Dear @Clay,
Please check Slack for another message from your Secret Santa!
Best,
fire
Dear @krayzkrok,
Per our conversation earlier, your Secret Santa will delay shipping until you’re back from Places Which Mail Don’t Reach (i.e., Antarctica). Please let us know when you’re back on a continent with a postal system.
Best,
fire
My Santa was @Scott123, and he really delivered.
Here is the before (featuring a photobomb from one of our cats)
And here is the after: a big pile of stuff that hits all the major food groups – movies, music games, chocolate, EDC, and tiny houses…
Plus the last (and arguably most important) food group, an insulated tumbler for my latte:
Thank you so much, Scott. You did great!
Glad you like it and don’t have it yet (I have been nervously watching the “Boardgaming in 2017” thread for the last month). Merry Christmas!
Wait, what? How did you know it was me? I hope there won’t be a nasty surprise of it being in…CANADIAN DOLLARS!
You’re welcome! It was a bit of a random collection of things I thought you would enjoy. Merry Christmas!
Very glad you liked it @Jason_McMaster! I must remember to lower the print on the cups somewhat though, so as not to force people to fill it to the brim… :-)
As for my gift: the large box contained an absolutely beautiful looking boardgame: Tokaido!
I have never heard of it, but it looks lovely and very interesting, so I’m very eager to try it! Thanks mysterious Santa!
Oh! Oh! I love that game. I think your Santa must be very wise to have chosen it.
Awesome. I just gave Tokaido to my wife for Xmas. I was reading that if you like the vanilla game but would like to add more strategy to it, that the first expansion is excellent and introduces strategic challenges without making it less of a relaxing game to play.
Upon initiating my search and seizure, I encounter a horrifying beast in a top hat! It attempts to soothe me with a cute nickname, but I will have none of it. I am on my guard from the start.
Two years in a row now, the crafty @rowe33 and @CraigM have tried to best me with traps, puzzles, cryptography, and danger. Now it is the turn of their leader, @ankamela!
Here is @CraigM’s masterpiece from Secret Santa 10: The paper locks introduction, and The paper locks opening.
And @rowe33’s cryptological fantasy from Secret Santa 9: I’m not really as dumb as I sounded!
Having been already tested, I took the obvious path: flip the garish beast over, so that it could no longer stare into my soul. But my gods, the reverse bore TWO phantasmagoric creatures, each wearing a more peculiar hat than the first!
Before my emotions could master me, I thrust a hand into the bag and drew out the lone object inhabiting its interior. Fire and hell, a HUMAN HEAD WRAPPED IN A BANDAGE.
When I could breathe well enough to speak, I summoned Gregory from downstairs, and he unwrapped the ghastly bandage from around the horrible tribute. The words written within were quite at odds with their setting. In fact, I cannot in good faith share any more of them, as this one comment that I have shown is only the beginning of an essay devoted to my own personal magnificence.
I knew that these honeyed phrases were luring me into unwrapping the bundle and gazing into the eyes of the victim inside, but I could not tear my eyes away, and urged Gregory to unwrap faster.
When the bundle was fully unpacked, I realized that I may have over-reached in my emotions. Come to think of it, the sphere was quite light in my hand. In any case, I had Gregory translate the sphere’s message, as he grew up in public places.
I turned to the other object inside the parcel: a sort of sarcophagus held together with sticky rectangles. Gregory produced a letter opener and we carefully slit the strange cloth to reveal the contents. By “we” I should say “he”, as I had repaired to a vantage point across the room while the slicing was accomplished.
And here it begins! Upon the sarcophagus lay a note from one of @ankamela’s henchmen, Infamous Mike [1]. No sooner did I lay eyes on the note and its various hashings-out than I knew it to be the most fiendish puzzle the world had yet seen.
You may wish to throw yourself on its rocky shores, where you will no doubt lie bleeding and defeated, but perhaps you instead wish to wait for my decryption. Even now Gregory is laying wood in the fireplace, while I refill our whiskey tumblers, in preparation for a long session of manic thinking!
[1] Note: Mike hasn’t quite got a Qt3 account set up just yet. But soon.
Below is the contents of the delightfully-wrapped package from Amazon – the Dark Souls II Design Works tome! This, along with some titles on Steam, made for a terrific holiday.
Thanks @rowe33 !
I have returned from my parents, and there’s a package waiting for me at the post office. Who can this mysterious sender I have never heard of be? Well, I think his first name is a clue.
On the next episode: Will the package actually be at the post office? I attempted fetching another package right before I left, and it turned out only the note had arrived.