Hey! I can confirm it's random: the Key is sent from my email account, the auto-reply is sent from ahnayro email account.
Sigil teached me to get paranoid. Now you put my trust issues in jeopardy I demand a trial by combat!
Have we not cracked this yet? Let's brain pool a little. There are a couple of glaring divergences to the three hints we've received so far: the poem, the quote and the image. Let's compile! (1) The Demiurge's Laugh Spoiler VERSE 1, LINE 5: that i suddenly heaRd-all i needed to hear VERSE 2, LINE 9: as OF one who utterly couldn't care VERSE 3, LINES 15 and 16: and checked my steps to make pretenSe (Note: this is a swap, not a removal) iT was something among the leaves i sought R OF S T = is, of course, an anagram for FROST, but we already know that he is the author of this poem. (One supposes it could also be FORTS.) Could the order be significant? Is it a cipher key? But if it is, where's the cipher we haven't cracked? Is the swap from C to S, diverging from the method of simple removals, meant to lure us toward the solution of FROST rather than ROFT or was it simply meant to be more easy to miss than the removals? (2) The Quote Spoiler All it takes is a quick look at the quote to see that there's a verb missing: this verb is LAUGH. And a quick google search is all that's necessary to get some quote attribution. We've already figured that it goes into the bit.ly link. The quote and the poem are, thusly, connected via laughter. What about the image? (3) The Image Spoiler The image, named poet.png, pictures the Saami flag - its second iteration - with one notable distinction: its colours have been inverted. Could this inversion point toward a reversion of text? SAMI - IMAS? A search for "IMAS poet" actually brings up a hit: the International Museum of Art and Science has an exhibit called "Poetry on the Walls", running right now. There are plenty Sami poets - Nils-Aslak Valkeapää, Paulus Utsi - but their names aren't the answer, and none of their public work is about demons, frost or laughter (mostly, it's about reindeer). There is also a poet named Sami, a Pakistani who lived between 1743 and 1850 (an impressive age). In conclusion, we have three "words" to consider: Spoiler R OF S T, LAUGH, SAMI/IMAS Has anybody gotten further? Anything to add to or debunk from my theories?
Considering the main subject of the game, Nils-Aslak Valkeapää's poetry is the closest thing we have. He wrote a lot about dreams/shamanic experiences. He wrote "The Frost-haired and the Dream-seer". The Purple One also mentionned the use of the ********* technique + shamanic methods.
i tried to compare the verse as well, and i found a nearly identical version online; Spoiler http://sinemetu1.github.io/poemmm/7f039f5d0db7e02829d5f280e8c06e71fd59c145.html meaning that i dont think those changes are relevent... though it does seem suspicious that we can make said word with those letters... i also just found another verse by the same name, minus the verb, by another poet... the name of the author results in an incorrect answer reply, but its fun to look into
..I suppose it's humanely possible that they copy/pasted a version of the poem that was in fact full of faults, but the fact that these discrepancies spell out such a related word is pretty uncanny for a coincidence! Stranger things have happened, of course.
