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The Five Portals

NOTE: THIS IS A MYSTERIOUS AND PERPLEXING BADGE.

There's more to the Night at the Library Badges than you know. It seems that each library has become a strange attractor, pulling mysterious forces and random periodicals into a swirling content maelstrom called A PORTAL. Each Library has its own Portal, and each Portal has a Portal code, and if you can find the code for all five Portals, you'll earn this badge!

Information about the Portals is scarce. But some intrepid PORTAL EXPLORER has managed to RETRO-EMBED some critical portal data in a place that's survived the ravages of time virtually untouched. This place isn't pulp. This place isn't play. It's not found in any catalog. It contains only truly oldnews. Yes, the only place that you can find these critical RETRO-EMBEDS is ancienthistory.

Each image in the Night at the Library Badge series contains a path fragment.  Fragments always begin with a slash and are nearly vertical. They can be very tiny, so you'll definitely need to click to zoom in to read them.  Assemble the three path fragments for each library in order... they'll lead you to a PORTAL DATA RETRO-EMBED hidden in our Ancient History. There you'll find that Portal's code.

BUT! Only the truly dedicated will use the Portal Codes to enter the Portals when they open. If you enter all five Portals and retrieve the codes glowing deeply within, you'll unlock the hidden PORTAL EXPLORER badge.

UPDATE 3/31/2021! THE RETRO-EMBEDS HAVE BEEN UPDATED! CHECK TO DISCOVER WHEN ALL 5 PORTALS WILL OPEN!

(Please note, for your puzzling convenience, at each portal opening, you'll be able to obtain the codes from the previous portal openings. So don't worry about missing some.)

 

This badge has been awarded to 332 players

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Comments

Found all clues for Mallet creek but when I added them at end of ancienthistory.aadl.org and searched it on new page, it didn't work. I am confused about exactly what I need to do once I find all clues.

In reply to by aunty

At first I got a 404 Not Found, but then I realized I had accidentally flipped the position of a couple letters when I was typing everything in. Once I fixed that I got to the right page no problem. Maybe double check for unintentional typos?

You're on the right track; know that game codes don't have slashes or punctuation. But you know what things do have slashes and punctuation? URLs. If it looks like a URL and has slashes and .htm and such like a URL, it's probably a URL! Make sure you have it exactly right or you'll get a 404 error.... about 25 players have found the two available game codes for this badge, so it's definitely solvable....

Wow, you really need to pay attention, I found clues but I read 2 letters wrong in Malletcreek Library clues and used html instead of htm !! After reading all comments checked all clues and found my mistake,finally got two codes :)

Is the Westgate Branch portal open?
I've entered the 3 codes and it returns a 404 code.

The portal isn't open yet, but the retro-embed is there... but watch out! URLS are Case Sensitive! Make sure you've got the Capital letters that appear in the path fragments!

I have to bring the screen so close to my eyes (after zooming in as far as I can) to be able to read them. Might not be able to read them if my eyes were worse...

Be sure you're clicking on the photo, and then clicking on it again so you're starting with the full resolution. The code is actually hidden in another place where it should be machine-readable for people with vision impairments using special browsers.

I am having trouble finding the path fragment in the Mallett's Creek fish tank image. I have looked at it SO many times, but it's just not popping out at me. Any hints on where to look??

Wow, thank you so much! I've been struggling with that one for many weeks now. I turn off all the lights in the room, at night, and search the screen every day without seeing it. I really tried. Thank you so much for the clue! I appreciate it very much! Yay, feeling relieved!!

Im having trouble finding the clues for the last downtown picture any hints? I have looked at it for SO long.

Im having trouble finding the clues for the last downtown picture any hints? I have looked at it for SO long.

WOW. The portal from the Downtown hotel is CLASSIC. "Google is a new and very popular search engine that pulls up the most relevant sites". Thanks for the walk through memory lane.

I've been checking the portals nearly weekly (1/20/21 1/30 2/5 2/15 2/20 2/27 3/3) and only ever gotten this message on all 5:

PORTAL OPENINGS: NOT DETECTED
~~ No Openings Detected in the next 7 days ~~

Am I missing something further I need to do to open the portals?

Thanks for asking about this and checking so thoroughly! Plans on this changed a bit and now it will be a little something to fill the gap when Winter Game badge drops stop on March 12. Shortly after that the retro-embeds will all update and you won't need to check them. Our apologies for leaving you hanging; we have something special planned but it has been tricky to schedule.

So, check those retro-embeds in late March for portal openings in April and May.

Thanks again for asking about this, and thanks for playing!

Hello! I just happened to look at this link for the first time since the games ended and realized I missed two portals. Is there any chance to make these up/will they reopen again or is that just it? (I totally understand if that's it, just figured I'd ask :) ) Thank you!

actually i know where to search it's just i find the slash and type in the ancient history thing and it says error 404 SO CONFUSED ON WHAT TO DO! :(

these URLs are case-sensitive; be sure you're putting in the part after each slash exactly as it appears including punctuation and capital letters... and be sure to use all three path fragments! There's one in each image!

OK, I found the portal information, but the opening time is already past. Are the portals going to re-open?

We're sorry, but this was a winter game activity that won't be continuing now that we're open. (The portals allowed you to visit the computers staff used to oversee the pickup lobbies via zoom, and they're not there anymore!) You can still earn this badge though. Thanks for your patience, and thanks for playing!

-eli

I found both the first and last one for Traverwood, but may I have a hint for the second one?

Badge Series
Winter Game's Night at the Library
Winter Game's Solve

Game
SummerGame2021

Difficulty
⭐️⭐️⭐️ Super Tricky 3 of out 4 difficulty

Badge Points
200

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