Resurrecting Blueno - The Interaction

April 15, 2022

This page will contain story spoilers for Brown Puzzlehunt 2023.

Delivering story to solvers was important to HQ. Thus, for the longest time, I had pencilled in a “post first-meta solve interaction” of some description, where a member of HQ would go and yell at the solvers for doing Ostensibly Very Bad Things by solving puzzles. It would also allow for the delivery of the cute Blueno pins we had. But the actual, practical nuts and bolts of this was not ironed out until perhaps a few nights before the hunt started, when we were making final story decisions. (This was around the time that the final runaround was also getting finalised.)

At this point, the story team came up to me and asked, “what do you want this interaction to look like?” After my attempt to weasel out of the responsibility failed, I said, “It should sound something like this.” Then proceeded a rambling monologue about robes, and gods, and consequences, and aspects, and probably some other things.

The story team nodded very sagely, and went away and wrote this. I have decided to archive the text of the interaction here for posterity.

(Edited slightly to fix punctuation mistakes and formatting.)

When they solve the first meta: call them to say “Hello! We have an urgent message to give you. Where can we find you?”

When we get to them in-person:

You fools! A group of hooded figures using big words tells you that they want to summon an eldritch being, and you think they’re the good guys? Blueno is a being of unfathomable chaos and destruction. If our world was a map on the wall, he would be like an eternally drowning fish in a fishbowl in the next room over. Allowing him to return to campus would mean losing everything!

I think there’s still hope. I was once a member of the Resurrection Society myself. When I learned the truth, I escaped, but not before they cursed me to forever appear as if I am reading off a piece of paper. Now I lead a group called the Bluenope society, and we’ve managed to infiltrate the Blueno Resurrection Society and learn of their plans.

The summoning has begun, and there’s three parts of Blueno that we need to target if we want to stop his full return; his corporeal form, his light, and Dear Blueno, the platform he uses to spread his malice. I’ve gotta run, but I’ve given you access to the Resurrection Society’s plans. In classic cult fashion, the plans are disguised, and you must solve puzzles to uncover them. I hope your work so far, however misguided, was good practice.

I believe in you. The fate of the world rests in your hands. Goodbye.