(skip to the tl;dr 30 second rundown at the end of this post for a quick review)
We start the week with a look at another weapon, this one an AK-47 with an Aksumite symbol and some markings including the word LOVE, awww, how sweet. Stella shares her security upgrades, which include some nice surveillance cameras. She also discloses the location of her party along with some awesome Google Earth zoom shots of some other little game event happening that same day (the Ingress Las Vegas Shonin Anomaly event, whatever that is…).
Greg tells Stella about Endgame (see my writeup about everything revealed in the video here) and Stella is not a tame rabbit but a wolf and has no plans on running from Wayland (My what big eyes you have Grandma/wolf/Wayland/Stella/getting dizzy now). Tuesday’s reward challenge turns the spotlight back on Angela Sanning, former graduate student in the Department of Ancient History, University of Texas at Austin, whose adviser is Dr. Edward Pramik. It seems Angela was passionate about her studies, so passionate that she promoted extra-curricular club activities. Clubs are good, right? They build student character and instill community values, right? So what could be so bad about forming the Student Olmec Society complete with the occasional sacrifice. Olmec sacrifices, it’s just fun and games, right? Well at least until someone loses an eye, or a heart, or a quart or two of blood. It’s just kids being kids…
Stella provides an article called Fight Night: São Paulo about a secret activity of Final do Jogo, fights that have run for hundreds of years, and the mysterious foreign strangers who would appear, fresh from the ports, and disappear after the fights were over. The writer mentions a conhecimento secreto, a secret knowledge, but has no idea what it is. Could it be… Endgame? Stella also shares a mystery she is chasing, Professor Edward Pramik. Who is he? Where did he disappear to (some would say see Sasha Yookin’s article mentioned below)? How does he connect? So many questions, my question mark key is getting a workout this week.
Kickball, Such an endearing childhood game. Kickball is a game that’s really about seeing how hard you can kick this rubber ball about the size of a basketball and watching as someone tries to catch it, but fails and gets hit really hard by the ball leaving this huge red mark that lasts for days (I can not tell you how many kids lost a set of glasses when they got smacked in the face, ah the fun of growing up). Stella uses this analogy as she declares she is picking her team and it seems Greg Jordan is her first pick, someone so opposite from Stella that it should make for lots of fun buddy bonding moments later. The Stella world-universe building reward for Thursday was, in my opinion, one of the top story elements (Angela’s little club fun the other). We get an article from 2004 about the “mysterious” Wayland popping up and buying up Vegas. It seems like he came out of…. nowhere. I liked the article writer’s, Sasha Yookin, voice (she called Wayland creepy and got in an Olsen Twin reference – you go Sasha). So, where did you come from Wayland? Theories anyone?
As anticipation builds for the Stella meet and greet tomorrow, Stella shares a discussion about parallax and changing views (I think Stella needs David Bowie’s “ch-ch-changes” song advice) and what looks like a pencil rubbing of Ingress glyphs, but is secretly disguised as a Baal Tasir fragment. The translation for the glyphs contains a lot of doom and gloom words (weak, die, death, lose). But there is hope as well (courage, strong, victory).
Saturday was all eyes on Stella as she greeted the Ingress “players” (why quotes? Well those who play Ingress know it is not a game, but we pretend it is all just a game… confused? Me too sometimes). After the Ingress event, Stella hosted a party. She had an unexpected party-crasher, Wayland Vyctory, and proved the words of the Tom Petty song as she, “won’t back down”. Using Twitter and help from those watching, Stella managed to disrupt the feed and stayed strong (You go Wolfie Stella). Wayland was not the only one to crash the party. There was someone else during the signing that may have been more than they seemed (check the movie she gave Stella to sign… seem familiar? wink, wink, nudge, nudge) But ah well, guess time will tell.
One last note, while this is Stella’s recap – have people noticed how the Vyctory Resorts Twitter account has been active this past week? Perhaps someday I will make it there to play a round of Flexible-Gravity Golf or dangle some meat in front of a cheetah (I did not make that up – go check the tweets yourself).
tl;dr 30 second rundown
- Monday – The challenge reward is a glimpse of another weapon, this one an AK-47 (gun) marked with the Aksumite symbol. Stella issues a formal statement to those breaking in, stay out or else and Stella talks about the shadow inside her she must fight.
- Tuesday – Stella and Greg have an uneasy alliance. Greg lays everything out about Endgame. Stella has new surveillance cameras and shares a Department of Ancient History Newsletter, University of Texas at Austin that features an interview with graduate Student Angela Sanning and her Olmec club activities that got a little out of hand.
- Wednesday – Fight Night: São Paulo – Stella provides an article about a secret activity of Final do Jogo, fights that have run for hundreds of years, and the mysterious foreign strangers who would appear, fresh from the ports, and disappear after the fights were over. Stella also talks about a mystery she keeps running into, Professor Edward Pramik. Who is he and how does he fit into things?
- Thursday – Stella mentions Occam’s Razor, allowing that there is a real Endgame and why would Wayland put so much effort into lying to Stella. She decides she is going to work with Greg Jordan and an article from the past by Sasha Yookin notes how Wayland came from nowhere and started to buy up Vegas property.
- Friday – A set of glyphs from something called a Baal Tasir fragment.
- Saturday – The big day! Stella holds a party in Las Vegas and manages to show Wayland she is in control. She reveals the mottos for the 12 lines and was there some undercurrent brewing?