This is part two of my Dracula’s Riddle Walkthrough.  If you’re looking for part one, you can find it here.

Solving this riddle is beginning to turn into an ongoing saga – mostly due to my short attention span.  If you haven’t read my previous blog regarding this (can’t really blame you, it’s LONG), Dracula’s Riddle is a challenging online riddle game that I am determined to finish.  If you’re up for a challenge (and can get past the gothic cheesiness) I highly suggest giving it a go.

Level 37: The Eastlands – “The Eastlands seem gloomy in the dusk, but something is displaced”. To solve this level, we need to figure out what is displaced in the image.  A big clue to this can be found in the page source – “the hideous shadows lie dark and mysterious over the lands”.  On the image is a misty compass, with the letter E showing us the direction of East.  After a bit of logical thinking I realised that if it were dusk (like the clue says), the sun would be setting in the West and the shadow of that skeleton-like tree should be falling to the East.  If the shadows are wrong, then thesun is what is displaced.

Level 38: Aljiba Woods – This level is really simple once you clock on to the method.  Each of the words on the image (Nosferatu, ocean, Cathedral, autumn, murder and fury) have a single letter highlighted in a colour.  The progression of coloured dashes below the image give you the order that these letters are to be placed to solve the riddle.  If you assemble the letters from the words on the image in the order specified, all you get is gibberish.  The catch is the clue “there are words of equal importance”.   We need to find synonyms of the words and use those to form the word.  Autumn = fall, ocean = sea, Cathedral = church, fury = rage, Nosferatu = vampire and murder = kill; which gives us our answer, laurel.

Level 39: Yuba Lake – At last, an easy level!  The important clue in this level is under the image – “reality has been twisted, time has been distorted… Horrors within the limits of your imagination… Yet you are perfectly safe”.  This clue is referring to the safety of dreams; where time and reality are distorted and the only limit is your imagination.  The answer to this level is nightmare.  As a point of interest, the transition between waking and sleeping is called hypnagogia and some people experience sleep paralysis while in this state.  Sufferers of sleep paralysis can experience the sensation of pressure on their chest and inability to breathe, which gave birth to folklore such as the Old Hag.

Level 40: Open Waters – Let’s focus on the image first.  It tells us to “search for enlightenment” and if you squint, there is the word “STORY” written ever-so-faintly in huge letters.  The first step is to find the story it’s referring to, which you can access by typing in the answer story.txt.  This will open up a huuuuge text file ebook of Bram Stoker’s Dracula.  Don’t worry, you don’t have to read it all!  Just do what the clue says, hit ctrl+F and search for the word “enlightenment”.  What you should find is a quote from Burger’s poem, Lenore:

<ENLIGHTENMENT> “Denn die Todten reiten Schnell.”  (“For the dead travel fast.”) </ENLIGHTENMENT>

If we refer back to the clue under the original image (“You will never find the mansion on your own… You need somebody’s help… Who will help you?”), it tells us that we are trying to find a “who” – a person(s) who is somehow related to the phrase in the text.  I got really frustrated with this one, because I tried so many answers and read and re-read, only to realise it was annoyingly simple – the answer is thedead.

Level 41: Lauber Mansion -  To solve this riddle, we need to use the cogs with letters on them, and turn them according to the clue in the source:

<!– Active  Turn  Read  –>
<!– [I]          II        [I]   –>
<!– [II]       III      [II]  –>
<!– [I]         IV      [III] –>
<!– [III]     I          [IV]  –>
<!– [IV]     VI       [II]  –>
<!– [II]      III      [I]   –>

The active cog is the cog that we are to turn, turn tells us how many slots to turn it, and read tells us which cog has the letter that we need.  What is important to remember is that a) when one cog turns, the rest turn with it, b) the active cog turns clockwise and the other cogs react respectively and c) the cogs do not “reset” for each letter – they remain in their turned positions.  I found the simplest way to solve this was to cut out paper cogs and follow the directions, rather than trying to keep track of it by writing down my progress.  With the paper cogs, I quickly found the answer – hallow.

Level 42: The Entrance -  We’ll need to download a file to complete this level.  Download the zip file by clicking on the image on the page.  Once extracted, you should have a video file.  Before watching the video, check the source for an important clue.  The filename of the image on the page is “motsatser”, which seems like gibberish, and a bit out of place, no?  Googling it tells us that motsatser is Swedish, and loosely translates to “opposites” in English.  This will make sense as you watch the scenes in the video, as they depict opposites – love and war, sharp and soft, Christianity and Satanism and our mystery opposite.  The source clue tells us that ? is the answer, so it’s as simple as figuring out what the opposite of the triumphant looking white figure is.  The music and body language is like a final scene of a movie, where the hero has just won some minor victory.  The opposite of victory is failure.

Level 43: The Mirror – There are several parts to this riddle, so don’t get discouraged!  The first part of the level shows a mirror with “password: clockwork” written in reflected text, and a shadowy grid.   We will need this password later, so don’t forget it!  The source tells us that someone has left Stains on the mirror.  Stains is written mid-sentence with a capital letter, and everything in Dracula’s Riddle stands out for a reason, right?  Our first answer is stains.

The second part of the level gives us three sets of numbers.  These are coordinates that need to be plotted onto a grid (think back to the first part of the level, it mentioned grids!).  I used excel for this, and put 1-15 along the x axis, 1-12 on the y axis, and used the fill tool to fill each “box” of the grid that the coordinates indicate (e.g. 15+2i is 15 on the x axis, and 2 on the y axis).   The coordinates make a dot-to-dot pattern of three letters.  You may not see it at first, because they are in reverse, like mirror reflections (links back to the first part of the level).  The letters spell out die.

The final part, and easiest!  All we have to do is type in the password that was written on the mirror in the first part of the level – clockwork.

Level 44: The Clockwork – Hurray, another easy one!  The object of this level is to distinguish the pattern and figure out the time that should be on the final, handless clock.  The source gives us a big clue about the pattern – walk along the hands.  If you take careful notice of the hands, especially in the bottom row, you’ll notice that each hand moves up one number in succession – 8, 9, 10 and 1, 2, 3.  It alternates each time between the big hand and the little hand, which gives us the time – 11:20.  The clue gives us a clue on how to enter this time as the answer (first clock shows fifteenpasttwelve); twentypasteleven.

Level 45: The Relics – To solve this riddle, we need to go back a few levels to the mourning woods.  The source clue is referring to the Denis Woods of level 35, and tells us that our answer is written in yellow.  According to the image on our current level, “everything” is the key, and in Denis Woods it is written in yellow that death is everything.  If everything is the key and death is everything, that means that death is the key.

Level 46: Yuba Island – There are a bunch of pages in this level, but it’s relatively simple.  On the first page, there is a letter A on the image.  Typing in a as the answer takes us to the next page, and in the source are  some seemingly random letters – <!– *    ma      wa    re   c –>.  The rest of the pages for this level are in alphabetical sequence – b, c, d etc. through to h.  In each pages source are a jumble of letters similar to the first set we found.  Collect all of them and paste them one under another and you’ll notice that the letters form columns.  I used excel to make this easier and copied the letters and their positioning into 24 columns, with some columns having several letters in each.  I don’t know if there was some pattern to solving this level, but all I did was select a letter from each column and with a little trial and error, I spelled out the answer – nightmaresalwayscometrue.

Level 47: Forest of Vampires – I don’t have a complete solution to this level, because once I got to a certain point, I was able to guess the answer.  The clue under the image tells us that “vampires ignore all but blood” and the source code tells us to “be a vampire”.  If we be a bit creative with these directions it’s telling us that we should ignore everything except blood – i.e. we should be focusing on the red formulas on the image, and ignore the other colours.  Each of these formulas represent a letter of the alphabet.  λ is the symbol for Lambada of the Greek alphabet and is representative of the letter L.  The square root of -1 is I.  F over M refers to Newton’s second law of motion and is represented by the letter A. 30 10⁸ ms^-1 refers to the speed of light and is represented by the letter C.  It was at this point that I was able to arrange the letters and guess the answer.  Just in a nick of time, too, because I had no hope of answering the last two!  The answer is garlic.

Level 48: Town of Aljiba – Why are the simple levels the ones that make me pull my hair out?  The two clues we need to focus on are the image and clue source.  On the image it says “you are here because you have to” and in the source it tells us that the question is the answer.   If you are somewhere because you have to be there, it’s likely that you don’t want to be there.  If you don’t want to be somewhere, what is the question that you ask yourself?  This question is the answer – whyamihere.

Level 49: The Void – For this level we need to do a bit of back-tracking.  There are 6 thumbnails of previous levels on this page, but one of them is blacked out.  The text under the image tells us that we must find the missing piece of the puzzle and in the source, the name of the image tells us that we must go into the past.  So, the aim of this level is to find the level that is missing by using the clues in the source and applying them to the levels pictured.  The levels are 31  – The Dark Hallway, 4 – Woods of Jova, the blacked out level aka the void, 14 – Deborah Cliff, 27 – East Bridge and 11 – Storigoi Graveyard.  The source clues tell us that we are to focus on the answers to these levels, and gives us a sequence of numbers – 1 5 1 8 5 1.  There are exactly the same amount of numbers as there are levels pictured, including the void.  These numbers correspond with a letter from the answer for each level; 1 = the 1st letter of the answer of the 1st level, 5 = the 5th of the 2nd level, etc.  You should come up with the word co-ard.

What we need to do next is find the missing letter.  Logically, this can only be W, and as we’re looking for the 1st letter, the only level that has an answer that begins with W is 10 -  Sadam Woods.  The void is what is important on this level, so it’s not “coward” that’s our answer, it’s the answer for Sadam Woods, the missing level – werewolves.

Level 50: Aljiba Cemetery – Welcome to Headache Town.  Population: me.  The clue under the image tells us not to focus, so I stared bleary eyed at this page for what felt like an eternity.  What you’re looking for is 4 letters that can be formed using the spaces between the dashed lines.  They spell out sear.

Level 51: Her Cemetery – In progress…

I haven’t posted here in forever and a day, and Roxy was right, I do need to update.  Soooo… here I am with a new theme and lots of new motivation (let’s hope it lasts).

Brief me update:  I’ve reached the epitome of nerdydom and taken a job at a video game store.  It gets boring working from home all the time and I was beginning to turn into an antisocial hermit.  I’ve been friends with some of the employees outside of work for a few years, so there are lots of laughs and it’s a great environment to work in.  I’m still slugging away with the site work, but I’ve branched off into a few more creative activities.  I’m now a pixel artist for a vomitingly cute website called Whuddle World and I’m beginning a new venture into polymer clay charms that I’ll be selling locally (already got some store space lined up!) and online, once I finish the website – Yummy Scrummy.

Dear disgruntled parent,

HauntingEchoes.com is COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 [COPPA]) compliant. Users are asked to confirm that they are 13 years or older during the registration process, prior to using our services. Any child under the age of 13 is not granted membership. As you have pointed out, your daughter is 13 years old and meets the minimum registration requirements for HauntingEchoes.com. We are not legally required to deny her membership and we do not need written parental consent for her to use our services. As a side note, COPPA is American law and as the website is owned and operated by an Australian citizen it does not legally apply. Contrary to your condescending jabs at my morality, I am an advocate of the protection of children online and comply with the Act regardless, and not just because I use American services.

Entering an age into the profile display post-registration is not compulsory, nor does it affect a members usability of the website. We do not collect personal information, including “real” names, and any information provided is for display purposes only and is provided at the discretion of the member. Information is not harvested and members are advised not to provide personally identifiable information – this is enforced by the staff of the website. Any information that members deem to include on their profiles is for the sole purpose of meeting other members of similar ages and interests. HauntingEchoes.com holds no responsibility for users entering incorrect or misleading information.

It is not the responsibility of the “Internet” as a collective to ensure that your children only view content that you personally deem appropriate, that is your job as a parent. I take responsibility for my website and ensure that content is legally compliant, but I am not responsible for your child. Obviously, I can’t expect anything more from you than petty insults at my expense so I’m not going to waste my valuable time responding to your jabs regarding “suicidal vampires”.

I have deleted your daughters account from my website, not because I had to and not because I felt obliged to. I’m deleting it out of pity for your daughter, because if this is the kind of harpy bitching that she receives from you just for browsing a website coloured black, then I’m happy to do her a favour and shut you up.

You have a nice day, okay?

Why is it always the most annoying, ear-bleed inducing songs that seem to be constantly playing on the radio?  For the past two days, every time I’ve been in my car or in the shower with the radio on, That’s Not My Name by The Ting Tings has been playing.  The song is about as ridiculous as their band name.

As an alternative to removing the song from my head with a bullet or the nearest pickaxe, I’ve decided to dull my pain by inflicting it onto others via sharing the music video.  Enjoy!