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.

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!