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[wierd]

+1 read heironet_help.txt

Also, look for existence of a "Hells-Deathwell" 66.6k modem.  (Real Deathwell chipset has a stronger affinity for the darknet than an Infernal Robotics one, no matter what the sales genie says. Genuine hellforaged artifact is always better than Incantation Controlled shit any day. )

[Paxiecrunchle]

ptw.

[OceanSoul]

Remind ourselves of what our company actually does, for one thing. The fact that our company's network is named after a dead Norse god of light, etc. that supposedly will be the one god in the world after this one is suspicious. Also, from idle chat, do we know if any of our co-workers ever had any near-death experiences, or once had to be revived via defibrillator? They may count as undead. Lastly, what is the username of this account? It seems to start with weird symbols, so there's probably some message hidden in it. Occam's Razor, and all that.

[Eschar]

The squares in the username would be characters that this version of Windows does not support, so I think trying to look at them in any other way would just get you the same squares. More experienced Windows people may (well, by definition of 'more experienced,' they do) know more ways to go about exracting the characters.t.

[Olith McHuman]

Restore that backup on a spare computer. Does it show the same weird connection? Can the two machines ping each other?
If so, ponder the possibility of installing this on a raspberry pi and making an ISP that doesn't need to run cables (maybe call it ethernet?).

[wierd]

It would be possible to extract that information from the *.pwl files in the windows directory using some 3rd party shareware.
http://lastbit.com/vitas/pwl.asp

We should be able to extract usernames and passwords from the currently running system using these tools.

More information about *.pwl files:
http://www.thenetworkadministrator.com/hack/WindowsPasswords.htm

Basically, to get our username, we just need the name of the *.pwl file.  There SHOULD be one, because this system is clearly using dialup networking.

[Rose]

Open and see if there's any mail downloaded from before.

[Paxiecrunchle]

Search the computer for all help files.

[Gatleos]

Try running the Scryglass. Its associated rune is named "wealth", so surely that can't be too bad. Sounds less dangerous than the other one, "god".

A crystalline window with some black and red stuff in it?



Oh. OH. looks like it lets you see the unseen Underdesktop. Looks like another pentagram is present here. The intended site of a Desktop Ritual?

Read "hieronet_help.txt"

+1 read heironet_help.txt

Code: (hieronet_help.txt) [Select]

accessing the hieronet is easy, even on the mortal plane!

1. complete the desktop summoning ritual to install the needed program
2. read up on some ancient symbols! hieroglyphs, runes, etc. will be necessary
3. find some hieronet urls. ask one of your skinwalker friends if they know any!

what

Also, look for existence of a "Hells-Deathwell" 66.6k modem.  (Real Deathwell chipset has a stronger affinity for the darknet than an Infernal Robotics one, no matter what the sales genie says. Genuine hellforaged artifact is always better than Incantation Controlled shit any day. )

Open and see if there's any mail downloaded from before.

Hey, there is!

Spoiler: email (click to show/hide)

From: Michael Kisielewicz
Date: Friday, April 9, 1999 4:22 PM
To: Qalzsx'wa The Engorged
Subject: Project Status

Hail Qalzsx'wa,

Just shootin' ya an electronic mail, wondering how the whole Y2K project's coming along on your end. It's been a little difficult getting these messages across without the Hieronet router set up, so I was wondering if you heard back from the support team at Hells-Deathwell. See, we have to sacrifice a goat in the conference room every time we send one of these emails without a persistent Outer Realm connection, and the whole logistical side of shipping live animals to the office is getting a little tough to manage. So if you could get in touch with them that would be greeaat.

Thanks a bunch,
Michael

You don't recognize that name, and this email is older than a few of the interns.

Remind ourselves of what our company actually does, for one thing. The fact that our company's network is named after a dead Norse god of light, etc. that supposedly will be the one god in the world after this one is suspicious. Also, from idle chat, do we know if any of our co-workers ever had any near-death experiences, or once had to be revived via defibrillator? They may count as undead. Lastly, what is the username of this account? It seems to start with weird symbols, so there's probably some message hidden in it. Occam's Razor, and all that.

You build enterprise Java applications for website backends! You have no clue where all of this is coming from, Baldr has never seemed even slightly sinister. Sinister would have been a welcome change of pace from your day-to-day IT duties. As for near-death experiences... uh, Megan in HR had a car accident a few months ago, but you're not sure it qualified as a near-death experience. The username is hard to make out in this tiny font, but it looks like the same YALDABAOTH rune sequence you saw before.

Restore that backup on a spare computer. Does it show the same weird connection? Can the two machines ping each other?
If so, ponder the possibility of installing this on a raspberry pi and making an ISP that doesn't need to run cables (maybe call it ethernet?).

You're considering transferring your backup to another machine, but you'd rather hold off on spreading a RINGU-style piece of haunted media until you know it won't spread like a virus or something.

Read the necromicon and LIES.

Code: (LIES.txt) [Select]

DO NOT BELIEVE THE TASKBAR'S LIES IT IMPRISONS HIM BUT NOT FOREVER

HE IS BELOW TO BANISH HIM YOU MUST SPEAK HIS MASTER'S NAME

f b c l     a y a p
g a i h ==> t n o h
e k j d     l e t r

Now that you think of it, that taskbar at the bottom of the screen is clearly fake. The clock and active programs are missing.

Code: (Necronomicon.txt) [Select]

~-= crakk-freekz.net =-~

torrent info: connect to hieronet url www.□□□□□□□□□□.sothoth
to download Necronomicon.pdf through your built-in torrent client

Looks like it's just info about another file. Whatever that url is, your character encoding can't handle it. You can probably still copy-paste it into a Hieronet browser, though. Now where could you get one of those?

Search the computer for all help files.

Okay these are just normal Windows help files. You get the feeling that you're going to have to go further than combing the filesystem to find clues here.

Spoiler: Documents (click to show/hide)

Code: (polybius.txt) [Select]

44454233 453314151114 52244423 5354555554
It translates to "TURN UNDEAD WITH XYZZY"

Code: (hieronet_help.txt) [Select]

accessing the hieronet is easy, even on the mortal plane!

1. complete the desktop summoning ritual to install the needed program
2. read up on some ancient symbols! hieroglyphs, runes, etc. will be necessary
3. find some hieronet urls. ask one of your skinwalker friends if they know any!


Code: (email) [Select]

From: Michael Kisielewicz
Date: Friday, April 9, 1999 4:22 PM
To: Qalzsx'wa The Engorged
Subject: Project Status

Hail Qalzsx'wa,

Just shootin' ya an electronic mail, wondering how the whole Y2K project's coming along on your end. It's been a little difficult getting these messages across without the Hieronet router set up, so I was wondering if you heard back from the support team at Hells-Deathwell. See, we have to sacrifice a goat in the conference room every time we send one of these emails without a persistent Outer Realm connection, and the whole logistical side of shipping live animals to the office is getting a little tough to manage. So if you could get in touch with them that would be greeaat.

Thanks a bunch,
Michael


Code: (LIES.txt) [Select]

DO NOT BELIEVE THE TASKBAR'S LIES IT IMPRISONS HIM BUT NOT FOREVER

HE IS BELOW TO BANISH HIM YOU MUST SPEAK HIS MASTER'S NAME

f b c l     a y a p
g a i h ==> t n o h
e k j d     l e t r


Code: (Necronomicon.txt) [Select]

~-= crakk-freekz.net =-~

torrent info: connect to hieronet url www.□□□□□□□□□□.sothoth
to download Necronomicon.pdf through your built-in torrent client


Spoiler: Inventory (click to show/hide)

Floppy disk (XYZZY)


Floppy disk ()


Floppy disk (backup)


Red dry erase marker

[Rose]

Examine both ends of the taskbar with the scryglass.

[Kashyyk]

Presumably we need to put each of those programs at a point of the pentagram with the network in the middle, but maybe we should hold off on that until we do a bit more digging.

Edit: I really need to proof read when posting from my phone.

[helmacon]

Presumably we need to put each of those programs at a point of the orchestra with the network in the middle, but maybe we should hold off on that until we do a bit more digging.

Maybe we could just arrange the icons on the desktop?

[Eschar]

Torrent the necromicon!

[Paxiecrunchle]

Run TASKMAN.EXE

this should give us a chance to look at the background processes maybe?

[wierd]

I KNEW it! We work for ORACLE.
(Shiver)

As for restoring the backup to another device... Portability could be king.

Make plans to head to the local purveyor of cheap Chinese plastic crap (Walmart). Pick up a cheap prepaid smartphone. You can get one for 30$. Install root and custom recovery, then make a nandroid backup. Store in a safe place. Install andosbox. (A fork of dosbox for android) install win98 on the dosbox virtual machine, then restore the backup there. Be sure to disk image the two utility disks we have available, and push them to the phone.  With any luck, we can get a portable platform to banish undead and other useful things from.

This brings us to the ritual desktop.

First, we need something to sacrifice. Hunt around the office for a USB floppy drive, and some spare media. The lack of a real lpt or com ports on modern computers, coupled with the lack of USB on this ancient terror, and the likely "disposed of years ago" status of null modem or laplink cables means using FastLynx or Lap link to transfer files for sacrifice is going to be dicey without one. We can then use the floppy disks to get our sacrificial media on this hell spawned hardware. Assuming we have one in a drawer somewhere ( and failing that, express one day from amazon will get us what we need), use the normal computer we use every day to download some adorable cat pictures, motivational posters, and other "uplifting" tripe, push it to a floppy disk using the USB drive, then put them into the my documents folder.

Use the scryglass to put the my documents folder (filled with sacrificial kittens) in the center of the pentagram. Place the network neighborhood icon on the top point, and the other desktop icons on the other points. If you don't have enough icons to populate the ritual, add a shortcut to IE. It should be evil enough for our purposes.

Once you have done that, run the purple disk.