little research project. This likely isn’t going to happen at 12:49am but hopefully I will have some spare time in the morning to put my thoughts and ramblings into a more coherent post.
I actually find that most good thoughts happen between when the rest of the world is asleep, but to each their own. Enjoy your pondering
You know, that’s a good point, and one that I didn’t consider. I think we might add to that – who might the Silver be in the Book of Briars? Hopefully less nefarious than what we saw in the Book of Kings.
The line makes me think of Eben Rest. like, looking out at the sea from the walls, and seeing gray swirling water, flowing with the tides. We’ve seen a silver sea, and the water IS cold. maybe we need to go and check it out from the walls. Any Watchers have a telescope we could use?
I’ll wear my pin and bring Ferris. maybe they’ll help.
Well if we accept the pins are from the Lost Age, and they somehow brought you back to the storage unit you just coincidentally happened to find unlocked and open and just went in to make sure everything was okay… The timing of the notification would indicate it’s also related to the Lost Age. So the app is also somehow connected to the Lost Age.
Perhaps the ease of it’s creation is really because parts of it were already created. Or someone friendly was helping out out to move things along.
“The Book of the Wild The Book of Kings Two Worlds Rebound In Butterfly Wings”
Maybe we’ve done this somehow after opening the Book of Briars? Having drawn the two timelines, Wild and Kings, closer together – maybe now magiq can flow from one to the other?
Random thoughts on the quote.
I doubt we have enough information to come to a solid conclusion, but I thought I’d summarize a few ways I look at this.
-Maybe the sea here is what’s important? A cold and silver swirling sea. Why would a sea be silver? Probably because it’s in moonlight? Cold could mean the temperature or ‘unemotional and impartial’ but it’s also swirling, so I guess it’s the temperature. And if it’s at night that might make sense. Maybe this is a reference to a time on the chronocompass?
-Maybe the ‘I’ is what is important. Who is speaking? Someone, or some thing that overlooks a large body of water? The Statue of Liberty? The Colossus of Rhodes? The Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio?
-I doubt it’s a word puzzle, but if you take “silver swirling sea” and put ‘ag’ in for silver, and swirl the letters of ‘sea’ you can get ‘A Geas’ which is a magic(q?)al compulsion to do something. Maybe that only amuses me…
Huh, I only just now put 2 and 2 together to get that the elemental symbol for Silver is “AG’. I wonder if that makes 4? Probably not…but it’s Friday and I like to entertain weird ideas on Fridays.
Intense tinfoil hat moment
Way ahead of you Helios. This is going to make me pull out all of my old research into The Path of the Wool vs. The Path of the Silver
Oh shoot! Maybe there’s a puzzle within the app?
Okay, so I followed @Robert ‘s advice about the camera. I set one up in the office and it sends me alerts when it detects motion.
I’ve had about a dozen alerts in the past hour, and every time I check the camera there’s nothing there. Or almost nothing. There are weird flickers and blackouts every now and then.
I think he’s back. The ghost. We’re in the country but I’m driving back down to the city to see if I can catch him. Not like a ghostbuster, but catch him like, hey, don’t go… let’s talk about pins and apps and haunting my office.
Wish me luck. I’m already sweating.
Oh… yeah… communicating with the ghost is definitely the smarter choice! Good luck @Saberlane!!
Awkwardly puts Proton Pack and Ghost Trap back into closet
Okay so the first thing that jumped to my mind was the constellations and space
Maybe there’s a part of the Silver who need help, but needed to do it in a way that wouldn’t be noticed. Or it could be a splinter group. It’s going to go back to the debate if it is the Silver who’s contacting us.
I’m a bit confused on the exact connection the pins have to magic.
Is it a connection to the past before magiq disapepared or
Is it a connection to the original timeline in which magiq still exists?
If it’s the latter is it possible that the ‘ghosts’ we’re dealing with are Mounties and/or Silver (seemingly both with that connection to ‘AG’) trying to contact us?
(I’ve been catching up on The Magicians on Syfy lately so that’s probably where this timeline connection idea mainly stems from)
So I was wearing my Hippocampus pin at the mall eirlier and while I was in the bathroom some random girl complimented it. (Not wierd for a women’s restroom) but then she went on to say
” It’s really cool, like from an old book or something.” And I got chills. She dissapeared before I could say anything back but that got me thinking. Does she have memories of Ackerly Green Publishing? Did she just happen to notice it on my sweater or did the magiq pull to her? Idk just my wierd thing for the day.
Wow Sel! That’s amazing. Mine has just been showing up on my jacket of the day and on random places around the room. I have yet to figure out a pattern to its movements though. I am way too sleep deprived to figure out much of anything, come to think of it. Have you had any other experiences like this? Has anyone else? Are these a way for magiq to call to its lost children with us as vehicles?
I’ve already been using the pin to figure out what the weather might be like based on the coat it chooses and I know for sure that I have decided to take walks to certain places just because it showed up on a certain jacket. I haven’t met anyone interesting on these walks yet though.