Online Easter-Eggs for Usher Finals

Location: Place where brains get wracked

Score updates are shown. If you have gotten an egg, it's time to e-mail me the solutions to the riddles they contain. I'll bestow a key icon (like those in Ready Player One) beside your scores above once you have reached that point. Divij, this can be your Art3mis moment--get me that Pet-Peeve violation and you'll vault upward and bask in the glory of a key beside your name.

Now on to NEW clues!

I am having a devil of a time coming up with more riddles, tasks, and such for the Virtual House of Usher Final Exams.  But three ideas struck me as interesting, given the tales we have read and and simulation itself. So here we go. You students must reply in the comments section with your answer.

My judgement will be subjective and as capricious as the contents of Roderick Usher's addled mind. Each of these could earn you one extra point.  Here we go: you tasks, Gunters! Be sure you are logged in with your Google account to reply, or at least put your name into the answer.

1. Poe was a master of descriptive language. I want you to re-read "The Fall of the House of Usher" and in a comment of NO MORE THAN 300 words (no easy task!) make the best argument you can for the mood of the story, using the adjectives--and no other parts of speech--that Poe employs. +1 point to winner (not your team). If you win, I'll give you a hint about Usher.
2. Our classmate Carly (now basking in one extra point) called Ready Player One  "cheesy." That is, itself, a fine adjective of its own. So let's have fun with Cline's book. He's a geek like me and can take the abuse. We will have a contest to find the cheesiest sentence in his entire novel. Post your nominations in the comments. Keep in mind that it must be a serious and not ironic sentence. You must do research, but as Wade reminds us (in a sentence that is not at all cheesy) research is easy if  you have no life. +1 point to finder (not your team). If you win, I'll give you a hint about Usher.
3. There have been speculations since the time of Poe's death about his abuse of the opiate Laudanum. We have some clues about it in the House of Usher, in fact.  I don't know that Poe ever drank Absinthe, but we put a tray of the drink in the House, too. Your task: write a haiku (using formal haiku form) in honor of either drink. +1 point to finder (not your team). If you win, I'll give you a hint about Usher. If you manage to Google and steal someone else's haiku, AND I find out, you'll lose your point...and one more!

Note well: all Gunters who want credit for any of these three tasks must  turn in their comment to this blog by MIDNIGHT Sunday. Cue the fiendish laughter.