Vermis Malum: Digital Elevator to the Underworld
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- Опубліковано 12 вер 2024
- Vermis Malum had me so excited that I couldn't wait to get this video made--digital horror is definitely here, and seeing live action again makes me so happy.
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Vermis Malum Official Playlist: • Vermis Malum
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Vermis Malum had me so excited that I couldn't wait to get this video made--digital horror is definitely here, and seeing live action again makes me so happy.
Vermis Malum Official Playlist: ua-cam.com/play/PL7Kjo4QSyrW-qAcZIb9n5x2pvz6OLMIG8.html&si=yMXeSgY_LFywZOXF
Nick Nocturne Astraline Channel (Twitch VODs): www.youtube.com/@NickNocturneAL
NM Twitch: www.twitch.tv/nick_nocturne
I'm gobsmacked at the low number of subscribers on their account.
Number 9 Dream is a song by John Lennon as well. Revolution 9 was done by The Beatles also. First two things that popped in my head.
Okay... now I'm totally convinced that there are Beatles references in here. "The house on Penny Lane"... yep... that was the last thing I needed!
Did you get the vibe this had so similarities to Adventures of Mark Twain? To the elevator and the apple and Adam and Eve. I'm getting big dejavu and agree I wanted more after the third video. Great setup so far! Ty and your community for bringing this gem to light.💖
I have a correction to make.
When you say that "Malum" means two things depending on how you _pronounce_ it, you're wrong.
_Malum_ means only "Evil".
"Apple" is written _Melum_ with an "e".
Here's what I got so far:
Video title 2: "Electric Sheep" might be a reference to a book called "Do androids dream of electric sheep" by Philip K. Dick which was the inspiration for "Blade Runner". The video having the description of a literal dream seems to emphasize that.
Arthur's last name might be a coincidence, but "Asimov" is also the name of a Sci-Fi author who, in his short story "Robbie" from 1940, wrote about artificial intelligence and robots (technically androids imho). Asimov's works followed the so called "Frankensteinmuster" (which is German and can be translated to "Frankenstein pattern") - meaning, robots were being created and then killed their creators. The code being literally called a "digital Frankenstein's monster" emphasizes that connection. He also created the 3 rules (about robots not harming humans etc.) that were the main focus point in the movie "iRobot".
This topic is SO MUCH to unpack, but I think there's something there.
I also believe the numbers/floors hint at "Dante's Inferno". Arthur is on floor 3 and therefore in the 3rd circle of hell - that one being "Gluttony". With this playing around Christmas, there might be something there? Kinda far fetched though.
Also read in the 3rd video's comments that if you run java code that was shown in the pdfs, it prints out a quote from the divine comedy which keeps me thinking about this.
The apples in a garden being plucked from a tree are sort of "on the nose" Christian stuff, too.
The naive couple that eloped being naturalists might be them just being naked, hence being Adam and Eve. That being on the 10th floor and not (yet) in the 9 circles of hell might mean he's still on earth / Garden Eden or something. Depending which way the "players" go; into hell or out of hell - which might mean Arthur's on Layer 7/8 instead of 3 (depending whether or not you count from 0 or from 1).
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I tried to find something in the weird markings of the document after noticing that the marks seem to be grouped in 3s, making me think it could be very blatant morse code:
... .-. .-- -.- --. ... .-- --. .-. -.. -..
Which gives
SRWKGSWGRDD
With that much Latin in the videos, it could also allude to Latin Phonology (sillables with the - above them are emphasized). That in combination with the fact that some letters did have different pronounciation than they do today could mean some switcheroo-magic to get a result that's readable. But that's me coming from German; I have no idea how that could work in English.
Also, my brain hurts.
I have no idea how to proceed from here. I think it's not really something, I did not account for the diffence between the somehow thicker lines and the double lines or the letters they were above; also ignored upper and lower case (which I read some ciphers use?).
All in all, thank you for presenting this, really looking forward to the next video from that channel :)
The numbers are hexadecimal. They say "The Womb Forgets"
And just like that, a breakthrough! Thank you!
The moment I saw F I had a feeling it's hex
'The womb forgets them, the worm feasts on them; the wicked are no longer remembered but are broken like a tree.' - Job 24:20
@@kittermew4139 Great catch!
@@kittermew4139perhapse Our protagonist is in for a painful journey? The book of Job IS an interesting and tragic story.
Other fascinating things I've noticed:
- the letter ranks of the chess board spell "deadfeed"
- the flies around the giant apple if you pause, are actually tiny hands
- One of the books in the pdf picture of the cd-rom is eclipse... which of course is from the twilight series... the cover of which is two hands holding an apple
So THAT'S why it's constantly making the snatching sound!
deadfeed is also hex, so it could be another cipher of some sort
0xDEADFEED is an iOS crash report error code used by... Apple. Yeah, the creator really loves programmer jokes.
The chess board spelled a MESSAGE? Now that's inventive!
I can't help but wonder if the Twilight Eclipse reference is more than just for the apple, since we have a character with a vampire-sounding last name... Apples can represent many things including love/lust and the lost of innocence. I have to wonder if that poor girl was preyed upon by Leo, whether in a vampiric way or a less-supernatural way.
I manually copied all of that Java code from the babel file and executed it. The output is:
ABORTIVE_THEN_AND_SHAPELESS_YE_REMAIN_LIKE_THE_UNTIMELY_EMBRYON_OF_A
This is a reference to Dante's Purgatory, which contains the following:
[...] Know ye not
That we are worms, yet made at last to form
The winged insect, imp'd with angel plumes
That to heaven's justice unobstructed soars?
Why buoy ye up aloft your unfleg'd souls?
Abortive then and shapeless ye remain,
Like the untimely embryon of a worm!
Also, in addition to Lamprov Pendle and Everpalm Pond? The name of the boy from the letter is *Leo von Dreppam*, which has an extra O compared to Everpalm Pond
@@hohahihehu you are a GENIUS
Yeah, about what I expected.
Well that settles it for me. Vermis Malum is, as far as can be ascertained by the first three videos, a retelling of Inferno and at least bits of Purgatorio. I'm guessing the Robert Frost quote is there to clue us in that Paradiso is/will also be involved at some point.
The Frost poem is "A Winter Eden". Winter being just before spring and rebirth. So, a return to Eden? I bet we get some Milton here before long.
A dead tree, rotten apple, naturist couple? The garden of Eden?
Yeah that's what l was getting
Yeah especially since the option of exiting the lodge is called her garden
... that would be the hit, wouldn't it? Yeah, that mix of factors really would point to Adam and Eve.
This, plus the whole Hesiod thing, makes it pretty clear temptation and the downfall into evil are going to be the main themes. It makes me think the nature of the game is one of two things. 1: The game is testing people, to see if they give in to temptation. 2: The game is judging people who have already given in to evil.
That would explain what the rotten apple that also resembles a rotting body could represent as according to the belief system, death only came integration after Adam and Eve at the Apple. Basically, Adam and Eve wouldn’t know what death was or the idea of what that was until after they put the Apple, and then they brought it into this world to affect others. “Do you know what happens after you die?” Makes Beatrices line more ominous
Took me a minute, but I can confidently say that the two-note birdsong is that of a black-capped chickadee! It’s called the “fee-bee” or “hey sweetie” song
that definitely the sound, but it's not highpitched enough to be the actual call made by birds. It sounds more like a human trying to imitate the fee-bee with whistling. which would connect back to lawrences dream!
great catch!
I'm with HolyShinta here--upon putting the video together in final phase, I realized it must be whistling that occurred in Lawrence's dream. So now we're REALLY in an odd reality scenario.
What was that other series with the false paths and such? And the big sexy fella?
@@HolyShinta Yeah, that immediately sounded human to me.
'Sweetie', hm? Sweet like a red apple.
So I don't know if anyone has made this connection, but the accent marks are dots and dashes for morse code in the Aasimov files. From what I translated from what's shown here, they seem to spell out the words SLOW DEVOURED. Gonna have to actually go check out the arg despite my fears to check if there's anything more. Posting this mid-watch, but Nick has moved on to Video 3 at time of watching/writing. So hope this helps the secret seekers in the comment sections.
Thank you! One less thing to write down (I wrote it down anyway...)
Another excellent pickup! Great work, Blue Mouse!
Excellent catch. I was trying to put the letters together thinking maybe it was an acronym. Morse code makes way more sense.
I picked up on this, but had trouble with translation, so i turned to the comments and lo and behold. Good eye
Great catch, chibibluemouse! Thanks for sharing!
ᘛ⸒⁐ ̢ᕐᐷ ❤︎ ⋖'⸒ ͜͡ ̢～
^That's a mouse & a chibi mouse. I can't make them blue :c
So a lot have pointed out that the numbers in the first video are simple hex, translates to "the womb forgets". But I actually think this hyper-simple puzzle serves a really strong purpose-- even if this wasn't such a strong project as it clearly is. Giving a really simple easy puzzle to the audience early on can get them in the right mindset. It says "hey, there WILL be hidden messages." And the future ones do not need to be so simple or easy from then on... it just nods to the audience that looking for them is the right thing to do.
I like your take on this! Hex codes like that are also something I remember seeing more often in online media in the mid-late 2000's compared to today (wonder if that's why Nick didn't recognize it 😛), which fits the years of the "Leo von Dreppam" letter and the LCPD photo.
Apparently the chess ranks are deadfeed which is also hex, but no ascii translation. So I think the clue is hex, but maybe something more meaningful than just ascii conversion.
It's funny how working IT-adjacent and being involved in computer security stuff has affected my enjoyment of this type of horror.
"So I found this laptop hidden in my attic and just put it on my wifi" this guy says casually as I scream into my pillow.
just pretend he set up a separate vlan for it
The moment he boots it up he will have 5 wanted stars pop up
And given the fact that Dark Souls is on the home screen, he either started to use the laptop regularly or ran the disk on his main computer
"NO DON'T CONNECT IT TO THE INTERNET YOU FOOL"
I'd be on that new laptop like:
*checks primary e-mail to pay my phone bill.*
A character named "A. Asimov" and a video named "ELECTRIC SHEEP" is driving me crazy. Hear me out and stop me if you've heard this plot before. Program develops empathy(Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" finds an android body, uses new sense of good and evil (3 Laws of Robotics) to carry out judgement on humans in (Dante's Inferno)PC CD-RoM form and that hides in random attics... No wait. That attic part is definitely Sinister(2012). Still a W.I.P.
Dude oh my god...
I knew that Asimov had to be a reference to Isaac Asimov and Electric Sheep had to be a Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep reference but I couldn't put two and two together, thanks for this!
Pretty sure "Arthur Asimov" is a reference to both Arthur C. Clarke as well as Isaac Asimov.
Philip K. Dick wrote Androids, Asimov wrote the Foundation series.
Maybe we can expect a story about a rogue intelligence within the game, then? A bit like Inscryption? (Play Inscryption if you haven't already, btw; great video game with a great ARG attached!)
idk if anyone has mentioned yet, but the boy in the note from February 2007 is named "Leo von Dreppam", which is Everpalm Pond with an extra "O"
So we have an extra L and now an extra O. Wonder if these extra letters will spell out something necessary
@@Android_Drewmy guess is they spell love
@@Android_Drew In the comments for the first video, someone mentioned that there's an extra 'L' shape (although it's reversed) in the elevator's braile for the tenth floor as well
@@Bubbly_Dragon LOL?
Without the extra letters, we can spell “vr demon apple”. With the extra L and O, we can spell “venom lord apple”
So already super hooked. Such interesting little bits such as the caller being called Beatrice. Maybe a reference to Dante's Beatrice as a guide and inspiration for his journey through hell, purgatory and heaven. Also Saint Beatrice who was beheaded for removing bodies from water and burying them in Christian burials - note the shovel in the room and the red smears near the rotting apple (blood) that connect to the body of water.
To add onto your Dante's Comedy observation, in that Dante travels up the mountain of purgatory to get from hell to heaven, with there being seven sections for the travellers to atone for their sins. This Beatrice asks you not to go "down" the mountain.
@willclark4254 of course, well remembered! ^_^
Even the traditional conical shape of Dante's depiction of Hell is nodded to in the shape of the repeating company logo perhaps
the themes of apples and 'the naturists' having things not go well for them evokes adam and eve to me. If 9 is supposed to be Limbo in a Dante sense then the barn could be the castle of Limbo I suppose? But who knows
@@tortillus9029not to mention that the button prompt for leaving the cabin is "her garden". I'm not sure where the her pronoun comes from, but the garden is reminiscent of the Garden of Eden. Nothing concrete, just wanted to add something I noticed.
The windmill spin reverses directions after the phone call with Beatrice
That makes me wonder if this series has some direct inspiration from petscop, as early on in that series there is extreme symbolic importance placed on a windmill's spinning changing direction.
Oh my god isnt that a blast from the past- i still follow them but i forgot they were a THING! @irisaferg2524
Also the miniature one inside the lodge was going in reverse before the phone call and then is going forwards when he returns for the note.
@@irisaferg2524 Yeah, I'm willing to bet it's an homage.
one interesting note about the opening elevator scene: note the state of wear of the "open doors" and "close doors" buttons. The former looks borderline pristine, the latter looks very worn with paint smudged off in places. idk it might be nothing, but it is at least worth noting.
Interesting. I wonder, why would they want to close the doors instead of opening them?
@@austinrimel7860 For protection? Something chasing them back into the elevator?
Great video as always NM! Something I haven’t seen mentioned yet is that the person on the phone is named Beatrice, who tells you not to “go down the mountain”, which to me seems like an allusion to the Divine Comedy. Beatrice, Dante’s dead lover, leads him up the mountains of purgatory towards Paradise, so if we’re going down the mountain, that would mean we’re getting closer to Inferno. Possibly nothing, just something my brain latched onto
Add in apples and the 'naturist' couple (Adam and Eve) having left and you got some good evidence for that theory
Was looking for this comment! I was like "wait, hold up, are we just gonna skip good ol' Beatrice? I didn't hear any mentions of her?"
The titles of episodes are interesting too. Episode 2 is Electric Sheep, leads to the classic "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep". Asimov is Arthur's last name, so there's a connection to the game being sentient.
Episode 3 is Bad Seed. Remember the first seed number when Lawrence created his file, it's 1337. Then he rerolled it. 1337 is typical leetspeak, so we might need it to decipher something later.
The number he rerolled into is 1521. In German history there's an event in 1521 called 'The Diet of Worms'. Maybe a simple play on the word, but still interesting.
Was that the trial where Luther got excommunicated?
“Here I stand, I can do no other, God help me.” ( That was his closing statement, just including that in case it becomes important later.)
I assumed it could be a Bible verse (because it always is), and I found Proverbs 15:21 "Foolishness brings joy to those with no sense; a sensible person stays on the right path". It could relate to how Lawrence can't go off on his own and needs to go to the obvious cabin and windmill? Maybe the videos he's making for his mystery friend could be his folly/joy?
@@kellyalves756 I looked it up when watching the initial video. Pope Leo X excommunicated Luther a few weeks earlier. But the Diet of Worms was where Luther was declared an outlaw by Emperor Charles V. Given the other religious themes present, I can't imagine it's _just_ because a play on the word "worm."
Nad seed is also a horror movie from the 50s or 60s about a q0 or twelve year old girl that's pure evil. Like,, Bundy evil
@@thor30013 Thank you!
Oh, perfect timing Mr. Nocturne! Storms just started rolling in around my area, in fact my power just flickered briefly. The perfect ambiance for a video of this species.
So jealous rn 😩 its the opposite for me
same its hot and humid outside
Aye nice n windy.
Jesus christ, me too!
You must be an hour away from me since me too.
Ring nine in Dante's Inferno was for Treachery -- and was freezing cold. So there's the snow. Ring Three, where Arthur left off, corresponds to Gluttony. The apples could be a symbol for the fruit of the Tree of Good and Evil, in which case the worm in the apple would probably be the devil. The dagger being unfit for "Senatorial" hands could be a reference to the Senators that killed Julius Caesar, which was also an act of treachery. Also maybe look into "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" by Sir Isaac Asimov, since both the title and the author were referenced. Awesome video!
do androids dream of electric sheep. that was a book from philip k dick. the 80s movie bladerunner was based on that
As mentioned, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is by Philip K. Dick. Isaac Asimov (no "Sir"; he was American) wrote a lot about robots and androids himself, though.
@@MrfnordTim you're so right my b. i got the names of him and peter ustinov mixed up. how? idk lol
also that "naturist couple" sounds like adam and eve
The way I look at it in the game we are currently descending into hell from earth (10th floor). Going to the 9th floor then puts us into the first circle, or Limbo. The area Lawrence is traversing just gives me a limbo type of vibe. His life sort of seems to be in limbo as well, it seems his only socialization is happening through these video diaries pretty much and all he has to do is explore this strange computer he found in his attic. There is, however, as you say a strong connection to the ninth treachery circle through the dagger. And even through the apples, with Lucifer's treachery towards god relating to the fruit of knowledge and what not.
My thinking going forward is that we need to keep the inverse of the circles in mind as well, so circle 1 and 9, circle 2 and 8, circle 3 and 7 etc. Employing this thinking Arthur's endpoint will end up relating to gluttony as well as violence. We'll see how my theory pans out.
Pavlov has wrung the bell and we are being FED
I have been conditioned well, night mind video drops and I foam at the mouth.
In the Victims file, Arthur mentions Penny Lane. As a Beatles enthusiast, I immediately thought about the song of the same name. Penny Lane by the Beatles is a song about a small town that is so perfect, it feels like it isn’t real. The whole doubting the truth things has been mentioned here before so, this could be connected. No clue if this means anything but just thought I’d share.
The book (thats called like nuber 9 dream) kanda also has to do with doubting reality so i think it related
Good, it's not just me then!
And in the same scene he mentioned the bell (witch?) and melds with the missing girl...maybe?
As another beatles nerd the use of the number 9 in thus arg is strange considering its connection with john lennon id it a straw to think this has to do with the beatles at all probably but if there are more hints to the beatles then maybe so far I picked up the repeating use of number 9, penny land and yesterday so maybe there's something there who knows
@@okamisumo3362 Why are y'all so smart with this stuff?! I only picked up on the Beatles thing after the use of Strawberry Fields Forever.
Is this only as deep as being fun and y'know... Apple Records, or is there actually gonna be a trail my dumb ass could pick up on, unlike Dante and whoever that anvil guy was? 🤣
Anyone else notice that dark souls remastered is on the homescreen at 23:00 which would put the the story being told after 2018 for the live action
This seems accurate since the files in the unsorted folder were made in 2014. In the original video when talking about getting the wifi working he also says he worried about needing to dig up an ethernet cable, commenting "remember those?" I'm getting the impression it's set in current day, though I'm confused at why he's started using the computer for games, emails, etc. when he likely has a more modern computer
@@edim356 He says it runs better than his own computer, so that might be why.
@@designersheets Given what I know about tht *exact* model of laptop, either whatever is in there is overclocking the hell out of it or his original PC is a piece of shit lol
@@NemesisTWarlockI mean other people have commented on how very much not being a tech guy seems like part of his character so that would make sense
What stuck out to me in the third video, when the character approached the apple being consumed by flies, the music completely cuts out. It adds to the impression that you aren’t supposed to be here, especially given the music returns when he comes back to the main path. The third episode was truly great, it kept me on edge the whole time expecting a jumpscare and yet knew not to use it. Master class in building an environment.
I would like to point out the signs in the Ninth Layer of the Vermis Malum game; They definitely use alchemical symbols of various sorts [some of them I can't identify, though.]
The first one [the walk sign] uses the signs of wax [🝊], gold [☉], one I can't identify, and tartar [🜿, a saline concentrate gathered from wine casks]
The second one [the jump sign] uses one I don't know, urine [🝕], manganese [no unicode symbol for this, for whatever reason], and lead [♄]
The third one uses one I don't know, lead again, another one I don't recognize but looks super similar to sulfur [🜍] yet incorporates the alchemical symbol for Earth [🜃] instead of fire [🜂], a symbol I don't recognize again, another one difficult to make out but I think is nickel [also doesn't have a unicode version of its symbol that I can find], and tin [♃]. Our host never goes up to it, but it just says "Sprint" and presumably only instructs on how to sprint in the game.
The fourth sign, I'll get to in a moment for the sake of going by order of event in the video.
The fifth sign [the "the end" sign] uses tin again, what I THINK is the symbol for Projection [♓︎the transmutation of a lesser substance into a higher one, typically gold, also the astrological sign of Pisces], a very strange inclusion of one of the signs of Jupiter, whose typical symbol is usually the one used for tin. This particular one is Byzantine, specifically, and is quite a bit more obscure. Then again, a lot of these are obscure, to the point where I have no idea what some of them are. After the two Jupiter symbols is what I'm very confiedent is nickel again [it is being used for N in words, as some letters correlate to the first letter of the associated material, but not all], and lastly is the symbol forspecifically distilled vinegar [🜋].
Back to the fourth sign [the inventory sign], the first is one of the unkowns from the third sign [the square with lines], nickel again, the symbol for vitriol [🜗], Byzantine Jupiter again, nickel again, tin again, the symbol for oil [🝆], and the sulfure using earth symbol from the third sign. The last one I also don't recognize as an alchemical symbol, but it's literally just a Y standing for Y.
The choice of symbols could mean nothing whatsoever, though if the creator could pull an obscure reference to Theogeny, maybe there could be some meaning to the use of specific alchemical symbols as opposed to anything else. Either way, in case it gets used in future VM videos as a sort of encryption, so far we have...
Gold=☉=A
Distilled Vinegar=🜋=D
Byzantine Jupiter=A Z with a line throuh the middle=E
Projection/Pisces=♓=H
Square with line emerging from each face's center=I
Two fishing hooks being crossed=J
Tartar=🜿=K
A tilde atop an inverted cross with an extra, smaller set of arms=L
Manganese=A T with a circle over the lower part=M
Nickel=Two circles vertically connected by a line=N
Oil=🝆=O
Lead=♄=P
Earth [🜃] atop an inverted cross=R
A sideways M [as opposed to an E to denote the zig-zagging lines]=S
Tin=♃=T
Urine=🝕=U
Vitriol=🜗=V
Wax=🝊=W
Y literally just looks like Y
Gold being "A" is likely from it's Latin name, Aurum
Same for Lead being "P", from Plumbum
Excellent eye and knowledge set!
Mr. Nocturn, id like to mention a thing that bit the back of my brain when exploring this so far. There are 9 levels in the elevator, and with the idea of the two layers to Malum, it strikes me. The fruit of knowledge is often shown as an apple, the biting of it the first sin. The 9 levels in the elevator SCREAM to me Dante's Inferno with the two meanings a Malum being evil AND apple.
theres 10
@@mvrk4044 in the video, we dont get to see level 10. Presumably level 10 would be earth, the world of the living
Oh hell yeah! I got a job interview later and a Night Mind vid is exactly what I'll need to either cheer up or celebrate after.
Literally the same situation here. What are the odds
Go slay those interviews!! 🙌💜🙌
Best of luck to you both!
best of luck!!
Good luck you two!
11:37 The numbers 9 are considered unlucky in Japanese: 9, when pronounced ku, sounds like the word for suffering (苦). So they are often pronounced kyu instead. (source: omniglot)
So sort of like 4 sounding like death?
@@kingchaos1084 in Japanese: 4, when pronounced "shi", sounds like the word for death (死). So they are often pronounced "yon" instead. (source: omniglot)
only halfway through the video so forgive me if i say anything NM or vermis malum estbalishes later on, but asimov being the last name of the former laptop owner is interesting, with isaac asimov being a famous science fiction writer. he's the guy who is credited for coming up with the three laws of robotics (ie a robot cannot harm a human, a robot has to follow human orders unless they go against the first rule, and a robot must protect its own existence unless that goes against either of the two previous laws.) since this story is digital fiction, the reference has to be an easter egg at the least. could be a reference to something more, though.
Combined with the video the name is in being called "Electric Sheep," I think the robotics angle is likely relevant.
Based on some of the document text, whoever made the project most likely has compsci experience just like Arthur. I bet there will be some sort of AI angle to the whole thing. Lawrence seems oblivious though. Maybe the worm is a computer virus.
@@MrfnordTiminteresting too, since "Do androids dream of electric sheep" is an almost parody of Asimov robot novels.
Surprised you didn't mention the significance of the name 'Beatrice.' Beatrice was the target of Dante's affection in the Divine Comedy and also served as his guide in Paradiso which seems directly related to the story being told here. Someone is trying to guide our protagonist. A voice of divinity. And yet, our protagonist seems unaware and naively eating from the rotting fruit.
Idle thought: in the opening of the first video, as the elevator slowly descends, we see the light in the corner change colors, presumably coming from each of the rings.
First is white (though we barely see it as the camera starts turning to mostly reveal it later), then violet, then an indigo, then yellow, then red, then orange(?), then green, then blue, and finally jet black. I wanted to bring this up because A: The third ring is green, matching the colors on Arthur's save at ring 3, as well as ring 9 being white, which matches the flash of white on Lawrence's save. And B: When cycling through to select his favorite color, Lawrence sees the order is the same, white, violet, indigo, yellow, then he stops on red, but presumably it would continue from there.
This isn't so much a "breakthrough" as it is a tiny detail which reflects amazingly on the creator, theming each of the rings after a unique color, but so subtly that it needs to be noticed carefully.
Ah, hell yeah. Perfect video to put on while I continue my crochet project!
( For The Curious: I'm making a sweater dress w orange alpaca laceweight yarn for the main body, green cotton sock weight trim and hems, white cotton lace weight stitching and details, wooden decorative buttons )
It sounds so lovely! Good luck with your project, I hope it turns out exactly how you want!
I put Night Mind on to crochet or to do nails mostly too!
That sweater dress sounds cute af, hope progress is going well
Love this! Shame we can’t share pics on comments to see the final result but I’m sure it’ll be lovely 🥰
Night Mind is the perfect name. The dead of night is the only appropriate time to tune in
GOD that apple “snatching” sound is so incredibly unnerving! I was going to assume it was just chewing noises tweaked to be more uncomfortable, but then the giant rotting apple showed up and Lawrence commented on how loud the wet, almost meaty squelching was.
Honestly, all the sound effects are really good. That windmill makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.
Also, I don’t know off the top of my head, but my first thought on seeing those in-game signs (combined with the obvious biblical theming) was “Is that Enochian?”
You know, the supposed language of angels?
Has anyone noticed that when Lawrence first booted the laptop there was a desktop icon for Vermis Malum, but in the second video it was gone. And in the third he points out it suddenly appeared and he remembers seeing it but doesn't know where from.
i have finally started actually making myself check things you cover out when you call viewers out to go watch the originals and oh MAN.... i am so glad i did. as someone in a long distance relationship the framing of the first two videos made my heart melt and made me really invested in our dorky protagonist. i cannot wait for terrible things to start happening
McKinney family home videos arg would be awesome to see next. Hardly anyone even talks about it
Huge Petscop vibes here. Video game from the past, videos for an unnamed friend, the windmill, travelling to worlds beneath our own.
A few other people in the comments have already mentioned that the phone call being from a woman named Beatrice is evocative of the Divine Comedy, where a woman named Beatrice serves as Dante's guide through the latter two books, Purgatorio and Paradiso. And bringing biblical imagery into it, a few other people have suggested the "naturist couple" could be an allusion to Adam and Eve.
But my mind went to the apple. The Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, one big bite taken out of it, left to rot. To me it suggests moral cowardice-somebody learned what was right and what was wrong, but instead of accepting responsibility to do right they tried to run, and left that greater wisdom to decay.
And then there's the title. Vermis Malum. The Worm in the Apple. The Worm of Evil. It almost sounds like a sort of kenning for the Serpent.
It's interesting to me that Arthur's symbols seem to have a serpent as one of them in this context. The magnifying glass makes sense if we was an investigator, but perhaps the other elements have a different symbolic meaning too.
Arthur could be the one who bit it. 3rd circle of hell is gluttony, he's investigating, he's hungry for knowledge, and possibly ate the apple.
We have been fed content. Hurrah!
Hurrah!
🎉🎉🎉🎉
Ah, the "content creator uploaded, I gotta watch right now" blandness distilled into its purest form, nice.
huzzah!
Stunned it was only at 557 subs when I watched it. Now subscribed to it. What an exciting concept perfectly presented.
New ideas need promotion, he did a poll about this 👍
The idea of Adam and Eve(?) being referred to as "that nudist couple" is really amusing to me.
an underrated aspect of this project is how clearly inspired it is
like, it wears its inspiration from dante's inferno on its sleeve, but it doesn't feel like it's copying it. sure, there's "ring ix" and "beatrice" and the main character feels a bit like how dante himself portrayed himself, but those things are all interwoven with other inspiration (the garden of eden, generic biblical lore, vampires, haunted game stories, even a bit of paradise lost in there too and even possibly some "take his ass to eeby deeby" internet humor tbh) that it feels like its own unique thing. this project has so many layers and honestly i can't wait to see what else comes from it
Nick,
Thank you so much for these videos.
I have a lot of quiet time, but not necessarily time to watch videos, so getting a breakdown video from you is perfect for me. I'm a single earbud in while working listener.
I do love that you encourage people to watch the original videos when they can. Creators deserve the watch time.
Robert Frost wrote another poem about apple picking in the winter as well.
The landscape and the bird call (Black-Capped Chickadee) also suggests this is taking place in the New England area.
Something that stuck out to me on a technical level is the in-game camera. The way it bobs and wavers and twists, like its a camera being held by a person. Its quite uncanny once you see it. Its not a technique seen in video games at all, and making the camera do that in a CGI setting is also very technical. It's impressive the level of detail in this project is.
The particles that come off the huge apple (the flies) are the hand icon that the "game" uses on other places :O
This is a very small touch that nobody has noticed (to my knowledge) yet, but I have no clue what it means. Look at the seed chosen from the random, 1521. Looking at the font used, its the same upside down as it is right side up. I don't think it has any meaning yet but it might be a clue to something in the future.
Small detail that i haven't seen anyone mention yet - on the Beatrice phone call, the phone's dialer only has 9 digits. Given the prevalence of 9, i'm guessing this was intentional as opposed to oversight. I know it won't 'help' with any of the puzzle elements, but it's always worth acknowledging the hard work some of these creators do in putting in small details to find.
I find it interesting (but it’s probably coincidental) that they titled the dream episode “Electric Sheep”. The novel that inspired the movie BladeRunner is titled “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep”.
I would doubt anything observed as a coincidence, especially with references to other literary works, particularly Asimov. In the video Lawrence mentions his dream
That music in the gameplay sections feels... familiar. I don't know why, it might just be the vibes putting it into a similar but ultimately different context... but that music feels like a motif, but I can't nail what it's based on.
the first melodic phrase of it is giving me Black Hole Sun by Soundgarden, the song has hellish imagery and the sun turning into a blackhole is a bit hellish and the music video does the whole apocaplyptic thing - buuuuut idk could just be coincidence
@@tomtaro777 I knew I should have checked before making my comment. I was trying to figure it out too until I finally placed it this morning.
@@tomtaro777 Considering all the biblical references I think it's on purpose (Soundgarden --> Garden of Eden, maybe a stretch though).
Reminded me of black hole sun as soon as I heard it
The symbols on the signs in the game are substitution ciphers. They match the words presented by their prompts.
For example, the sign that shows the walk button has the symbols that spell out WALK
I was able to find every letter except B, C, F, G, Q, X, Z,
S was found through a process of elimination by looking at the sign Larance didn't visit. (S looks like a sideways W or an E)
noticed this too. think its gonna play a role as we move forward
ALCHEMIST SYMBOLS.
The mug in the shot where Lawrence is showing off the disc has similar glyphs to the in-game text.
i noticed that too! i wonder if it translates to anything? i'll have to check later.
The stain in the “victim” photo is very interesting- no splatter, in fact it’s as if she was laying down, and someone got her at the throat… Additionally, in the girl’s diary entry, she jokes how Leo von Leppen sounds like a vampire’s name. Maybe grasping at straws here, but what if von Leppen really was a vampire who bit her on the neck and caused such a gruesome death?
I can’t remember why in vampire folklore he’d need her full name, however. I only know the bit about needing to be invited.
Witches or faeries need your full name to cast curses on you. Could be related, might not
I'm wondering if we're looking at a different sort of vampire: a game that grows by eating people, hence all the weird code that doesn't quite fit together--a Frankenstein's monster stitched from the minds of the dead.
@@LovecraftianToenail if we wanna be extra paranoid, maybe Leppen attacked vampire-style BECAUSE she said the name was like that of a vampire 🤔
If it’s stitching itself together, what’s stopping it from yoinking the “vampire” concept and incorporating it into itself?
When I went to watch the videos, the channel only had 168 subscribers. Since then, it’s over 1k because of this video. That’s insane, it definitely deserves the recognition
Engaging, competent, appetite wedding, juicy, saccharine, drizzling, succulent-
(I love this project)
Alright, random blurbs I caught that might mean nothing at all:
1. 9 floors to explore, 9 rings of hell. Floor 10 could be referring to Tartarus or a “fate worse than hell”
2. Dead tree still bearing apples. Reminds me of the “tree of knowledge of good and evil” from the Bible. Also, the title of the series translating to “worm in the apple” could tie to that.
Once again, could mean nothing, and probably doesn’t mean anything, but I figured I’d throw it out there
Always love when I catch a NM upload right when its uploaded. Perfect timing too, just made some tea!
Right? What a pleasant Monday afternoon this is now. Too bad it’s June and not raining outside lol
oh boy. i could smell the threads of dante's inferno in this series from miles away. i've just finished annotating my copy of inferno as well! thank you for the treat mr nocturne
Hello! I was looking through some of your older videos and came across the one about the June Archive. I was absolutely shocked when you mentioned your boyfriend. I hope you guys have a long, happy, and healthy relationship! 😊
A work of horror fiction that can successfully stuff so many puns into the worldbuilding is truly something special.
I'm actually pausing your wonderful video because I have something to add to the puzzle, which I never have had before -- on the Princeton sticker (on the laptop), those aren't wings, that's a laurel wreath. I'm sure others have already tracked down the meaning of the sticker itself, but thought this tidbit might be worth noting, given the Greek philosopher connection.
I am really enjoying this! ---I think almost as much as I have enjoyed Diminish, which I also found through your excellent exegesis.
Dante is often depicted to have a laurel wreath as an honour to being a poet, though he's not specifically said to have worn one in the books but a thing to note.
I don’t have anything to share that hasn’t been found yet, but hearing Nick SO GIDDY is infectious! I’m so happy he’s happy, and I seriously can’t wait to see how this develops :D
Only partway through and I've caught so many biblical/classical times references that I know there are a ton I'm missing. The dagger is unfit for Senatorial hands because they stabbed Caesar. Beatrice was Dante's true love who died, and the person who sent Virgil to escort him through the afterlife. (The Divine Comedy was absolutely littered with references to events current to Dante's time and to historical figures, as well.) The naturist couple were probably Adam and Eve. A commenter below mentioned that the numbers/letters were hex.
holy shit watching that without any knowledge was the best move, the second video sent a chill down my spine, something to scare me, but not enough to be tension breaking, i love this series and i can't wait for future updates
I’m back!
AND I FREAKING LOVE IT!
certain things the main character said, immediately set off my foreshadowing/subtle lore hint alarm, and while it was a bit slow for me at first, I knew I just had to be patient and stay alert! Also, the surface content of the videos are engaging and mysterious in their own right! The gameplay footage (especially the most recent upload) was sooooo cool!!!
But that’s all I’ll say right now! I LOVE THIS!
I have a feeling that this game simulates dementia.
Worms in apples = holes in your brain
There's a lot of mystery in this series but it feels like the kind of mysteries you would be trying to solve if you were succumbing to Alzheimer's.
Such a deeply interesting series as is made even more intriguing by looking through the comments noting just how many things there are to find in just three videos! Extremely impressive.
It's been years since a project has gotten me as excited and invested as Petscop once did. The similarities are definitely there!
Looking at the code at 19:37, I assume others already decoded it?
I am very unfamiliar with Java, yet I'm pretty sure this is Java code. Because of the 'package' keyword and because you create a class juste to have a function. Also, the methods used match Java code. So here is what little I think I understand.
1) It declares a variable that I'll call 'E', a number (integer) initialized with two values (0b11 meaning 'binary-11' = 3 and 0x3 meaning 'hexadecimal-3' = 3) put through an AND operator, which returns... 3, if not mistaken. So E = 3.
2) The main function then declares another variable, 'muxer', a string that's being filled using a for loop going from 3 to 1 (starting value is E, final value is 256**i != 0, which is only false when i == 0 and False == 0, so, 0). Each loop retrieves one of the byzantine variable names ('getDeclaredFields().getName()') so, at the end, 'muxer' should contain: 'ADOTTKVG_VHGNaAPDaSJARENEUSaYG_TEOAKNaLKKG_VHG_WNVIOENYaEOBTYQNaOH_C'. Hopefully in that order, for a length of 68 characters (plus '\0' technically...).
3) This part I actually really can't understand. The class had declared a variable A, a string without any defined value yet. It now gives it a string of length E**E = 3**3 = 27... Then it replaces its end symbol (\0) with the class name 'ac3939' and then... It lost me.
At the end of the day the string 'A' should have the same length as the 'muxer' string but I can't figure out how to get there. Too many methods I don't know and the length doesn't match...
4) We finally get to the actual variable we're interested in: Y, another string that started empty. First we get 'i', the last index of 'muxer' (lastIndexOf("") is always last, so, 67?). Then we loop over each index, again from 67 to 0 using the 'while' loop.
That last loop converts the 'muxer' string using the following routine:
4.1) Take a character from string 'A' and get its ASCII decimal value (for example '4' is 64, 'S' is 83...). That's 'c'.
4.2) Do the same for string 'muxer', at the same index 'i'.
4.3) If 'c' is higher than 68 (muxer's length), the muxer character remains unchanged. Otherwise if 'c' is lower than 2, the muxer character is raised by 24 (A would become Y). Otherwise the muxer character is changed by -(c-63), so between [-5, 61]. At the extreme, '0' would become 'm'.
4.5) Prepend the result to 'Y'. So the last letter of 'muxer' becomes the first (once converted) of Y.
Again, I expect others to have long broken that cypher, if only by feeding that code to a Java interpreter. But it's a fun puzzle to do by hand, and I think part of the experience to smash our head on that Frankenstein monster.
lately I've been keeping more and more of your videos on Watch Later, and not touching them
I want to start actually getting myself immersed in these projects instead of listening to you while doing other stuff. I just haven't got the time *yet*
until then, have my like, and keep doing your thing!
something I noticed was that Arthur's computer icon was a robot (sci-fi, Isaac Asimov, sure) but just outside Lawrence's computer set-up we also see a miniature of an astronaut, evoking the same sci-fi feel - which also for me evokes an explorer of a vast and unknown space - sorta like the whole idea of exploring hell - it also reminds me of the recent Mad God movie that features a similar explorer of hell. small detail but I liked noticing it.
Beatrice! Like Dante’s Beatrice, his guide through heaven when he reaches Paradiso and his mooring when he feels his faith wavering. Seems kind of more ominous in this one though.
5:01 twilight can never let me see anyone holding a red apple without making me think of its damn cover.
Not gonna lie, the game gave me silent hill vibes. And when I HEARD the static noise during the cutscene with the TV, I recognized it as literally a sound effect from it! Though, now I'm wondering who he's making his videos for. He never says 'I love you' so its not a lover or family. Just a friend that moved away? He cares enough to sign off for them to be safe. But we're also missing the videos they make for him. I wonder what they're saying about the creepy game that now suddenly works.
He says the cat misses the person the videos are for, and the 'house feels empty without them.' That sounds like a SO to me, even if he doesn't sign off with 'I love you.'
Given that these videos are sent to the Unknown Person, it would follow that UP is the person uploading the videos. Unless they made copies, they would not necessarily have the videos they made and sent.
I just noticed that the flies are actually hands!!!
Reading the comments, i keep seeing an overall theme of betrayal. From the references to the devine comedy and Beatrice, to the Beatles, to the Garden of eden.
(In case you're wondering, John and paul both said they felt like the other had betrayed theme, and im pretty sure that atleast one of them had said apple music had become rotton.)
Idk why but when the Jump thing popped up and he didn't know what key it was it instantly made him endearing
The paranoia agent song at 26 minutes is such a lovely call back
When I saw Vermis in the title of this video, I thought we were going to dive into Plastiboo's opus. But this is still DAMN intriguing, and yet another analog horro project that I'm gonna have to keep tabs on. Much like Eyepatch Wolf advised, I'm gonna pay the devil his due and watch what we have so far...
Yup. Here's hoping for more of this project.
just watched the actual series and HOLY SHIT I NEED MORE I LOVE THIS!!! I LOVE ARGS AND HORROR AND AAAAAAAAA!!! IM SO EXCITED FOR MORE!!!
god i love all this symbolism and references to established mythological concepts. its something i strive to do in my own writing
also, golden shovel? THE FUCKS ARE AT IT AGAIN!
What I love about this series already is noticing the various Biblical elements (Specifically from the Divine Comedy) that are sprinkled throughout them. While a lot of stories reference the Inferno part of Dante's trilogy, i'm glad to see Beatrice and references to Purgatory's mountain involved; taking from a whole rather than the most well-known part of it.
Given the mentioned of going down the mountain, the Rings sounding analogous to the Circles of Hell, and how going down is "the wrong way", this feels like the player is meant to go backwards down Dante's trek, which would lead them right to Hell. Though whether you'll be put at the top layer of Hell (Limbo), or if you'll pick up where Dante and Virgil left, and be right in the middle of Cocytus
There were gold shovels being sold by Dr. Lawrence Jacoby in the 3rd season of Twin Peaks. They were meant to be symbolically used to 'dig yourself out of the shit'.
Definitely worth watching blind thanks for letting us see this gem ! Also right around when he says tucked in the insulation you here what sounds a dog bark then someone say something might be audio glitches just something i heard
I hope the developers put out the soundtrack, or, if it wasn't made by them, it could be found. That first floor's theme I desperately want to set up in the background. Its so comforting, like watching a snowstorm inside a warm home.
Commenting after you convinced me to go watch it - I am IN LOVE. That is some amazing stuff
Theirs a book called "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" that and Dream 9 ARE HUGE SIGNS for the future of this. Bad. Ass.
this arg feels so cozy…i love it
I love that in video 3 we see that Lawrence decided the best thing to do with an obviously haunted laptop he found stashed away in his attic was to try and play Dark Souls Remastered on it. Man has his priorities in order.
Took me back a little, between the old Windows and... well, all of it, of course. Glad I watched it first. The detail that got me reminiscing the most was when they mentioned Dark Water. I remember my favorite movie DVDs had ads for that movie, so I remember well being creeped out by them as a kid.
I am so hyped for this, it's done so well. Looking forward to new videos from them, and digging done here!
that bird song in the 10 min mark, i SWEAR thats the same two notes from that dude who claimed a whistling man was following his throughout his life and one time he managed to capture it
i know its not exactly that unique of a sound, bu that was my first thought when i heard it
that was great and i had to subscribe because i need more. i've been watching your content for years and you've never exposed me to a project i didn't like. thank you for all you do because i wouldn't find all these projects without you!
when you leave the lodge, it says "Her Garden"
Okay, this one already rocks. Interesting characters, great hooks, awesome VHS shots, that lovely little bit of nostalgia mixed with "found a weird game" horror... I'm with you on instantly wanting more.
This is one of the first creepy video game creepypastas I've seen I'm not just interested in the story around it, but would love the play the fake game itself.
I'm noticing a couple of Beatles references in this series. The main ones being Penny Lane (which is the title of one of their songs) as well as the frequent use of the number 9 (Revolution 9). Probably just fun little references that don't mean much, but it was still something neat that I noticed.
Also, Apple was the name of their self-owned record label
Revolution 9 is a terrifying enough song to fuel one of these babies.
Also the reference to the word yesterday 🥰
"Number 9 Dream" is also a song John Lennon wrote post-beatles
the music is so good i hope we get a soundtrack eventually
there are a few nods to roman history here and there, i think. from the constant use of latin to the mention of "senatorial hands" in the knife's item description. and along with the religious references lawrence is the name of a saint who was executed by the roman empire.
It's probably worth noting that the mug next to the laptop has info on hobo code. I didn't notice any use of it in current uploads, but I'd be surprised if it doesn't point us in the right direction for something eventually.
Reallydid my heart good to see all the people in the comments of the original videos actually engaging with the clues set up and trying to put together the pieces we have so far. I dunno, lately I see so many web horror projects tossed aside just for being "another arg" in favor of people turning to, like, true crime youtubers or whatever and thats always left a sour taste in my mouth; that and the dismissal of common tropes for just serving their purpose, I dunno, web horror is en mass a landscape for lower budget "amateur" projects (I say this with love) and I always feel like it gets held to unrealistic standards
All in all, I just love to see a sense of community like this