~

Here's the story:

A year ago there was this vice article with this headline

The buyer, Aaron, of this old SGI computer is a lawyer and so wasn't keen on publishing the source code for Turok fans and gaming historians to dig through.  Quoting the article

he's well aware that dumping the source code online could get him into legal trouble... However, that doesn't mean the source code won't end up online. Aaron isn't going to dump the source code online, but he is going to sell the SGI Indy computer on eBay.

What the buyer does with it at that point is up to them, but Aaron told me over email that "as an attorney I'd advise whoever buys the systems to exercise good judgment and act within the confines of the law."

Ok, that was January 15th, 2017.  I'm not sure when exactly the ebay listing was sold, but it was probably not long after that article.


Now, just over 6 weeks ago (Jan 23rd 2018) we have some activity brewing on the r/Turok subbreddit caused by Code_Ouroboros, namely these two threads:
https://www.reddit.com/r/turok/comments/7skhc6/turok_1_n64_code_found_but_i_need_the_communitys/
https://www.reddit.com/r/turok/comments/7so9ks/turok_1_decryption_update/

Quoting Code_Ouroboros

I found an encrypted archive with the Turok source code from a random pomf.space host.

I know this is the archive. It's encrypted on multiple levels. I managed to crack the first level, the password was 'turok'.

This revealed an aiff file for one of the enemies and a scrap of code called humvee.c.

So he's pretty sure he's found the original source code, but whoever put it on this drive (possibly Aaron, or possibly someone who bought the ebay listing) had a bit of a "Riddler" streak and decided to play a game by encrypting the drive multiple times.  Each layer of encryption can be decrypted with the right passphrase, and whoever this guy was left fun passphrase riddles for fans to solve.  The community solved the first two layers very quickly and believe the third layer is the last one (as the archive in this 3rd layer is named 'turokfinal').

Here is a summary of how it works and what has happened so for:

Included in the drive, there is a readme file with some "narrative text" describing a fictional adventure game-type scenario, followed by the "passphrase riddle" in all caps, and finally this hint:  "HINT: All passphrases are lowercase alphanumerics without spaces, punctuation, or symbols."

Narrative + Riddle 1: (SOLVED)

On a grey autumn afternoon you find yourself meandering through a desolate wood. As you crest a hill through dense underbrush, you trip over a sharp stone and fall to your knees. You turn to look at it.

Its ragged, white surface is unlike that of any rock you've seen. You brush away the dirt and moss around it, revealing a tapered protrusion with a base somewhere deep below ground.

You wrap both hands around it and pull, but it refuses to budge. Then, you notice an inscription scratched into the surface. The weathered scrawl reads:

OPEN ME AT YOUR OWN PERIL INSIDE LIE ONLY ILLS AND EVIL

password was 'pandorasbox'

Narrative + Riddle 2: (SOLVED)

Curiosity wins out against your better judgment, and you set both heels
against the earth and heave. With a crunch, the stone breaks free and slides
out of the ground, sending you stumbling backwards.
 
You now realize that what you thought was a stone is really a curved section
of bone thicker than your arm and more than a yard in length. It appears to
be the rib of some massive animal, perhaps a whale or an elephant.
 
As you ply at the ground with your shoe, the loose dirt readily gives way. You
begin to scrape at it with the bone, slowly at first, and then faster with growing
anticipation. Could more secrets be buried beneath?
 
The sun begins to set. As the light fades and the cool evening air lashes at your
skin, you strike something hard, the jolt reverberating through your body.
Scraping aside more dirt and pebbles, you see a rusted steel box, its latch and
hinges eaten away by the elements. You remove the lid and find a moldy leather
bound journal inside. Written in faded ink on the first page, barely visible in the
glimmer of moonlight, are the words:
 
SOME GIFTS ARE CHAOS IN DISGUISE
THEY HARBOR AGENTS OF DEMISE

password was 'trojanhorse'

Narrative + Riddle 3: (UNSOLVED!)

You return to the spot at daybreak with a shovel and a pickaxe. Hacking away
steadily at the soil, you find fragments of bone, jagged incisors bigger than
your hand, and signs that a human encampment once stood on the hillcrest:
oil lamps, spools of rotted twine, and tattered rags that had once been clothing.
 
Your pickaxe hits something solid below ground with a deep thud. Sweating
and panting, you shovel away pound after pound of dirt until the object is
revealed: a broad stone slab, like the lid of a sarcophagus. Carved into it are
ornate depictions of monsters with frightful faces and toothy snarls.
 
Placing your ear against the slab, you hear what sounds like faint whispers
echoing underneath. They're chanting a phrase:
 
THE ANSWER'S WRITTEN ON THE WALL
BENEATH THIS CENTRAL TRANSIT HALL

~~~

If you read the two linked reddit threads, you can get a sense of some the ideas people have in approaching these riddles.  And if you're really into solving this puzzle perhaps it would be best to brainstorm up some of your own ideas before being influenced by the trails people were going down. 

By the time the third layer was reached, a reddit user Jelly_Cube_Zombie suggested using a brute force method to crack the password, and Code_Ouroboros sent him the data to let him try that method.

3 weeks ago I inquired in the thread if there were any updates, and received a reply that no progress has been made trying to guess the password.  Jelly_Cube_Zombie also replied

Brute forcing isn't really working out, the password is more than 10 characters alphanumeric. I'm at 11 characters with no symbols only lowercase letters and numbers.

That takes us to the present, and it seems we're stuck on this last riddle.

Better answers than I would get. Only thing I got was i'm confused lol. Good luck to them. How come the post doesn't mention where he found it?

Yeah, that was my thought process as well.  We need to find the place that this "hall" refers to.  One clue is that it could be a place in a video game where a slab like this is found (either a sarcophagus, or some kind of background design/mural of monsters).  Another clue is that the "hall" is a central transit hall, whatever that means.

Could any of the hub areas in the Turok games possibly be this "central transit hall"?   What would be written on the wall though?   In Turok 1, you could sort of say that the save point location is "on the wall" of the hub ruins, and thus the clue might be about the save dialogue text that pops up when you interact with it.  That's obviously not a good guess, but perhaps another Turok game has a hub with wall text somewhere?

[removed link]

Idk if its related.... lol