Originally Posted April 10, 2007
Yesterday I came back to my room with a mission in mind. I intended to come back and start to put together an incredible mystery for some of my friends to solve. I wanted to do something to bring together some friends in my improv group a little closer. “Boy,” I thought, “this will be so much fun.” So, full of energy and ideas, I burst into my room and head for my desk, eyes searching for a pad of paper.

But what did I see instead? Something very unusual. I saw there on my desk, framed by the edge of my stapler and a box of salted cashews: an envelope.

For those of you who still have yet to see the light of day, and by “day” here I mean “not having a text-based browser,” I found an envelope with magazine letter cutouts spelling out my name and room number. My roommate had found it in our shared mailbox around 2:15 and brought it up to the room for me.

I opened it up and found two items inside. First, a slip of paper with the number “93” scrawled in pencil:

It’s on normal paper, nothing strange about it but the face it’s been written in. Something to it?

Lastly, I found a decorated index card:

The first side has this text:

Work from Home

GOOD BY DAY, BUT NAUGHTY BY NIGHT.

Try Webcam Modeling. Work from home,

Set your own hours. Huge incomes.

www.girlcamcentral.com

The second side has this text:

PAULA (MASTER WHITE WITCH) POWER-

FUL! IMPOSSIBLE CASES SOLVED.

REMOVES INTERFERENCE. REUNITES

LOVERS. FOOLPROOF LOVE SPELLS!

SERIOUS CALLERS ONLY. 1-310-342-9880.

1-888-244-1855.

I’ve maintained such details as capitalization, boldface, hyphenation, etc.

So what is it? Based on the manner in which it was delivered, and the style in which it has been constructed, I can only conclude one thing: someone, who wishes to remain anonymous, has decided to immerse me in an intense mystery for me to solve.

Only thing is…I have never done something like this. I have participated in and created scavenger hunts and similar games, but nothing so intense as mystery-solving and code-cracking. So how do I solve it?

So far, the Internet has been very unhelpful, no site has any viable “mystery solving tips” that I can find, and searches on such terms as “93,” “Paula white witch,” and others have yielded very little. So far, I have found the site for “Power 93,” a religious radio station, information about “the mystery of 9/11 Flight 93,” and “Code 93,” a new and improved bar-coding system.

I even tried calling the number for the “white witch” to see if her answering machine would be helpful. After I listened with no spark of inspiration and hung up, she tried to call back. Mysteries are dangerous business, folks. Then again, I was calling near midnight; perhaps she thought it was some sort of emergency.

Though I may eventually get up the guts to call the white witch again…I need help. Perhaps you, my readers, are more clever than I am.

Anyone who can help me solve this mystery, please get in touch with me. Anyone who helps will somehow be rewarded.

I will also post updates as they come about my progress on the mystery.

The sun is shining…but the ice is slippery as hell.

Labels: Agents of Improv, improv, real-life mystery