In which the eidesis is presented to the sky.

Solved: 2018-05-17

Details

There are two paths to solving this phase, one of which was added much later: the Bird/Worm slider, and the hidden elements in the game files. The two are presented below.

Bird/Worm Slider (Recommended)

Toggling the Bird/Worm slider in the Options menu of the game at least once will add this entry to the save file:

“WeAwaitSTE”: “Hello, Seeker. If you’re here to decipher enigmas, familiarise yourself with the eidesis in which were presented the Lion, the Boar and the Bull, and present it in turn to the sky.”

The value is identical for Worm and Bird.

The eidesis refers to the The Athenian Murders, by José Carlos Somoza. The novel describes a book which supposedly employs a fictional literary device called an eidesis to evoke the Twelve Labors of Heracles, in which Heracles must slay the Nemean Lion and capture both the Erymanthian Boar and the Cretan Bull.

The sky refers to the Weather Factory website, since a “weather factory” is conventionally called a sky. In a throwback to Ambition: Enigma from Fallen London, the URL of the website must be changed to https://weatherfactory.biz/athenianmurders/ to access Phase I (note the lack of “the”, in contrast to Ambition: Enigma’s first step).

WeAwaitSTE is not relevant to this phase, and is detailed on the next phase’s page.

Hidden Elements

Before the Bird/Worm slider was updated to add a hint to the save file, the only hints to enigma were in the game files, which contained five relevant elements with comments:

• fragmentglory (“A Recollection of Glory”): “Hello, Seeker. If you’re here to decipher enigmas, familiarise yourself with the eidesis in which were presented the Lion, the Boar and the Bull. – AK.”
• lionweb (The Lion in the Web): “Information lives in the sky.”
• boarwords (The Boar in the Words): “Titles are criminal.”
• worldbull (The World in the Bull): “The crime At the beginning”
• notaworm (Possibly a Bird): “We Await S.T.E.”

It is now generally considered that these were an early attempt at providing clues for Phase I and Phase II, and these files are rarely referenced anymore.

fragmentglory, lionweb and notaworm are equivalent to the combined hint provided by the Bird/Worm slider. See the above section for an explanation.

lionweb also points to the “web” being relevant, in the form of the Weather Factory website.

boarwords also indicates that the title of the eidesis is relevant to solving this.

notaworm, boarwords and worldbull can also be construed as hints for getting to Phase II; this is detailed further on the next page.

History

• 2017-12-15: /athenianmurders/ page created.
• 2018-02-09: fragmentglory is first discussed in the Discord.
• 2018-05-16: The Bird/Worm slider is updated to add a relevant hint in the save file. Phase 0 is solved by the Discord. A message at the bottom of the page reads: “[It is politely requested that you do not share this URL directly, to allow others to find their own way here.]”
• 2018-05-18: The message at the bottom is changed to: “[It is politely requested that until Monday 21st May 2018 you do not share this URL directly, to allow others to find their own way here.]”
• 2018-07-06: /athenianmurders/ page is updated to its current state.