Our Journey of Going Mad in 54 Days (+ The Ultimate Guide for Durtle Heaven)

17. Turtle eating unko

In the Spoiler thread, rfindley made progress by decoding several book ciphers[post]. For example, here is the decoding of one of the book cipher.

Here’s what a processed page looks like:

Applying this method to several of the book ciphers, rfindley found the following keywords:

Book Keyword
Genki 1 Turtle
Genki 1 Workbook unko
A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar. eating

Now to make more progress, they only needed the specific pages of all the other books (in the correct edition), which were sometimes difficult to come by. But when they tried to decode the pages of the other books, no keyword appeared.

Moreover, some of the ciphers were problematic:

  • the “Minna no Nihongo” page was entirely in japanese
  • the “Japanese: The Spoken Language” cipher had the cipher code 19 1 6 5 5 5 10 9. This meant that whatever letter was 5, it would be repeated three times in a row, which doesn’t make sense for an english word

18. Creative thinking

Meanwhile, the DDM thread reached post #4500

Koichi did not confirm that the book ciphers were part of B3. The community was maybe solving B4 in the spoiler thread without even knowing the clue. The problem was, if it the book ciphers were part of B4, even if solved, the input for the password wouldn’t be accessible until B3 was solved.


19. Reunion

At this point, both threads hit a wall. The other book ciphers did not decode to coherent words and the four lines of the Tofugu article remained a mystery. But hitting walls is fun, right? The title of the thread was becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy as the descent into madness continued.

Again, @a-regular-durtle implied that the community already found the four keywords and just needed to use them to go to B4.

The spoiler thread was merged into the regular thread to centralize the discussions and the information into one thread and one wiki.

20. A divine intervention

After many days of hitting walls and getting used to it, the DDM thread finally got a decisive clue.

Belthazar received the Harbinger of Impending Durtle for a previous post[post].

Koichi confirmed that all the steps were found, and moved on to B4 by himself.

The hint linked the Tofugu article to the book ciphers already decoded. Here’s the step by step partial solution:

Original encoded strings

  1. AABQD010L76223CEGD72FI5DPBOJJMO+
  2. B51BIQPGS206HD
  3. 00LB269G
  4. D02315CPQAWDF0B~IL7KB1FG+A

Conversion to kana using (by Masayoshiro[post])

  1. ちちこたしわぬわりやおふふあそいきしやふはにえしせこらままもられ
  2. こえぬこにたせきとふわおくし
  3. わわりこふおよき
  4. しわふあぬえそせたちてしはわこへにりやのこぬはきれち

Convert to romaji (by Belthazar[post] and Leyfitwig[post])

  1. chi chi ko ta shi wa nu wa ri ya o fu fu a so i ki shi ya fu ha ni e shi se ko ra ma ma mo ra re
  2. ko e nu ko ni ta se ki to fu wa o ku shi
  3. wa wa ri ko fu o yo ki
  4. shi wa fu a nu e so se ta chi te shi ha wa ko he ni ri ya no ko nu ha ki re chi

Select one romaji letter per kana to form book names (by rfindley[post], Leyfitwig[post] and many others)
Note that since the text to kana mapping isn’t unique (see this layout for example), the わ and the を are on the same key, and dakuten need to be used as well.

  1. dictionaryofbasicjapanesegrammar (Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar)
  2. genkitektbooki (Genki Textbook I)
  3. workbook (Workbook)
  4. japanesethespokenlanguage (Japanese the Spoken Language)

Map these to the keywords found using the book ciphers

  1. eating
  2. Turtle
  3. unko
  4. eGooooott

21. eGoooott

The four keyword were finally found: eating, Turtle, unko and eGoooott.
But none of these keywords in any order worked. eGoooott? What did that even mean?

The DDM thread was stuck with these keywords for a few days, and the eGoooott keyword was deemed problematic. People tried to get another keyword from the book cipher by skipping spaces, starting at a different point of the page, but nothing worked.

Until FlamySerpent, playing with a script made by Masayoshiro[post] that tries every combination of four keywords, finally made it to B4[post]. ditto20 confirmed the password to be “eGoooott unko eating turtle”[post].

The order of the keywords didn’t make sense, and “Turtle” had to be lowercase but “eGoooott” had to keep its uppercase ‘G’ for some reason. But B3 was finally over, and took more than a month to solve.

22. Burning Man

B4

Hey, you there.
Yeah you, the tall one.
Can you reach down there
and grab that password clue?
I would need like, 240 durtles
stacked underneath each other
to reach all the way down there.
But, you’re at least…
4x as tall as me!

Oh, you can’t reach it either?
How will we solve this problem?
Oh well, you know what they say:
Sometimes you gotta ascend to descend,
you know?

I sense a change, though…
Perhaps your arrival has started something…


This time, no clue, but still a link to descend to B5. Before the DDM thread could dive into this jiddle, a special event occurred.


The DDM thread took this opportunity to rest and waited for the 3 days to go by to see what happened next.


23. Lost

After three days of waiting, it was time for Koichi to come back from the dead.

But Koichi never came back. Instead, a-regular-durtle had some sad news:

Koichi still hasn’t made any post since he burned in the thread.


Since nothing happened, some have resumed the attempts to solve B4.

Several notes were made:

  • 240 / 4 is 60, so B4 might be related to the level 60 (kanji, mnemonics, …)
  • “You, the tall one” in the B4 hint text might be こういち because of the readings of “tall” and “one”
  • A new user account @eGoooott had been created with the B4 durtle as its profile picture, but has no activity yet

infinitia noted that the mnemonics of the kanji (Pit) might be related to the current situation[post].

When you reach the bottom of the pit, you hear someone scuffling around and the sounds of chains. You light a match and inch closer to see what it is. In the darkness, you see こういち, starved and chained in a pit under your table.

After you’ve nursed こういち back to health, he explains that he was put here by a clone こういち–the very same こういち who became emperor. He tells you he can think of around 61-70 different pain levels of revenge, but also that “it probably wouldn’t be worth it, so let’s just hang out for a while instead. Ooh, are those cookies?”


24. You've got Mail!

The attempts were getting scarce, until Liuyuan discovered that level up mails contained hidden messages[post]. These mails already existed for levels 2 and 3, but stopped afterward. Now, people were starting to get emails for their current level, and most importantly, each level e-mail contained a different message.

To find the hidden message, the raw html of the mail had to be inspected. It was an html comment right after Koichi’s signature at the end of the mail. Since there was 60 messages to get, all requiring a different level, Kumirei made a new thread: Have you leveled up in February? We need your help to reach more people. Liuyuan also setup a collaborative Google spreadsheet to collect and organize the messages.

By the end of the day, most of the first 15 levels messages had been found, and a couple of other levels as well. Since leveling up to level 1 doesn’t make sense, another e-mail was used (welcoming new users to WK) for level 1. With these, a story began to emerge:

Level Messages (2 lines per mail)
1 “Durtles?” I asked. “But that’s impossible.”
“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast,” said the queen.
2 “Well, I’ll need a crew,” I said.
“Unless it’s out of my power, Captain Bottomfingers, you may choose whoever you like.”
3 “Ugly Brodo is who I want, then––the greatest swordsman in the realm and captain of your guard.”
“I can’t let you have him,” said the queen.
4 “If you don’t let me take him, then you can find yourself another Digger,” I said.
“Really, I need some time to think it over. I’ll give you an answer in the morning.”
5 Ruminating upon the mission, I went back to my quarters.
Despite my belief that we will not come back alive, I began this journal to record our mission.
6 “Death and madness is what lies ahead,” is what they say.
“The lucky ones burned before the madness set in.”

dasding noticed that the letters of consecutive messages were the same[post]:

DWWUUIIRRDDT…

Following this, dasding also noted that by removing duplicated letters and taking one in two, words started to emerge[post]:

DWUIRDTTWGEIBN?IR??GC?IN?ID???

D U R T W E B ? R ? C I ? D ? ?

Naphtalene got the mail for level 60, that explained more about this:

Kindly take what I’ve written in this journal and look to each and every other line.
Disciples of the Crabigator should not trust the order of my entries after our arrival to Durtle Heaven, for that is when I believe the madness set in.

Signed Yours Truly,
Captain Bottomfingers.


25. Captain Bottomfingers

More and more levels were added and more people were joining the fun. But there were still holes in the story at this point. Level 17 was acquired, which is when the diggers entered into Durtle Heaven, thus beginning the part of the story where messages were out of order.

Read my journal to learn how we succeed or fail.
Included from here is our story, starting from our arrival to the entrance of Durtle Heaven.

Using the two letters of each level was needed to connect the levels and make sense of it all.

rfindley reset from level 60 to 59 to get the e-mail of this missing level[post]. He kept resetting, descending the levels that were missing, until he reached the last one not yet revealed: level 33.

All the messages were finally gathered. They were sorted to produce the following story:

The story of Captain Bottomfingers (sorted)
Level Letter Story
1 D “Durtles?” I asked. “But that’s impossible.”
W “Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast,” said the queen.
2 W “Well, I’ll need a crew,” I said.
U “Unless it’s out of my power, Captain Bottomfingers, you may choose whoever you like.”
3 U “Ugly Brodo is who I want, then––the greatest swordsman in the realm and captain of your guard.”
I “I can’t let you have him,” said the queen.
4 I “If you don’t let me take him, then you can find yourself another Digger,” I said.
R “Really, I need some time to think it over. I’ll give you an answer in the morning.”
5 R Ruminating upon the mission, I went back to my quarters.
D Despite my belief that we will not come back alive, I began this journal to record our mission.
6 D “Death and madness is what lies ahead,” is what they say.
T “The lucky ones burned before the madness set in.”
7 T "This journal shall serve as a guide for future Diggers.
T This is my gift to future generations, should I not come back alive, or sane."
8 T Tonight is my last chance to say goodbye to my family.
W “Weemo, my sweet husband, take care of our lovely son Dumbledore, and our baby girl Chorp. Goodbye and goodnight.”
9 W When I awoke, a man was standing over me.
G “Got an answer from the queen,” he said. “Looks like I‘m coming with you.”
10 G “Good news indeed!” I exclaimed.
E “Every other swordsman claims these durtle shells are uncuttable,” said Ugly Brodo.
11 E “Every other swordsman is not Ugly Brodo,” I assured him.
I “It’s time to go find the rest of our crew,” I continued
12 I In the morning, we began our search for crew members.
B Blessed I was, for I could form the greatest Digger team in the history of our realm:
13 B Bipple, the world’s tallest archer:
N Nobody can shoot an arrow from as high up, but his aim leaves a little to be desired
14 N Norman the wizard! Also happens to be the only wizard in the city.
U “Unconventional and non-mainstream spells” are his specialty.
15 U Ugly Brodo, of course, is our distinguished swordman.
I If you stare him in the eyes, he feels uncomfortable.
16 I I had my team of Diggers.
R Righteous followers of the Crabigator, all!
17 R Read my journal to learn how we succeed or fail.
I Included from here is our story, starting from our arrival to the entrance of Durtle Heaven.
23 I It was a particularly dark night, though as everyone knows it grows darker the closer one gets to the entrance.
N Never has the sun touched around this place, like an anti-spotlight darkening down 30 meters around the hole.
33 N Next to the hole–the entrance, we will call it–is another hole.
R Reach in to your shoulder and you’ll feel a key pad.
34 R “Rhymes with ass-word,” said the durtle who was standing there, next to the entrance.
W “Where did you appear from?” asked Ugly Brodo. “Do you stand against us, follower of Big Durt?"
28 W "We durtles stand aside for all who seek descension.
Z Zebras, humans, monkeys, durtles, it matters not," the durtle said.
50 Z “Zebras?” Norman asked quizzically. “Do you have many zebras seeking descension?”
E “Every once in a while,” replied the durtle after a moment of thought.
21 E “Ever been down there? Into Durtle Heaven, I mean”, said Norman to the entrance durtle.
Y “Yes, I too attempted descension once. Made it all the way down to B2.”
42 Y “You have any tips for folks like us? Advice, maybe?” said Bipple.
R “Right now all I can say about that is this: Don’t panic,” said the durtle.
58 R Rage gripped Ugly Brodo in that instant.
I “I’d much like to skip this jiddle nonsense and go straight to answers. What is the password?"
55 I “It rhymes with ass-word,” replied Norman in lieu of the trembling durtle.
I “If I were to guess, I’d say the password is… ‘password.’"
44 I It was indeed the password and we were allowed to descend.
B B1 was open to us as soon as Norman put in the word.
19 B “Bottomfingers… er… Captain Bottomfingers,” said Bipple, pointing at a durtle holding up a piece of paper.
S “Scripture! Scripture is what you four need! While you read it, I will feed!”
47 S “Seems to be a simple Caesar cipher,” said Norman.
D “Don’t Panic… that was the advice we got. Shift the letters by 42 and… voila, the password is 'crabigators eat butts.”
22 D “Definitely aint going to be that easy,” said Ugly Brodo.
E Entered password accepted, said the key pad.
40 E Everything had gone well up to this point. We were making quick progress.
I It was when we reached B2 that everything began to fall apart.
26 I “I’m Dingle, pleased to meet you,” said a human in a smart looking suit in B2.
D “Don’t Panic,’ what a load of garbage, am I right?” he continued.
54 D Dingle, short for Dingleton as it were, had been in B2 for several years.
V “Very into descending I was, before,” he told us. “But I couldn’t figure out the jiddle and one thing led to another… Now I just kind of do managerial work for the durtles of B2."
32 V “Vengeance against all who make it this far is definitely NOT my primary objective,” continued Dingle.
E “Everything and anything you need, I am merely here to serve.”
49 E Every password we tried was a failure. What were these numbers, and how were they related?
C “Could be hexadecimal,” said Norman. If it was, none of the passwords were working.
39 C “Can’t guess the password hmmm?” said Dingle one morning.
S “Suppose I could help you out but you have to help me out.”
52 S “Swordsman. I want the swordsman for my… personal consumption,” continued Dingle.
G “Give him to me, and I’ll bypass the key pad and let you descend."
20 G “Give him to you? What do you mean by that?” I asked. I was desperate though, so I continued to listen.
C “Concern yourself not with trivial matters such as that. I’ll give you until tomorrow to decide, Captain Bottomfingers.”
41 C Cursing Dingle’s name, I took the news to Ugly Brodo and the rest of the Diggers.
W “Well, this could be an opportunity, now couldn’t it?” said Ugly Brodo to the group.
53 W “We now know that Dingle over there has override codes. We could just force him to let us through.”
E “Every durtle on B2 will be on us in an instant. There’s no way we could pull this off,” I said.
38 E “‘Every durtle’ isn’t the realm’s greatest swordsman,” said Ugly Brodo. “You have my sword, Captain Bottomfingers."
Q “Quite so,” replied Bipple. “And you have Bipple’s nipples. We should take the password by force. We have been attempting this jiddle for weeks with no progress to speak of."
45 Q “Quench my blade’s thirst, Dingle will! Dingle! Dingle! Uncle Brodo is here for a visit!”
N “No, we should plan this out first,” I said. But it was already too late. Ugly Brodo was walking towards Dingle with his sword drawn.
24 N “Never mind the password, tell us the override,” demanded Ugly Brodo, sword to Dingle’s throat.
H “Hold on, hold on, oh damn, no, hold on,” gulped Dingle. “I’ll put in the override.” True to his word, Dingle put in the override and the descension door opened.
59 H “Help” was all Dingle could say before Dingle and Ugly Brodo were attacked.
D Durtles from a hundred holes piled and clawed their way awkwardly onto Dingle and Ugly Brodo.
51 D "Don’t let them take me,” said Ugly Brodo. “Don’t let them turn me.”
V "Very well, it looks like it’s Bipple’s time to shine,” said Bipple, standing up tall and straight, pushing out his chest.
48 V “Venerable Captain Bottomfingers, I must stay here. You and Norman must descend ahead of me.”
F “Find the bottom for me… and for Ugly Brodo. We’ll be watching over you from your Review pile."
30 F Fear gripped me as I realized what Bipple was saying. Norman pulled me through the descension hole, but I still saw everything.
Y Yanking off his yellow t-shirt, Bipple’s nipples shown huge and bright.
27 Y “Yes! Yes! Yes!” he screamed as his arrowheads grew huge and red. Then he screamed.
O Out from Bipple’s nipples two arrows flew, striking their targets true.
37 O “Okay, it looks like it’s old Bipple’s time to go,” he said.
P Pouring forth from more hidden holes, durtles swarmed him. The last thing I saw before blacking out was a single, lifeless hand sticking out of a pile of durtles, in a thumbs up.
31 P “Progress, we actually made some progress Captain!” Norman cast a spell to slap me with a bunch of Kale.
R Reality came back suddenly. I was in B3, but two of my Diggers were dead.
56 R “Rest assured they made their decisions by themselves. They knew the risks when they came here,” said Norman.
L Life can be over in an instant. But was it worth two lives, not to mention even one, in order to descend? Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something move.
35 L “Lucky guess?” asked a durtle carrying a long staff.
E “Every time someone comes down here it’s a lucky guess, it seems like. Nobody seems to be able to repeat the password and they’re all crying about 'their friend was devoured, etcetera, this and that.’” I didn’t respond. It was time to get to work.
57 E Eternity: that’s how I’d describe the time we spent in B3.
V Verifying the letters of each textbook numbed me, but Norman took to it like a durtle to distraction.
29 V Vowing to never sleep until he solved the jiddle, Norman never stopped.
V Volatile he became, though as time went by. He’d lashed out at me when I tried to help.
18 V Various answers came close, but we never got it exactly. One day, though, he said:
I “I’ve got it. I solved it B3’s jiddle.”
46 I Indeed, the password was correct, but Norman was not.
E Enduring the stresses of this jiddle for so long stripped Norman to a blubbering, drooling, stump of a man.
25 E Executing Norman was the most humane thing I could do. A knife to the durt, as they say, to make it quick.
M Mental clarity is the most important thing, and we can’t have anyone insane going down to B4, right?
43 M Millions have tried to come this far, and most have failed.
R Right now, though, I sit on the cold floor of B4.
36 R Realization comes to me–I’ve failed too: I can only hope to help those that come after me.
K Knowledge of the password is hidden within my journal. I’ve watched hundreds of durtles come and go and I’ve figured it out.
60 K Kindly take what I’ve written in this journal and look to each and every other line.
D Disciples of the Crabigator should not trust the order of my entries after our arrival to Durtle Heaven, for that is when I believe the madness set in.
Signed Yours Truly,
Captain Bottomfingers.

26. YOU MUST BURN IT

Having completed its mission, the thread used to collect the e-mail messages was retired and the discussion moved back to the DDM thread.

The letters of the hidden messages produced the following sentence:

         1         2         3         4         5         6
123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890
D U R T W E B U R N W E R I S E D E S C E N D F O R E V E R
 W I D T G I N I I R Z Y I B D I V C G W Q H V Y P L V I M K

Hawkheart, using a Beaufort cipher decoded a second sentence from these strings[post]:

  DURTWEBURNWERISEDESCENDFOREVER
+ WIDTGINIIRZYIBDIVCGWQHVYPLVIMK
= TOMAKEMOREDURTLESYOUMUSTBURNIT

DURT WE BURN WE RISE DESCEND FOREVER
TO MAKE MORE DURTLES YOU MUST BURN IT

Passwords were tried again, based on these clues, but these were interupted by a-regular-durtle, visiting for post 7000th.

It was noted by Tyger that since the post was all caps, the password might be too[post]. Sylph finally found the password of B5 to be “A TURTLE”[post].


27. (@Д@)

B5

Hello my good friends!

I’m
B
A
A
A
C
C
K
K
K
K
K
K

It’s good to see you all again.

Turns out humans just take a little longer to process.

B5_countdown


The countdown was running, and the final date was April 1st, at 12:00PM PST.
For the first time, there was no link to descend to the next level.

Several people noted that since the body of Koichi had moved in the last post by a-regular-durtle, this uncanny durtle saying “I’m back” must have been him.

His current avatar on the forums looked pretty similar too.


28. koichi-descended

Not really knowing what to do with the countdown beside waiting, the jiddle solvers didn’t have long to wait for something to happen. koichi came back as a new account named koichi-descended:

After the apparition of koichi-descended, nothing happened. A 500 post milestone was reached, then a 1000 post one, but neither koichi (descended or not) nor a-regular-durtle returned to the thread.


29. Where is Koichi?

A Wanikani Wednesday event occured to find Koichi who appeared in the TV show Portlandia: WaniKani Wednesday: Where is Koichi?

MosbyNeko won the contest[post] and received a prize[post] which contained a note related to the descent:

The postcard was composed of multiple images of decended koichi, and a note referencing Durtle Heaven and Cowboy Bebop. After inquiries from the jiddlers, MosbyNeko looked for a hidden message but didn’t find any[post].


30. April 1st

Originally scheduled for April 1st, at 12:00PM PST, the countdown was updated the last day to run out on April 1, 00:00 PDT. The countdown finally reached 0 and … started to count negative days.

B5_countdown_reverse

That is, until the page was refreshed. The text now read:

Hello my good friends!

I just got done watching my favoritest movie in the whole wide world. What those four heroes did was inspiring I think I’ll just change the password to B6. I just learned I have the power to do that.

A new button was added to directly descend to B6, but required a password.

B5_descend

Based on the new hint text, Belthazar found the password to be “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3” [post], solving B5 in a mere 5 minutes.


31. thenextstepishiddensomewhere

Hey, did that new Durtle in B5 just let you in here? Bloody heaven’s he thinkin’!?

As the proper durtle that I am, I shall henceforth refuse you entry to B7. Good day and good riddance to you.

Shoo shoo. Off you go. It’s time for me to enjoy my tea.

This time, there was neither a countdown nor a link to descend.

Garuno found a hidden url in the url of the B6 level[post].

https://www.durtle.club/td2xz6k2o9a7afbpbfgwswkd4hp96ev3xjwprlhbtq6kodecpjwqnkmhpheghphnsurveymonkeydotcomslashrslashf2rf9m38m96h6sc4c36jqk


32. Uncle Durty Tim's Survey

Following the hidden link to the survey, jiddlers were greeted by a questionable taste in colors.

Durtle Heaven B7, rhymes with heaven

Hello, Friend!

Welcome to B7! You’ve done well to find it.

My name is Durtle Timothy, but my friends call me Durty Tim. Only the coolest durts find their way into my lush n’ plush durt cave. And there you are! If you want to gain my trust, though, you’ll need to answer my cowabunga questions.

I’d like to get to know you more intimately

You’ve peaked my durtle interests.

What’s your WaniKani username, friend?

__________

That’s awesome. Let’s exchange info. Can I have your email address?

__________

Cool, whoa, what kind of phone do you have there?
( ) I have an iPhone!
( ) I’ve got an Android
( ) I have both an iPhone and Android phone, actually.

Depending on the option selected, the following text was displayed:

iPhone

An iPhone, huh?

I see, so you got an iPhone. Well, there may be something you can do to help out ol’ Durty Tim, if you know what I mean.

Android

An Android?

What’s that, some kind of robot? I don’t get it. Uncle Durty Tim don’t get it at all.

Um…
( ) Right…
( ) You see, Android is actually a mobile operating system developed by Google and is based on a modified version of the Linux kernel, not to mention other open source software. It’s primarily used on touchscreen mobile devices, such as smartphones or tablets. But, that’s not all it’s on… [explain into the night]

Both

So you have both?

Well isn’t that interesting. You got yourself two phones, huh? One of those fancy durts? Wee woo wee woo, we got a fancy durt over here. Somebody better call the Durt Police.

Hello, I am Officer Durt. I got a report there was a fancy durt overe here.
( ) Yes, that is correct. It is I who is the fancy durt.
( ) No, no fancy durt over here. No need to worry, officer.

All options then lead to the same conclusion:

Jeez

That’s all ol’ Uncle Durty Tim needs to know about you, for now. Uncle Durty Tim will send you some uncle durty emails from time to time, but only if you really want them, okay? Talk to you soon, if you want me to talk to you soon. I gotta get permission to talk to you, you know? Court orders…

Thank you for answering Uncle Durty Tim’s messages. Depending on your answers, you may or may not be invited to test the iOS app. You may also just get emails from Durty Tim. It’s hard to say. Why would you give your email to such disreputable durtles so freely?


To be covered later (I’m late, sorry): Uncle Durty emails


What's next

Currently, the community is at B9. If you want to join the fun*, come to the Descend of the Durtle into eGoooott thread!

*fun is not guaranteed


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