FOUND the Lost Ring
If you aren't fed up with Alternate Reality Game posts, you might have seen my last one with the details of the dead-drop mission to Marfa, Texas. Marfa is a 6 1/2 hour trip from Austin, and we were supposed to be there at 2 pm to grab the dead drop. The "agent" we were supposed to meet there tacked on the requirement that we disguise ourselves as street musicians and perform in front of the Marfa Book Store so she could walk by and leave us the information as if she was dropping a tip for us
So, another player from Dallas said she would come to Austin if we would drive out to Marfa. She was going to get on stand-by and fly down Friday night so we could leave before dawn on Saturday morning, but she couldn't get a seat and ended up renting a car to drive down (thus she drove all night from Dallas to get here at 4 AM) and by about 5, we set out from here. The drive was was a lot more pleasant that I thought it would be (except for the harrowing bits- don't click if you don't want to read the car wreck part)) We were about an hour or hour and a half out of Austin on a stretch of the road between small towns and not seeing any traffic when we came upon a roll over wreck. It wasn't fully light out, but we could see debris strewn across the undivided highway in a huge arc, and the car upside down and flattened up against a guard rail. It must have pinwheeled more than 50 yards down the road because Kyle had to stop a good way back. He started dialing and I jumped out and headed for the smashed car. I felt like I was pushing through water trying to get up to that car and I couldn't see anyone around and couldn't hear anything but the horn of the car blaring. And as I was getting closer, some other pick-ups stopped from the other direction and men were getting out and asking stuff and I said I didn't know and finally got close enough and I had to get down on the pavement to see into the car. There was a woman pinned in there but she was alert and could talk to me and so I asked her if anyone else was in there and told her we were calling 911 and I got back up and started shouting to the guys on the phones that it was one woman, conscious and talking and trapped and I don't know what all and one of them handed me their phone to talk to the 911 dispatcher, by which time I was completely babbling and could only clarify for them that it was a single car accident with one passenger trapped. And then Laura came up with the lady's purse from out of the road and we took that over to her and some guy was asking me if I didn't think there was more than one person because a hand was sticking out the other side of the car and I immediately went the other direction up the road. Other cars were stopping and we were trying to get the road clear of stuff- she'd had a car full things- recent shopping and there were big pieces of the car in the road and we started trying to help find the woman's cell phone in the debris because there was a charger but we didn't find the phone. The road was crunchy with CD's, DVD's, cassette tapes. And the police, fire, and ambulance came and started working, and when there was eventually an officer available to direct traffic, we asked him if we needed to do anything else as first on the scene and since we hadn't actually seen it happen, he said we could go. So we got back on our way to Marfa. I don't know how it was really possible to seal that event out of our minds and go on with our game, but we did it. I had blood on my shirt, but convinced myself I'd cut my own finger picking up road debris. Once we got to I-10, the road was beautiful. And I mean it was a beautiful piece of pavement, not like the section of I-10 that leads to Houston. And the scenery was not what I expected (I was imagining northwest Texas) because after the "hill country" we came to these mini-mountains and plateaus and a huge wind farm and the land was a bizarre sage green and the temperature stayed down below 80.
On arrival in Marfa, we drove around the town staring at everyone and suspecting them all of being agents we were supposed to meet. Apparently, driving around staring is perfectly normal behavior in Marfa because no one objected. We noticed that the Marfa Book Store in about two doors down from the police station (hoped panhandling wasn't a ticket-able offense) and ducked into a coffee shop. The coffee shop had a huge diagram of the multiverse made of Christmas lights tacked on one wall- maybe that was just my imagination as I was drinking coffee while already road-numb, nervous and itching to impress the multiverse with my harmonicas.
We had to wait because we somehow made it to Marfa with time to spare. Kyle and Laura were acting very calm at this point and trying to outdo each other at being soft spoken and sitting still. I was pacing and had to go back outside- where the weather was bizarrely perfect. Eventually it was time to set up. There was a lot of setting up to do because Laura had her laptop and was going to live webcast our performace. This was because players from different parts of the globe were expecting to be able to see it. They plugged the laptop into the SUV, which as a 3 prong outlet and ran the cord out the passenger window to the hood. She tapped into WiFi from the local pizza place two blocks away. We put on disguise items to attempt to look like folk-hippie-goofy musicians. Laura brought a guitar and various toy instruments. She doesn't know how to play guitar. Kyle had made a "bass" out of a bucket, a bungee cord and a broom handle and a hose clamp, which surprisingly made a musical noise, though he didn't know how to play a tune on it.
Now, Kyle is not really playing the ARG- he's been involved because I ask him to help out with stuff. And when this task came up, he at first said "I'm not going to Marfa" but 20 minutes later had the route planned. And when the street musician thing came up he said "I'm not doing that- I'm staying in the car" but before too long, he was researching how to build a musical instrument and wishing he had more time to perfect it. Anyway, we started playing and web casting. I actually do know how to play the harmonica, though I don't think I was able to wow the world with my performance on this occasion. I made noise at first then launched into "twinkle twinkle little star." Marfa is a very friendly place. The people in the book store took up a collection and tipped us 49 cents. The local newspaper man talked to us and gave us a free paper after lhall explained what we were doing and he said "I don't get it" about 6 times. Towards the end of our "musical performance" we got a request to play "Oh Susanna" from some passersby and one of them sang along with us. And then our contact came by and tipped us the two dollars with the clue written on the bills.
The clue was a license tag number and we just had to find the car with that tag in a parking lot. There aren't a lot of parking lots so it was easy. I ran around the corner to the closest lot while Kyle and Laura picked up the equipment. I found the car and waited for them to drive around and Laura opened the car and took out the huge box.
We knew what we were going to find in the box- a big ring sculpture with a section of a coded message engraved on it. We shoved this into our vehicle and took off, heading around the block, back to the pizza place where Laura got back on-line to the IRC chat for the game to show them the sculpture and give them the code. Mission accomplished. So we went inside and ordered half a cheese pizza, had lunch and then headed home. We stopped at the turn-out for the place where people observe the Marfa Lights, but of course it was broad daylight, so no strange lights. We took some goofy pictures of the sculpture to show that it was found in Texas and then Kyle did some serious driving to get us back to Austin.
So, another player from Dallas said she would come to Austin if we would drive out to Marfa. She was going to get on stand-by and fly down Friday night so we could leave before dawn on Saturday morning, but she couldn't get a seat and ended up renting a car to drive down (thus she drove all night from Dallas to get here at 4 AM) and by about 5, we set out from here. The drive was was a lot more pleasant that I thought it would be (except for the harrowing bits- don't click if you don't want to read the car wreck part)) We were about an hour or hour and a half out of Austin on a stretch of the road between small towns and not seeing any traffic when we came upon a roll over wreck. It wasn't fully light out, but we could see debris strewn across the undivided highway in a huge arc, and the car upside down and flattened up against a guard rail. It must have pinwheeled more than 50 yards down the road because Kyle had to stop a good way back. He started dialing and I jumped out and headed for the smashed car. I felt like I was pushing through water trying to get up to that car and I couldn't see anyone around and couldn't hear anything but the horn of the car blaring. And as I was getting closer, some other pick-ups stopped from the other direction and men were getting out and asking stuff and I said I didn't know and finally got close enough and I had to get down on the pavement to see into the car. There was a woman pinned in there but she was alert and could talk to me and so I asked her if anyone else was in there and told her we were calling 911 and I got back up and started shouting to the guys on the phones that it was one woman, conscious and talking and trapped and I don't know what all and one of them handed me their phone to talk to the 911 dispatcher, by which time I was completely babbling and could only clarify for them that it was a single car accident with one passenger trapped. And then Laura came up with the lady's purse from out of the road and we took that over to her and some guy was asking me if I didn't think there was more than one person because a hand was sticking out the other side of the car and I immediately went the other direction up the road. Other cars were stopping and we were trying to get the road clear of stuff- she'd had a car full things- recent shopping and there were big pieces of the car in the road and we started trying to help find the woman's cell phone in the debris because there was a charger but we didn't find the phone. The road was crunchy with CD's, DVD's, cassette tapes. And the police, fire, and ambulance came and started working, and when there was eventually an officer available to direct traffic, we asked him if we needed to do anything else as first on the scene and since we hadn't actually seen it happen, he said we could go. So we got back on our way to Marfa. I don't know how it was really possible to seal that event out of our minds and go on with our game, but we did it. I had blood on my shirt, but convinced myself I'd cut my own finger picking up road debris. Once we got to I-10, the road was beautiful. And I mean it was a beautiful piece of pavement, not like the section of I-10 that leads to Houston. And the scenery was not what I expected (I was imagining northwest Texas) because after the "hill country" we came to these mini-mountains and plateaus and a huge wind farm and the land was a bizarre sage green and the temperature stayed down below 80.
On arrival in Marfa, we drove around the town staring at everyone and suspecting them all of being agents we were supposed to meet. Apparently, driving around staring is perfectly normal behavior in Marfa because no one objected. We noticed that the Marfa Book Store in about two doors down from the police station (hoped panhandling wasn't a ticket-able offense) and ducked into a coffee shop. The coffee shop had a huge diagram of the multiverse made of Christmas lights tacked on one wall- maybe that was just my imagination as I was drinking coffee while already road-numb, nervous and itching to impress the multiverse with my harmonicas.
We had to wait because we somehow made it to Marfa with time to spare. Kyle and Laura were acting very calm at this point and trying to outdo each other at being soft spoken and sitting still. I was pacing and had to go back outside- where the weather was bizarrely perfect. Eventually it was time to set up. There was a lot of setting up to do because Laura had her laptop and was going to live webcast our performace. This was because players from different parts of the globe were expecting to be able to see it. They plugged the laptop into the SUV, which as a 3 prong outlet and ran the cord out the passenger window to the hood. She tapped into WiFi from the local pizza place two blocks away. We put on disguise items to attempt to look like folk-hippie-goofy musicians. Laura brought a guitar and various toy instruments. She doesn't know how to play guitar. Kyle had made a "bass" out of a bucket, a bungee cord and a broom handle and a hose clamp, which surprisingly made a musical noise, though he didn't know how to play a tune on it.
Now, Kyle is not really playing the ARG- he's been involved because I ask him to help out with stuff. And when this task came up, he at first said "I'm not going to Marfa" but 20 minutes later had the route planned. And when the street musician thing came up he said "I'm not doing that- I'm staying in the car" but before too long, he was researching how to build a musical instrument and wishing he had more time to perfect it. Anyway, we started playing and web casting. I actually do know how to play the harmonica, though I don't think I was able to wow the world with my performance on this occasion. I made noise at first then launched into "twinkle twinkle little star." Marfa is a very friendly place. The people in the book store took up a collection and tipped us 49 cents. The local newspaper man talked to us and gave us a free paper after lhall explained what we were doing and he said "I don't get it" about 6 times. Towards the end of our "musical performance" we got a request to play "Oh Susanna" from some passersby and one of them sang along with us. And then our contact came by and tipped us the two dollars with the clue written on the bills.
The clue was a license tag number and we just had to find the car with that tag in a parking lot. There aren't a lot of parking lots so it was easy. I ran around the corner to the closest lot while Kyle and Laura picked up the equipment. I found the car and waited for them to drive around and Laura opened the car and took out the huge box.
We knew what we were going to find in the box- a big ring sculpture with a section of a coded message engraved on it. We shoved this into our vehicle and took off, heading around the block, back to the pizza place where Laura got back on-line to the IRC chat for the game to show them the sculpture and give them the code. Mission accomplished. So we went inside and ordered half a cheese pizza, had lunch and then headed home. We stopped at the turn-out for the place where people observe the Marfa Lights, but of course it was broad daylight, so no strange lights. We took some goofy pictures of the sculpture to show that it was found in Texas and then Kyle did some serious driving to get us back to Austin.