Monday, 28 July 2014

story - The SErial Killer (Part 3)


This puzzle is part of a series - part 1 is here and part 2 is here. Any comments I make on the OP are canonical and out of character (OOC). Any comments I post on answers are for flavour only.


Since part 2 turned out to be too easy (or at least, solved too quickly), part 3 is harder. If it turns out to be too hard, I will start hinting, but that won't happen within the first few hours. It's a puzzle - get thinking :-) This version has gone through about 5 revisions and I'm finally happy with it, and where the series is now going (shakes fist at skv).




You take a deep breath and settle yourself. In a moment of brilliance you realise that $\overline{XC}CCCLXXXIII$ is the Roman numeral for 90383, and the b on the end forms a hexadecimal colour. You quickly map this to the colour used on the & logo of the English Language & Usage Stack - it's an exact match!


Something's nagging at you in the back of your mind though - Handel seems strangely familiar. You cast your mind around... do you know any German composers? No, that's dumb. Male friends who wear wigs? Well, you know plenty of them but you don't think any of them are called Handel.


Hang on a second... "called Handel"... what if Handel is actually a handle for the real name? As soon as that occurs to you, you realise that a Doorknob is a synonym for "handle". Just like that, in one moment of brilliance you identify "Handel" and absolutely infuriate the narrator of the series, who was hoping to sneak that one under the radar for a little while.


Deciding that since you've already caused so many headaches, you figure your best lead would be to check out Doorknob's profile - it's more likely to have an unintentional clue than whatever fiendish and convoluted puzzle awaits you in EL&U. Besides, you're on the same Stack so it's not like you're going to cause the deaths of any more Stacks, right?



You open Doorknob's profile, and straight away you twig that something's clearly not right.


http://new.tinygrab.com/c158ca1523a3647daaedeb813e9478b0cbbefa711a.png


As you try to make sense of the mess, suddenly pop-up windows start appearing all over the screen. Initially they're white, but then they all start loading different Stacks! "Oh no... no, no, no, not good!" you cry, trying desperately to close them but there are just too many. As a last-gasp effort, you flick the power switch on the wall to turn your computer off. The screen goes black and the fans slowly whir to a stop.


You wait.


You fear starting the computer up again, but know that it's not going to be very helpful in bringing the attacker(s) to justice if you just leave it powered off all day, and it could be disastrous if they're allowed to run loose, unchecked. You steel yourself, take a deep breath and turn the computer back on.


You pull up your browser when the computers finishes booting up, and breathe a sigh of relief when absolutely nothing unusual at all happens. Browsing to Stack Exchange also seems safe enough - nothing explodes, the site looks normal, and for a moment you let yourself think that maybe everything's OK.


Then you look at the list of Stacks. An ominous message greets you, there are even more dead Stacks and critically, English Language & Usage has been killed. Your last lead has gone cold. You slump back in your seat, a sense of defeat beginning to crash down on you. What on earth can you do next?


OOC: Ask Ubuntu should be dead too - I missed that when making the image. I'll fix it for part 4.


enter image description here



Answer




This is all I've got so far but I'm at work and shouldn't be on PSE. :)



Check out Area 51.



Why?



Collectively earth, wind, fire, and water are the elements. Badly annoy Tim: anagram ANNOYTIM into the element antimony, symbol Sb, atomic number 51. "We are not alone" also fits Area 51.



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