The Inner Workings

This page is currently a work in progress.

Last updated: X33.0.0
The Inner Workings
Dust Drops
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Red Dust
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Purple Dust
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The Inner Workings is a secret dungeon released for April Fool’s Day 2020. The dungeon itself is a giant calculator and otherwise does not contain any loot or hostile enemies.

An entrance to the dungeon will drop from Null, the boss of The Machine, after certain conditions (described below), are met.

The Realm Eye says:
TKIGPOQHKVETHDMQXFMRRLNCYHDHCMMAUPXYUTRGLS
LARWXBZBLAJPVMIAETQNCPSWJIKNXNVOYUDWCDLFZGZOWLDMLS
HREQEQIZDHYHYVKAQFRUQLGKSTOIGGUVKKZCMHH
ZJIEZBVLVIFHSVXOWRTQHSUZBDPJLYJVULVPOHRQCBDCYBNQAVFE
WEMPZBGCRFPXTLOIAWEGXVTBFHNFFPUGY
VJXOMJEHGKKBJMHAGTTDNYRRQHMHGGVJHBBANXZMYAQIWUXZCO
QWCAR

Key

The Inner Workings Key The The Inner Workings Key isn’t available for players, only accounts with the ability to summon items have access to this item.

Contents


Layout

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Screenshots

Screenshoot

Screenshoot
A view from the map

Late Stage Calculation
A calculation nearing completion.
First two numbers
First two numbers calculated.
Final Calculation
Finished calculation and beginning a second calculation.

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Access

To access this dungeon, you need to first complete The Machine, and right when the boss is dying, use a Hivemaster Helm, and when prompted, type “PPEBTWXD” (not including the quotation marks) into the chat. After a few lines of text, a portal leading to the Inner Workings will appear and start to circle the realm portal.

At the start, Craig tries to explain exactly how the dungeon works and what you should expect. No one bothers to listen to him, though.

Full Solution

The full solution to find the Inner Workings requires that the players solve a lengthy mystery by gathering and piecing together clues/references from multiple points within in the game.

The entry point of this ARG is, although found by chance by players, one of the sentences from the X.33.0.0 Patch Notes (April Fools 2020). The Machine dungeon is in the spotlight, and the following sentence is present in its description:

Let’s just hope there are no bugs in the program…

The “bugs” in italics is a clue to the next step, encouraging players to make sure there is a “bug” in the dungeon.

The bug in question is not to be taken in the technological sense but rather biological of the term. Indeed, using the Hivemaster Helm (which summons bees), at the end of the fight with Null will bring up a new original sentence from the Automated Security System:
“Bug detected in system. Awaiting administrative password to initiate insect confusion protocol.”


The next step to solve this mystery is to talk to Craig about this “insect confusion protocol”

Speaking of this to Craig in the Court of Oryx will results from the following dialogue chain:

“How did you…”
“Listen, I really can’t talk about this while I’m at work. If Oryx ever hears about this thing, he’d have it destroyed immediately!”
“You’ve got me on the ropes here. Please speak to me some other time, you’re gravely endangering both of us!”
“Please, just take one of these portals and get out of here!”

Craig asking for the player to speak to him another time, when he is not at work, involves finding him in the guild hall, where he will occasionally appear (See Special section for Guill). When present, asking about the “insect confusion protocol” again will trigger this conversation instead:

Guill:
“What?”

Craig:
“…”
“Darn. I wish you’d forget about that.”
Fine…fine. I’ll tell you everything I know.”
“The place you’re trying to access is know as ‘The Inner Workings.’ I first found it long ago, when I was just visiting random dimensions as all young Sprites do.”
“I had a key, but uh… lost it.”
“Perhaps you should ask a more knowledgeable entity? Just tell him I sent you.”
“I need to go. I really can’t help you any more than this…”
“Bye…”

Guill:
“Umm…”


The more knowledgeable entity cited above refers to The Realm Eye from the Cursed Library, which also has interactions with the player when given certain prompts.

Two new dialogs can then be triggered. Both of them are encrypted and can be decoded using the same method as to decode the Realm Eye response for The Glitch:

This is a message encrypted using the Kriegsmarine variant of the Enigma machine with 3 rotors, with wheel order (I, II, III), type C reflector, rotor starting positions (A, B, C), “ring settings” (A, A, A), then with the result put through the machine again but with the type B reflector. The deciphered message is presented below with spaces added for ease of readability.

First, when asked about “The Inner Workings”

IGPOQHKVETHDMQXFMRRLNCYHDHCMMAUPXYUTRGLSLARWXBZBLAJPVMIAETQNCPSWJIKNXNVOYUDWCDLFZGZOWLDMLSHREQEQIZDHYHYVKAQFRUQLGKSTOIGGUVKKZCMHH
ZJIEZBVLVIFHSVXOWRTQHSUZBDPJLYJVULVPOHRQCBDCYBNQAVFEWEMPZBGCRFPXTLOIAWEGXVTBFHNFFPUGY
VJXOMJEHGKKBJMHAGTTDNYRRQHMHGGVJHBBANXZMYAQIWUXZCOQWCAR

Deciphered :

OH MY ADVENTURERS ALTHOUGH I AM GLAD TO SHARE MY INFORMATION ON ALMOST ANY SUBJECT I BELIEVE IT IS IN EVERY ONES BEST INTERESTS THAT SOME THINGS ARE LEFT UNSAID
SIMPLY SPEAKING THIS ALREADY SUGGESTS YOU MAY HAVE MEDDLED WITH SOMETHING BEYOND YOUR UNDERSTANDING
WITHOUT EXCELLENT REASON I SIMPLY CANNOT SPEAK MORE ON THIS TOPIC

This message is unfortunately a dead end, as it does not provide any meaningful information towards solving the problem.

But the Realm Eye’s last sentence dialogue is a step for the enigma, implying that the Realm Eye simply needs a better reason to tell you about it.

When the player replies to the Realm Eye with “Craig sent me”, a new coded message appears:

TKDDBFCHRBGQERTBSLYWLSGSYLOGRNZJYDOGZWCQFJIMYHJHOEWAMETMNZKWIJMVYGWODBKPOVLRZSISAZCOCAOUTUCCCB
XKSIBKLTRXPPWHWWWTQTOUUNIRSFMIVDJXYSKYWYOFREYLPJKGAJHKZHOZCLDESFJCGRYFKPGOOMNNTFGZCBKJDKRUZVHBUWUKCQUHJSHQAASPMRJXMXONAEUKD
RPXHWERZKXIFWREKSPCXVZRFIQPWQNSHAJDKVNJRKGPHEWLBRKRKFSFNLGFACWGOBNYACFKKFZOVBFMQMZJXEJYQDBOCRDZUWVNSQHEBPRKAZFCHOCHYOKWOOMJYDURKSMOGPHBR

Deciphered :

OH I SEE YES I AM AWARE OF THE PLACE KNOWN ONLY AS THE INNER WORKINGS HOWEVER I ASSURE YOU EVEN MY KNOWLEDGE IS LIMITED
I HAVE REASON TO BELIEVE THAT THIS CHAMBER IS WHERE THE MYTHICAL CONCEPT OF DROPRATES ARE CALCULATED THE RHYME AND REASON BEHIND THE LOOT YOU ACQUIRE
BUT I KNOW NOT HOW ONE WOULD INTRUDE ONLY AN EXTRAORDINARILY ADVANCED SCIENTIFIC RESEARCHER WITH AN INTENSE INTEREST IN SIMULATION THEORY MAY HAVE YOUR ANSWERS

Only one “extraordinarily advanced scientific researcher” is known in the game lore, and it’s Dr. Terrible. However, no interaction with the Doctor is possible in the Mad Lab, since the Dr. Terrible in the lab is stated to be a simulacrum.

The next step is to go to The Nest and talk to the computer that can be accessed after defeating the Beekeeper, who is actually the real Dr. Terrible. Use the chat to input “simulation theory” into the computer to display the following message:

Loading PostBeesResearch.txt…
Research Log 65535: 23/3/2020 - Oryx forgot to give me a new assignment. This has enabled me to work on whatever I please.
During my research into simulation theory, I believe I have found irrefutable evidence that this world is indeed being controlled by higher powers!
A strange dimension exists, exerting power over the land’s most basic functions. And that’s not all! Even deeper in this chamber is a tool, not too dissimilar from an advanced piece of technology from my own world.
After approximately 425 hours of research, I was able to crack it. I can nowconfidently conclude that Oryx’s realm is not only a simulation, but also happens to be Turing Complete.
This would make for a notable paper. It seems, however, that Oryx has remembered my existence, and I need to work for him again. Perhaps slowly I can document my findings, whenever I have time.
I hacked the dimension’s suprisingly weak security system and created a backdoor for myself. But I do not trust myself remembering the access protocol, so I will leave it here as a note to myself:
To witness my greatest discovery, one must initiate the Insect Confusion Protocol to lay bare the access to my finest research. The protocol requires the alphanumeric code 77328993 for authentification.

This provides the code 77328993 but this alone won’t grant the access to The Inner Workings. A hint is that the code is described as “alphanumeric” by Dr. Terrible. One has to match these numbers on the letter mapping of the international standard phone keypad.

The result obtained is then PPEBTWXD, which references the meme “PPE btw lel xD” from the RotMG community.


With that, all the clues to access the dungeon are finally gathered.

Go into The Machine, defeat Null, and use the Hivemaster Helm again to trigger the Automated Security System again. Input the correct password, and a dialogue chain will appear, followed by the opening of the Inner Workings portal.

Congratulations on solving the mystery!

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Trivia

This dungeon is the main part of the April’s Fool 2020 ARG which was mainly held on the RealmEye Forum.

This project has been started in October 2019 as UGC by now Deca’s Team member MrUnibro, helped by Toastrz.

According to the creator himself, the goal of this joke dungeon is ‘that something as useless as a calculator exists in a game about looting and shooting.[…] Additionally, It can be seen as a practical joke, in the sense that it is a demonstration of how truly impractical it is to get realm objects to operate in specific ways. There is no better way to make a calculator in this game, because realm objects have no concept of “math” or “variables”, or anything you might do in a real programming language. They’re just finite state machines. They take a state, do some stuff, and if they observe a specifically defined event (e.g. low hp), they go to a different state. That’s all they are capable of. It’s why so many cool ideas for this game never become reality.

This calculator has nothing special to offer except specific outputs that the calculator will react to, e.g. it scolds you if you make it calculate ‘69’.

According to The Realm Eye, this area is supposedly where the drop rates of items, which have long been a mystery to the playerbase, are calculated. However, the actual functionality of the calculator does not provide any insight into drop rates.