Game Launch: Mare Vitreum (Sea of Glass)

On a very busy day for us here at the ARGNet offices, the last of our day’s articles deals with a beautiful piece of etched glass sent to us through the post. With the words “And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire” written into the glass block, and with nondescript symbols etched along the bottom, we had a feeling that there was a mystery to be solved here. Even as we talked about it during tonight’s ARG Netcast recording, I didn’t have a hot clue as to what to do with this puzzling transparent square slab. And then, thanks comments from Geoff May and redct in the ARG Netcast Ustream channel, we had a destination — marevitreum.com.

You see, those symbols along the bottom which resemble the Klingon alphabet were only part of the message. Luckily for us, there were a few other recipients of the same gift, except at least one (thatsplenty at Flickr) had different etchings at the bottom. Simply line up the two and the web site URL magically appears.

The web site includes a mystery of its own, with blurry paragraphs that clear up as you mouse over them. The thing is, the blurry paragraphs have red letters strewn within the text, and the clear version do not. Sean C. Stacey and I actually went through and solved the puzzle during the netcast recording, getting the message “Oct thirty first new york city” which points, quite obviously, to Halloween in NYC. Besides that, other mouse overs reveal text which seems rather religious in tone — appropriate as the ‘sea of glass’ quote comes from Revelations 15:2.

So, anyone up for a bit of fun on All Hallow’s Eve in the Big Apple? If you’re in the area, stay tuned for developments of this new mystery.