Currently on Blair Witch: Season 1...

You've discovered that missing teenager Liam Kent was exchanging coded messages with a mysterious man named Carver, who appears to have been planning to lure Liam into the woods under the pretense of helping Liam harness the supernatural capabilities of the woods to reconnect with his deceased father. This is not the first time Carver has terrorized the town: he was also responsible for the tragic disappearance of a young boy in the nineties.

Using this information, Rosemary was able to reinvigorate the search effort for Liam. Recently, the forest-bound search parties have found a number of relevant clues: several of Liam's own notes, as well as a threatening note from Carver himself.

From the text of this note, it's clear that Carver's plans involve more than just Liam, although it is not clear precisely what Carver plans to do next. It's up to you to discover exactly how Carver plans to strike next.

Hints

Carver's Hidden Message

• Carver has written a message using symbols that you have seen before. Use your knowledge of these symbols to decipher his message.

• Carver's code can be deciphered using this guide:

• The text of Carver's message can be applied to another document in the box to reveal yet another hidden message.
• In the security report, Anthony mentions that a series of strange events have recently occurred in the museum. These events have focused around a particular section of text in a particular document. This text is relevant to the puzzle.
• A certain section of the folklore booklet can be used to reveal Carver's hidden message.

Liam's Hidden Message

• According to Liam, he has hidden the name of Carver's target across several documents and items in the box. If you find and combine eight disparate elements, you will be able to complete the episode's objective.
• There is more to Liam's note than meets the eye.
• There is more to the school disciplinary note than meets the eye.
• Pay attention to the way that Liam addresses his brother in the school disciplinary note.
• There is more to the folklore booklet than meets the eye.
• Inspect the school folder very closely.
• The image on the carved slate can be combined with the image on the drawing to form the framework for a larger, complete image. This image can be combined with the hidden elements on other documents.
• You will know that you have placed each of the hidden puzzle pieces onto the grid correctly if they are all facing the same way: no letters should be upside-down or backward.
• Once you complete the image, pay attention to the five letters that the ends of the stickman point to.

Logging On

• Rosemary needs to find the name of Carver's next focus. To complete this episode, you need to type the name of what Carver is after into the tipline on www.kentcase.com. The website's password is Branches12. 

Reveals

Carver's Hidden Message

• Carver wrote a series of numbers on Carver's message. They read as follows:

  • Four one
  • Four two
  • Seven five
  • Fourteen five
  • Twenty two five
  • Seven three
  • Twenty three four
  • Fourteen three
  • Eight six
  • Eight five
  • Eight one
  • Five seven
• If you cross-reference these numbers with a relevant piece of text in the box, you will reveal his secret message.
• These numbers form a book cipher.
• To solve this cipher, you must first find the section of text that it relates to. Then, you must take the first number of each set of two numbers and find the line of the text that it refers to. Then, take the second number of each set and find the corresponding word on that line.
• For example, to solve the numbers "four one", you must go to the fourth line of the selected section of text, and then find the first word of that line.
• Apply the numbers of the book cipher to the Towering Man poem in Of Witches and Other Warnings to reveal Carver's message.

• Carver's book cipher spells out the following:

  • YOU'LL HAVE A TASTE OF WHAT YOU WANT HE IS COMING HOME

Liam's Hidden Message

• The following sentences are written on Liam's note in invisible ink:

  • I want to go home.
  • I want to go home.
  • I want to go home.
  • I want to go home.
  • I want to go home.
  • I want to go home.
• If anyone finds this, Carver wants me to do something horrible and I don't know if I can resist. Please stop us.
• Can't risk being found out. Going to pretend like I'm doodling and hope that you find my folder. I'll make one last break for it and throw this as far into the woods as I can.
• Six will show what he wants, if you know how to line it all up.

• Hidden at the bottom of the note is the following image.

• The following is written on the school disciplinary note in invisible ink.

• The following has been written in the folklore booklet in invisible ink.

• The following image can be found hidden on the inner flap of the school folder.

• If you use Liam's crayon to rub the image on the carved slate onto the image in the upper-right corner of Liam's drawing, you will form the image of a stickman on a blank grid. The result should look like this:

• Fill this grid with the puzzle pieces that are hidden throughout the box to find Liam's hidden message in order to complete the episode.
• Once you successfully arrange all of the puzzle pieces on the grid, they should form this configuration:

• When placed in the correct position on the grid, the ends of the stickman point to the letters S-K-U-N-K. This is the nickname of Carver's target. Another document in the box will tell you whose nickname this is.

• According to the school disciplinary report, Liam occasionally calls his brother Tristan "Skunk". Carver's next target is Tristan. Type the name Tristan into the tipline on www.kentcase.com to complete the episode.

Hidden Text

Liam's Notes

• I want to go home.
• I want to go home.
• I want to go home.
• I want to go home.
• I want to go home.
• I want to go home.
• If anyone finds this, Carver wants me to do something horrible and I don't know if I can resist. Please stop us.
• Can't risk being found out. Going to pretend like I'm doodling and hope that you find my folder. I'll make one last break for it and throw this as far into the woods as I can.
• Six will show what he wants, if you know how to line it all up.

Transcripts

Liam's Notes

• I don't know if anyone's ever going to find this. If they do, I guess it might be on my body. But bodies go unrecovered in these woods all the time. My name is Liam. Please tell my mom and brother that I'm sorry. I thought that I was going to bring us all back together, but I was wrong.
• He said he'd bring me to my dad, but all we've done for what feels like days is walk deeper into the forest.
• There aren't any birds or deer. There's only Carver.
• I can't remember the last time I ate, but I don't feel hungry. Empty, but not hungry.
• We've been walking in circles. I miss Mom. I miss my brother. I miss Tank.
• I don't like the way he looks at me. Like he knows everything about me.
• Sometimes he laughs at nothing. Twice, he's told me to keep it down, like he was listening to something I didn't say out loud.
• When I ask him about Dad, he laughs. Mostly he insists we're making progress, but that's insane. He's insane.
• We reached a clearing with a hollow stump in the middle, surrounded by carvings. He made a fire. I stay near it to stay warm, but I never look into the fire. I see terrible things when I look into it.
• We haven't moved from this spot in a long time. I don't know what we're waiting for, and he doesn't answer my questions. Sometimes he leaves for hours at a time. I never know he's back until I hear him breathing. Sticks don't break where he walks.
• He disappeared again. I'm going to make a run for it. I can sometimes see the north star in the night sky. If I head away from it, I should be able to get back to town.
• It's so dark and so cold and I'm so tired. I don't know how long I've been out here, but I can't sleep. I'm too scared. It's always so silent, until I try to sleep. Then the noises come. Screeching and laughing and crying and growling. Just have to keep moving.
• I could swear that I've been going south for days without veering off course once, but I ended up back at the hollow just the same. He was waiting for me there. He looked up from the fire and laughed at me.
• Tried to run again. He said stop, and I stopped. I didn't want to, but my body just listened.
• He finally told me what he wants. I guess he told me before I ever followed him into here, but I just didn't listen. I want to throw up, but there's nothing in my stomach.
• Gotta be careful what I leave lying around. I'm using everything Dad taught me. I wish that I had my light with me, but I'm glad that I had plenty of pens in my pocket when I left. Including a special one.

Rosemary's Confirmation Audio Recording

[Beginning of recorded material]

 

Rosemary: No! Not Tristan... not my little skunk. I'm on my way home right now. Damn it, damn it, damn it! Of all the times to be stuck at a goddamn red light. Come on, come on, come on. Turn green, damn it. Turn green! TURN GREEN! (heavy breathing) That psycho. He's not going to get what he wants. Not again. Not ever again. I called Lanning's office. He should be on his way. I'm going to rip Carver's head off. I'm going to scatter his body all through the woods. Tristan? Tristan, honey, please answer me right now! Tris? (pause) Tristan? Tristan? (heavy breathing) Where are you? (gasping) Tristan! TRISTAN! (sobbing) He's gone! (sobbing) Oh no. I won't let this happen. Not again. And you're not going to either. We... are going... to fix this. (the sound of a car outside) That's Lanning. I'm going out to talk to him. I'll be in touch.

 

[End of recorded material]

SuperNeutral Podcast: Banshees Audio Recording

[INTRO MUSIC, fading to the introduction by our hosts Ed Barrett and James Durant.]

 

Ed: Welcome to SuperNeutral, the pint-sized paranormal podcast that pits a believer: that's me, Ed Barrett...

James: Against a skeptic. That's me: James Durant.

Ed: On this minisode, we're going to talk about one of the most frightening concepts I can imagine: BANSHEES.

James: Oooh!

Ed: Well, James, you know... I heard a banshee once.

James: Shut up.

Ed: No, seriously. It was maybe ten years ago. I had just come home from the restaurant where I worked, and I heard the most distinct voice RIGHT behind me.

James: Screaming?

Ed: No. Just a short breath. It was... kind of like an exhale.

James: Okay, well, banshees are supposed to scream, so...

Ed: The next day, my grandma passed away.

James: Oh. Is that a true story?

Ed: 100% true.

James: Well, listen, I'm sorry about your grandma, but literally the defining characteristic of banshees is how loud they are.

Ed: I just figured maybe this one barely had enough energy to break through into our world, you know? It takes a lot of energy for spirits to interact with the living.

James: Right. Well, hey, I just want to share something I researched after writing that Spotlight because I found some pretty cool information that could explain why people may have heard voices yelling in the night despite seeing no human being who did it.

Ed: Cool.

James: Take a listen to this.

 

[James plays the sound of a red fox calling in the woods.]

 

James (cont'd): You get up to look around, but there's no one there.

Ed: I love that. That's so scary. What is that?

James: That's a red fox.

Ed: Incredible.

James: Yeah. And here, listen to this: This is a barn owl.

 

[James plays audio of a barn owl screeching.]

 

Ed: That's so cool! It really sounds like a person. I can absolutely see why someone would think this was a human screaming.

James: Exactly. So that's one of the things that might explain the stories of banshees. It was people in another time making sense of the sounds of native animals they heard outside. But instead of the ghosts of old women, it might have been something more down to earth: animals that happen to sound particularly human!

Ed: Well, sure, or, you know, people found a few animals with scary-sounding screams and used them to calm themselves down about the ghost screams they'd been hearing all along.

James (at a loss): No...

Ed: Unfortunately, I think that's all the time we have for this mini episode of SuperNeutral -

James: I didn't even get to point out the ageism and misogyny inherent in making old women out to be monsters!

Ed: Right. You chose to use this time to play animal sounds to me.

 

[James groans.]

 

Ed (cont'd): So thank you all so much for joining us, and we hope you learned something interesting and had a spooky time doing it.

James (still reeling): We'll see you in the next minisode.

But until that time comes, it's safe to turn out the lights.

Ed: Or is it?

 

[The SuperNeutral theme music closes out the podcast.]