Timeline:In-game 2006

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2006

January

That's the date! That's what happened!
3rd Jan '06 Violet is now a fully accredited author, so it's all go go go with the manuscript. She is getting jealousy issues over Miranda. And she's having no luck with Jason who is always working on "unspecified projects". (eg: "murder, blackmail, mutilation with electric drills, transferring between realities, etc")
4th Jan '06 First instalment of Anthony Granier's diary.
5th Jan '06 Kurt says he's been thinking about it a lot, but he's finally decided to go to Gillit Road and try and find the evidence that Helena Frye is a spy. He asks the Earthlin's to try and find out who recorded the message on the Viard CD in the first place. Meanwhile, there's more hot Anthony Granier action today.
6th Jan '06 It's Graining men! Or more accurately, diary transcriptions.
10th Jan '06 First snowfall and Kindling Of The Flame. One week until the Gillit Road rendezvous.

Granier diaries, part quatre.

12th Jan '06 Violet's merciless diary transcribing onslaught continues apace. And the penultimate excerpt, too! Note also that she's been taking care to tell Jason all about it.
13th Jan '06 Violet & Jason go out for coffee, we assume. Kurt and Miranda don't leave work a little early to spend a charming weekend in the country as they claim! Instead Miranda has Kurt cover for her leaving work early by telling him that she needs to get more pills for her supposed Barrow-Feld syndrome and (presumably) somehow finds a way to slip some Ceretin 6 to Cymbalisty, resulting in his death.
14th Jan '06 Isaac Cymbalisty is found dead in his home after (probably) ingesting a deadly cocktail of Ceretin 5 and Ceretin 6.
16th Jan '06 Miranda lies to the police about leaving town with Kurt on the 13th. Presumably Kurt does as well though his interview isn't in the police file on Cymbalisty's death.
17th Jan '06 Kurt goes to Gillit Road. He manages to disrupt what appears to be a deadly police raid on a Third Power operation, which is then resultantly botched. He gets arrested! Read here and here for his account of proceedings. Now he needs the people of Earth to find out who created the Viard recording in order to prove his innocence.
18th Jan '06 Violet expresses her sadness over Isaac Cymbalisty's death, says that the final piece of the Anthony Granier diary is safe in Police hands, and that Kurt "seems to have fallen off the map completely."
25th Jan '06 We've hacked the first stage of the Hesh Intranet (password: mixolydian) but funnily enough it turns out Kurt got there already and seems to have thought it so trivial as to be not worth mentioning. He suggests that we need to socially engineer the boards to find out who engineered the Viard album.
25th Jan '06 + It transpires we really, really suck at social engineering. We do, however, discover that the employees at Hesh have a night of playing Pyramid every Monday, so we clue Violet in to see if she fancies gatecrashing.
29th Jan '06 Violet and Kurt finally catch up with each other. Kurt tells Violet all about his escapades - as he's been keeping them hidden from everyone so far - and she is both worried and intrigued. Thankfully, she agrees to go along to the Hesh "poker night" (OK, so some confusion there, we admit) the next night to see what she can learn.
30th Jan '06 Violet turns up for some poker, only to discover they're actually playing Pyramid, which is beneath her contempt nine times over. Fortunately, she's brought along Caine to grease the wheels, and he finds out who produced the Viard album for Earth - Cyrus Quinton. Just the sort of information we were looking for, which is ace. Then Caine tries to make a move, real casual like. Busted!

February

That's the date! That's what happened!
1st Feb '06 Useful, but not useful enough is Kurt's take on our breakthrough. It appears Mr Quinton doesn't really exist in any meaningful sense of the word, so we need to access the password-protected filesystem within to see if it provides us with something resembling proof.
7th Feb '06 www.thepathofleasttime.com/archives/2006/02/star_signs.html|helping Kurt]] (who's now being tailed, incidentally) - can Violet help?
8th Feb '06 Violet says there's no chance of us getting any clues from any Holy Books unless we can provide more information. She asks us to pass on our regards to Alejo, despite "having a few troubles with musicans these days", we take this to mean our beloved Caine. My twin loyalties to rock'n'roll and geekdom have never been so stretched.
13th Feb '06 Kurt is horrified by our discovery but relieved he can now clear his name with Detective Frye.
15th Feb '06 Kurt meets Helena Frye in a cheap cafè on Alchemy Bay to hand over the evidence - read here and here. Not only is he exonerated (definitely better than being exsanguinated) but he discovers that the people at Gillit Road were "building something big... that required a clean room." And that this all ties in to the technology that's been going missing from The Academy. (Remember: Bernardo Holyoke, Five of Cups, Reynolds Ionisers, etc.)

March

That's the date! That's what happened!
8th March '06 Miranda has gone off "up north" teaching kids to run, so Kurt is feeling a bit lonely, bless him. More relevant to our inquiries: he's acknowledged that we'd like him to help with the Anna/Cymbalisty thing, and says he "might send a note to Anna" about it. Which, lets face it, is better than running off screaming.
9th Mar '06 Violet's back from a long absence of "not feeling like blogging much lately" what with her boss topping himself and everything. She's been "going for lunch" (which I'm starting to think is a euphenism) with Caine, and the verdict on him is funny but messy. Regarding Jason, he's hot stuff, but there's no chemistry. (Also: he's obviously evil.) Most importantly, she misses Kurt. Awwwwwww.
10th Mar '06 Kurt and Anna have a blazing row when Anna asks him to set up a phone-based comms link between Earth and the police hotline, and he tells her to "get over it and stop making up conspiracy theories." Kurt Hits For -10 HP!

Later that day, he posts a counterpoint. Or at least that's what he says, but generally maintains that Anna is delusional and us Earthlings are just plain naive. To be fair, he might have a point. A glimmer of hope: he says he'll hear Anna out.

13th Mar '06 Ah, Kurt is managing to be spectacularly irate while evidently slowly coming around to the idea of setting up the PXC-Earth phonelink. Nice bit of off-key sexism from a random player, you'll notice.
14th Mar '06 Kurt crumbles like a nice old bit of cheese, and agrees to set up the link, which is here. Then it's all go go go! We start calling in a massive crime-wave, even with some level of co-ordination, which must be a first for us. Some people get a bit overexcited and call in bomb threats, murders and the like, which is exactly what Kurt has asked us not to do, but never mind.
16th Mar '06 Kurt explains how he was convinced to help, but isn't best pleased with our antics. And if I may say so, rightfully so.
31st Mar '06 Scarlett leaves Claire and Allain in Anjsbourg and is on her way back to Perplex City.

April

That's the date! That's what happened!
12th Apr '06 Miranda leaves for what she claims is a conference and visit to her parents. link
24th Apr '06 Oistin Meade sets up a survey for Earth people. In exhange, he will give Anna a report on Ceretin 6, the new as-yet-unreleased version of Ceretin.
29th/30th Apr '06 Miranda returns from what she claims was a conference and family visit.

May

That's the date! That's what happened!
2nd May '06 Oistin Meade provides the report on Ceretin 6, via Anna Heath.
4th May'06 Kurt hacks into the Cognivia database via a note found in Miranda's apartment. The hack probably alerts Miranda via her key. He finds out that she was hoarding Ceretin 6 during the trial and is the one who killed Isaac Cymbalisty by feeding him the unreleased version of Ceretin that has no overdose protection. link

Kurt calls Miranda who goes on the run and ditches her key. link

5th May '06 Kurt's key is hacked, so he adds "an extra layer of security to my key in order to make life very unpleasant for anyone attempting to hack in again". link

He then goes to Miranda's apartment, which explodes in a "gas leak" and leaves him in hospital with injuries, concussion and a mysterious note. We solve the puzzle and send Violet off to Augur Park Station where she finds locker 7196 and Miranda, who promptly legs it and loses Violet, despite Violet's vigorous training regimen of poker bars and gigs. Back in the locker Violet finds a key, clothes and provisions. link

6th May '06 Miranda hires a pleasure cruiser from a place in Portside Docks and is recognised and reported as a missing person after she leaves. The Coast Guard are sent to retrieve her. link
7th May '06 The Coast Guard report that the cruiser hired by Miranda was empty. Kurt sets up a global information search for her. link
8th May '06 Kurt is released from hospital and post results of an audio search for the sound "Miranda". He also discovers that she needs a drug called Oxxypro regularly.
9th May '06 From the audio records, Kurt decides that Miranda is probably heading west. Kurt goes to Drowsington, as it's a nearby town west of Perplex City that will provide Miranda with Oxxypro without her needing to use public transport.
10th May '06 Violet meets Kurt in Drowsington. Miranda shows up at the Drowsington pharamacy. When confronted by Kurt she holds a knife to a customer's throat and Kurt lets her escape. Violet tries to head her off at the ferry but is seen and Miranda runs, eventually deciding to head to Stone Mills on foot.
11th May '06 Violet and Kurt have a massive row over Kurt's obsession with finding Miranda. Violet returns to Perplex City leaving Kurt in Drowsington. Kurt takes the train to Stone Mills and pokes around in Miranda's things from Augur Park Station, finding and using some experimental tissue treatment on his injured ankle so it will heal quickly. He also blocks all Violet's calls and messages from his key.
12th May '06 Violet calls Caine over to her place but she's 'too miserable' for him so he leaves her to worry over Kurt by herself.

Kurt sets up the Stone Mills security cameras to examine people and their walking patterns and log matches for Miranda. He uploads the results to the map on his website. These lead him all around town on false leads and Miranda escapes again.

13th May '06 Miranda heads to Ryefield. Kurt follows, realising that on Tuesday the rail system will have a firmware upgrade, meaning that Miranda can use a train without being picked up by Missing Persons. He talks to station staff and the pharmacist at Ryefield alerting them to keep an eye out for her. He also visits a doctor who is surprised at his speedy recovery (owing to the experimental cream from 11th May).
14th May '06 Violet has dinner with Caine at Conundra. Kurt calls her, interrupting their dinner-and-puzzle. Kurt and Violet have an awkward conversation and apologise to each other for the fight. (Awww.) Violet refuses to reveal who she was talking with to Caine, driving him crazy, and decides to dig into Miranda's background for any helpful information.
16th May '06 Kurt is arrested for 'loitering with malicious intent'! We need to stop Miranda getting on a train so we use the Perplex City Rail website to book up all the seats on all the trains running from Ryefield so that Miranda can't get on. Miranda is still at the station when Kurt is released but on seeing him she jumps the barriers and hops on a train leaving Kurt in the dust.

Halfway to Vastage Miranda smashes a window and jumps out of the moving(!!) train. She heads towards the Silburn-Griggs mine on foot.

17th May '06 Violet looks up Miranda's library borrowings and finds out that Miranda has been reading about Corant Caves, the Dedant ridge and the Silburn-Griggs mine.

Kurt heads out to the spot where Miranda was last seen and sets up camp.

18th May '06 Kurt talks a lot about some game called Counterpoint on his way to Silburn-Griggs.

Violet reads a lot about Silburn-Griggs, realises that it is hazardous and that a ferrogramatograph would be useful and passes on the info to Kurt.

Scarlett is sleepy, chatty and bored.

19th May '06 Violet reads more about Silburn-Griggs and ferrogramatographs and discovers that the Academy Museum has several. She is challenged by the Academy Museum staff when she goes to borrow a ferrogramatograph and tries to name-drop her father in order to get it. The museum call Sente who approves her with the condition "We are going to have a talk very soon aren't we, Violet?"

Scarlett hears about Violet's adventure from their 'hopping mad' father and lends Violet her car, complete with Anjsbourg camping gear. Violet sees mysterious camping gear and battered car and notes this for a later conversation with Scarlett. She drives towards Silburn-Griggs leaving Scarlett in Perplex City.

21st May '06 Kurt continues to hunt Miranda with our help. He tracks her to the Silborn-Griggs mine. They struggle and he kills her. Violet arrives having found her way through with her handy-dandy ferrogrammatograph. Kurt and Violet escape just before agents of the 3P arrive and they have Miranda's bag.
24th May '06 Annawho has been brought up to date by Violet helps decode the last page from the Granier#Diary. Miranda had it in her bag. It seems that Granier 's Mistress was not doing her experiments for the good of the world.
31st May '06 Violet and Sente catch up. After asking about Miranda, Sente tells Violet that a mysterious explosion occured cracking the mine wall a flood ensued. Miranda's body is presumably safely hidden. We get to see Sente in action as he manipulates his response to the requests from a preservation society that he investigate the explosion.

June

That's the date! That's what happened!
1st June '06 Anna starts to realize that the 3P must have other agents in the Academy . She also posts some of the puzzles (and the answers) sent to her by Cube Hunters in an effort to help cover up Kurt s absence.
4th June '06 Caine buys a fabulous drum kit he can't afford.
5th June '06 Douglass Finlay 's candidacy for City Council erupts in flames as an unidentified insider leaks documents alleging corruption and espionage. The Sentinel breaks the scandal.
6th June '06 The curious foursome - Anna,Violet,Scarlett and Kurt combine their knowledge and devise a plan. They are going to find out about the stolen parts which ended up in the Five of Cups after Bernardo Holyoke's murder, see what Helena Frye knows about the Gillit Road clean rooms, and find out who V called from the Hesh studio the day after the Cube was stolen. After Violet buys him dinner and sets him up with a blog to Earth, Caine will be helping out as well.
9th June '06 Kurt tells us about Miranda's death in the Silburn-Griggs mines which sounds like self-defense. He also mentions suggesting Caine look into the Hesh intranet. Caine's been having trouble getting into the exclusive Hesh party he found out about - Crowley's temper flared when Hesh rejected their demo - his band is on the Hesh blacklist.
14th June '06 Caine manages to sneak into a Hesh record party as Charlie Specht, the guy we got fired as a result of our last romp around the Hesh site, and convince some of the Tech people to show him their phone logs. After we work the logs into a form he can understand,

Caine recognizes a number from the Hesh communication logs -- one in the AcademyCryptography Department.

Anna rekindles her friendship with Henrik Tanner the Academy Security Chief to find out about the parts. She doesn't tell her husband Fleming and doesn't feel good about using Henrik but rationalizes, like Anthony Granier, that "we won't save the world by keeping our hands clean."

On the lighter side Scarlett announces UKVer 2.0 as the winner of the video competition.

22nd June '06 Violet sees herself spinning webs to get information and she suspects her father is doing the same thing.
23rd June '06 Kurt tries to contact Helena Frye. Although the Police tell him she has left the force, he knows she is undercover. He leaves her a few messages until her key is turned off.
29th June '06 Helena Frye tells Kurt she has been poking around the Silburn-Griggs mines.

July

That's the date! That's what happened!
4th July '06 Caine gives us some information and asks us to keep looking.
6th July '06 Caine happy with our info about the cryptographer who was being blackmailed, he looks into it some more. Scarlett shares with Kurt who recognizes the voice as Karen Moro and figures out which parts were stolen from Cryptography
13th July '06 Kurt confronts Karen- she was blackmailed by V to get medicine for father to treat his Kam Syndrome. He tells her that some of the stolen parts were found in the Five of Cupsand recaps the list of murders relating to the Cube theft. Karen suggests a plan: tagging the parts that might be stolen from an upcoming shipment with radio isotopes and then following them around the city. Kurt figures out which parts to follow. He summarizes the story so far of the parts.
17th July '06 Earlywine wants to save money by cutting back on the AQSYS project.
19th July '06 Kurt and Karen discuss using AQSYS to track the parts after she marks them with an isotope tag. We help Kurt decide which parts to mark. Now, Kurt has to hack the AQSYS system.
21st July '06 Anna Heath confirms to Sente "that the marks on the cards wasn't a case of transmission corruption, as we do see evidence of this same tampering in our finals, though not in any of the earlier versions at all. I've checked back and seen some differences in the finals from the previous waves, as well." Leaked email

Kurt complains about having to work with Earth technology to set up the San Francisco event. Karen managed to get isotope tags from someone named Leo at Hilbert because they make isotopes for medical and military uses. Kurt plans on using our help to track the parts. He can't override the AQSYS project, he can only use manual controls.

24th July '06 In case you missed anything, Kurt gives us the whole story one more time. I think he's nervous about trusting us. He sounds just like an anxious parent about to trust a teenager with a new car, still his summary is excellent and worth reading.
26th July '06 Kurt gives us the heads up. The parts are moving, but Caine crashes Crowley's car. He follows on foot. As soon as Fleming gets home to watch the kids, Anna takes over for Caine. The signal vanished somewhere in Old Town near the Brotherhood of the Six temple. She's missing.

Three of the four parts are accounted for, Kurt is going to figure out which one disappeared.

27th July '06 Anna is still missing, Fleming is frantic. The part she was following -- the Baker Spherical Magnetic Containment Field --is assumed to be in the hands of the Third Power Kurt gives us the update.

The Sentinel reports that the AQSYS project experienced significant anomalies on the previous afternoon. An undiagnosed navigation problem caused erroneous clustering, empty patches and other irregularities. That was us.

28th July '06 A frantic search party looks for Anna. Violet and Caine find Anna's body in the caves. She had been tortured before she died.

Violet thinks of all the people who have died. She wants it to end.

August

That's the date! That's what happened!
3rd Aug '06 Anna's memorial service reminds us all that we are involved in a dangerous business. Caine speaks at the service and decides to speak to Violet. Not wanting to risk any lives but their own, Violet pledges with Kurtto not involve anyone else. Scarlett finds out about Anna's death and it reminds her of her own mother's death. Bad news indeed.

Everyone is sad and sorry for Anna's children.

10th Aug '06 All connection with Perplex City is lost, all the websites have a message from the 3P "Say Good-bye to PerplexCity." Mind Candy puts up this emergency page for instructions.
12th Aug '06 During a live meeting called The San Francisco Connection, a second data link to Perplex City is made. And just in time too. Sente makes an announcement which is interrupted by the 3P via call to players gathered in San Francisco who are seen to leave the scene in helicopters. A warning from the 3P to stay away follows.

Perplex City suffers a massive blackout.

14th Aug '06 Iona Rodie's Sentinel article surprises us with the magnitude and duration of the blackout. The city was without power for two days, Perplexians are in an uproar and want answers.
17th Aug '06 Sente sends Scarlett packing to Uncle Sanjean and Aunt Annaliese. Iona advises Scarlett that she is better off out of Sente's way for the next few days.

Another Leaked email Garnet Reed to Henrik Tanner Well, there's some 'library of something or other' subdirectory off the main path, for example. I only saw it for a split second and I couldn't get into it, but it clearly doesn't belong there, whatever it is. (note we aren't given this email until August 27th and it pushes us over the last hurdle to finding Combed Thunderclap 's posting on the Academy website.) Two more leaked emails discuss the Academy's file system.

Douglass Finlay drops out of the Council race due to the scandal rocking his campaign. The Sentinel explains Finlay wants to clear his name of the allegations that he promised lucrative deals to business partners and spied on his rivals'campaigns. The campaign insider who leaked this information to the press remains unknown. The police are investigating.

18th Aug '06 Caine shares the memorial page Aiko created for Anna. Work has been hell and no band because Crowley resents Caine crashing his car.
21st Aug '06 After convincing her aunt she is a grown-up,Scarlett goes out and meets a boy Emory who works for the electrical authority. Turns out that the people who created the wormhole disabled most of the safety mechanisms to access the massive amount of power they needed. Scarlett hasn't heard from Sente for days and days.

And the people of PerplexCity may be fed up with Academy secrecy, a massive blackout tends to get attention, the Sentinel is leading a crusade to demand the truth. You can email them

22nd Aug '06 Garnet's takeover of the CRThas been keeping Caine quiet. Caine fears his blog may be compromised soon.
23rd Aug '06 The abandoned porthole of the wormhole used by the 3P to get to San Francisco is found underground outside the city. Helena confirms Academy parts were used in making the [wormhole] but it was only up for a minute. She suspects a cover-up as does Kurt. Neither of them know who Garnet answers to - but it isn't just Sente.
25th Aug '06 Sente on the Academy website answers the public uproar about the black-out by admitting that the 3P exist, that they created a wormhole and that some of them, not sure how many, made it to Earth to search for the Cube. He also speaks to Scarlett about concentrating on school so she is giving up the Scarlette Code, her myspace puzzle trail,for now. According to Von, she had some special access to the data link with Earth.

Kurt updates he decides to track who ordered the parts (if these people are so smart, why didn't they think of that sooner, before they risked their lives and all?) Guess what? He remembers a password that he happened to see on Sente's desk--we don't ask why Sente would write down passwords--and viola! The parts were ordered for Special Project 487 . Now to find out who that is.

27th Aug '06 We finally find what Anna's memorial page was pointing us to: a subdirectory set up by none other than Combed Thunderclap who seems to be here on Earth with the Cube.
30th Aug '06 Scarlett looks but hasn't found any secret rooms or passages in the house designed by Anthony Granier.

September

That's the date! That's what happened!
01 Sept. 06 Combed Thunderclap updates the Library of babel directory. We aren't sure if we had hints to find this update, or if it just updated automatically for us.

Scarlett finds a puzzle for us to solve for her. A mosaic frame around a painting of the place (a lighthouse) Granier wrote his last novel "Lay Sorrowe to Rest". For the whole entry.

04 Sept. 06 Kurt pressures Karen for more information about Special Project 487 relating to Viendenbourg. She reluctantly searches and finds references to a word "axiom" that relates to the Project. Hoping to leave with her father in a few weeks when he gets out of jail, she leaves Kurt with a thought and a warning : why was she called off her search for unusual activity, and Kurt had better be prepared when he finds the people behind this Project
06 Sept. 06 Caine runs away from the Cube Project group because of an email warning him of the danger involved.
08 Sept. 06 Violet tells us she and Caine broke up, Caine is away at a music conference and she has a note written by Anthony Granier to translate. Yes, we solved Scarlett's mosaic puzzle and she found a note and another Granier puzzle inside. Later we get the translation of the note, Anthony tells his children of a location they can travel where they can find out more about him, but they have to solve the accompanying puzzle first.

Kurt finds many results as he searches for links to the word "axiom." Somehow he is given the job of fixing problems with the PPC-Earth Data link, but he doesn't mention our friend Combed Thunderclaps subdirectory. Garnet has bypassed Henrik Tanner after his audit of the Data link shows some genuine security issues. Normally the Academy Security Centre would handle this but now Kurt is on it.

11 Sept. 06 Violet takes the note Scarlett found in the mosaic puzzle to Professor Sedgewick. The Professor points out some glyphs along the margin, one of which is a navigational marker. She is so absorbed with the note that she manages not to notice that Violet is hung-over. Violet confesses to us that she did something she shouldn't have with someone she shouldn't have done it with. Possible suspects: Kurt, some of Kurt's friends and Bruno from Caine's band. The good news: she won lecks playing poker on Saturday night. And she's going to help save the wild orchids of Perplex City.

Scarlett did so well with her "independent study" in Tanraga last year that her college boots out of her classes. Guess she will soon be heading out on the road again. Maybe the map from Granier, which we still haven't solved will be her path to follow. Is there a puzzle trail coming?

The Sentinel updates. Who was that parachutist who disappeared leaving only his purple chute behind? No one knows. The futures and the leaderboard report feature lyrics from Earth. Is Earth culture spreading? Just keep the 80s music away from PPC and everything will be fine.

15 Sept. 06 Kurt solves the puzzle for us. It leads to the Lancewood Archipelago a place we've never heard of, but Scarlett and Violet are going. A trip over the sea.

October

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November

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December

That's the date! That's what happened!