Your father's MacGuffin diary

your father's MacGuffin diary This is the diary your father kept during his lifelong search for the Holy MacGuffin. A lot of it is useless, or at least really boring, but he seems to have found a handful of important clues during his search. Your father's handwriting was also infuriatingly small and sloppy. You had forgotten about that. Type: usable Cannot be traded or discarded Quest Item (In-game plural: your father's MacGuffin diaries, somehow)

View metadata Item number: 2044 Description ID: 972316396 View in-game: view refreshedit data

Obtained From

The Shore, Inc.

Covert Operations

Kingdom of Exploathing challenge path

The Council of Loathing

When Used

When used, you will be able to read what's inside the diary (well duh).

The full text reads as follows:

Page 1 Jarlsuary 1 The Holy MacGuffin's resting place is apparently a pyramid buried beneath Seaside Town. The guardians left a clue as to its exact location -- a wooden model of Seaside Town, hidden in a smaller pyramid somewhere on Desert Beach. But to unlock the clue, I'll need the key. The legendary Staff of Ed! [picture: a pyramid at the edge of a vast desert] Page 2 [picture: the three parts of the Staff of Ed -- a gem, an engraved ring, and a staff] "The staff has been broken into 3 parts and scattered across the Kingdom. Once I have retrieved all three pieces, I must find the wooden city, and use the staff to determine the precise location of the pyramid." [picture: a cutaway view of the pyramid, showing sunlight, focused through the Staff of Ed, pinpointing a location on the wooden model]

Page 3 [picture: four small images in sequence: a forest, a stone with a map engraved on it, an ancient temple, and an image of an ancient god with long ears and a lightning-shaped tail] Bor 7 It is said that the Hidden Temple in the Distant Woods holds many ancient secrets. I have reason to believe that part of the Staff of Ed is hidden there. Bor 11 Discovered a passage about the Temple in a book on ancient religious architecture. Appears to contain notes about some kind of ritual. Significant? Page 4 I: ALUTESAY MAJORES OWTHRAY VESTI MANUS IN AER ET AVEWAY LEMMA IKELAY TU NON CAUTIO (Trans: The Gesture of the Elders -- Throw your hands up in the air and wave them like you do not care.) II: VERBUM MAJORES PAUCI IMESTAY EGO INTER UT SEMIA SIC NON IUSTUS ONNAGAY OCCURO AMO UT ETLAY ME AUDITE LOCUTUS ATWHAY HIC EXCRETIA EST (Trans: The Word of the Elders -- A few times I've been around that track, so it's not just gonna happen like that. Let me hear you say what this (???) is.) III: FIDES MAJORES NOS NON NECESSITAS NULLAS AQUIA PERMISSIUM MATRISFORNICATIO EXURO (Trans: The Trust of the Elders -- We do not... ?)

Page 5 Febtober 6 My trail has led me to the home of a wealthy Seaside Town man who apparently possesses the gem from the Staff. He refuses to see me, but I did discover a note left in a scrap of paper in a book he returned to the library across the street from the sleazy back alley. It contains, among other things, a fragment of sheet music. Curious. [picture: a fragment of sheet music] Page 6 [picture: a bookshelf, with an arrow pointing to the third book from the left] [picture: a series of numerous strange glyphs]

Page 7 Bill 2 My informant has revealed the locations of the two halves of the Talisman o' Namsilat, key to the legendary Palindome. They are currently in the hands of the nefarious Copperhead brothers, Ron and Shen. Shen was last seen at the Copperhead Club in Seaside Town, while Ron is rumored to have taken up with the Red Army at their mountain zeppelin base. [picture: two snakes, combining to form an amulet][note: PASSWORD: swordfish] Bill 4 My research has revealed that the Palindome is the last resting place of the famed pool shark Rudolph "Saturated" Fats, or at least his pool cue, the Staff of Fats. It's widely rumored that it wasn't originally a pool cue, but that Fats had modified an old staff he had found in an antique store. This explains his pool prowess -- perhaps the cue is actually the shaft of the Staff of Ed! Page 8 Bill 6 The pirates showed me this rubbing. They're not sure where it came from, and the bottom is missing. Still, it might be useful. [picture: the top part of a carving, with the words GOD, A RED NUGGET, A FAT EGG]

Notes

• Reading the diary opens up various areas required for the Quest for the Holy MacGuffin.
• The series of glyphs on Page 6 are part of a puzzle created by the development team as an experiment (which has since run its course). When decoded, it provides instructions on how to obtain the Ragamuffin Imp -- "to get an imp say word tatter at the altar do not spoil this".
  • The picture of a bookcase above is a clue to a now-obsolete function; previously, you would have to pull that book from the case in either of the Take a Look, it's in a Book! adventures in the library.

History

• The "Password: Swordfish" was added on November 28, 2007, as part of an expected revamp of the Obligatory Pirate's Cove.
• On February 19, 2014, with the pirate revamp, part of the text version of this changed. On page 7, Bill 2, it used to say:

  In a bar at the Obligatory Pirate's Cove, I overheard a pirate who claimed to have found the legendary Palindome. He was wearing an unusual gold amulet -- two snakes, each biting the other's tail. Unfortunately, I lost him in the crowd before I could question him.

• Also, the image part had changed. It used to look like:

References

• A MacGuffin is a plot device that motivates the characters and/or advances the story, but has little other relevance to the story.
• The diary itself is a reference to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, in which Indiana Jones seeks out the Holy Grail using the meticulous and sometimes cryptic notes in his father's diary.
• The Pikachu-like picture on page 3 is a reference to Riff's 1000 blank white cards page.
• The last page appears to be a palindrome which would complete as: GOD, A RED NUGGET, A FAT EGG UNDER A DOG. This is a line from the Weird Al Yankovic song "Bob".
• The phrases on page 4 are lyrics from rap songs translated into a mix of dog-Latin and Pig Latin:
  • "OWTHRAY VESTI MANUS IN AER ET AVEWAY LEMMA IKELAY TU NON CAUTIO" is a translation of "Throw your hands up in the air, and wave them like you just don't care", from Cameo's song Word Up!.
  • "PAUCI IMESTAY EGO INTER UT SEMIA SIC NON IUSTUS ONNAGAY OCCURO AMO UT" means "A few times I've been around that track, so it's not just gonna happen like that", from the Gwen Stefani song "Hollaback Girl".
  • "NOS NON NECESSITAS NULLAS AQUIA PERMISSIUM MATRISFORNICATIO EXURO" is intended to be "We don't need no water, let the motherfucker burn", a lyric from "The Roof Is on Fire" by Rock Master Scott & the Dynamic Three.
• The first line of sheet music is "Shave and a Haircut", but in a minor key, as is befitting for a haunted organ.
• "Throw your hands up in the air/and wave them around like you just don't care" has entered the common parlance of songwriting and has been used in a broad spectrum of songs.
• The use of "Swordfish" as a password was inspired by the Marx Brothers movie Horse Feathers and may be a reference to the 2001 movie, Swordfish or a variety of other more recent references to the original Marx Brothers film.
• Pool shark Rudolph "Saturated" Fats is named after real-life pool player Rudolf Walter Wanderone Jr., aka "Minnesota Fats".
• The Staff of Ed is comparable to the Staff of Ra from Raiders of the Lost Ark.