Too Many Secrets
Marleen's 40th birthday puzzle hunt
My sister made me this amazing birthday gift - least I could do was to write a report on it and make it look kinda of awesome to do the experience justice. So that's what I did. I didn't have time, however, to create a version that displays beautifully on small screens. So this report is only available on tablets, laptops, desktop PCs and TVs.
You can try turning your mobile device sideways (for landscape mode) - or otherwise, find a slightly larger screen and then come back!
Thank you.
- Marleen
Tool Kit
The Map
The Dragon Tattoo
Here are the new URLs again:
I checked out the "stack of random notes" and it didn't immediately speak to me, but the bathroom looked promising:
Difficulty level: approachable! If you feel like puzzling, this is another good candidate!
Bonus points if you find the typo...
The image is from "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", and I happen to know a girl with a dragon tattoo myself, my friend Dani from up the road! (And: there's a colourful dragon on the map that looks just like her tattoo.) Call Dani, roger, so far so good!
But when I called her, Dani let me know that she couldn't let me proceed without a password, and sent me back to the drawing board.
Inspired by the whiteboard and accompanying # decoder, I concluded that the password must be hidden in the stack of random notes.
Well, it wasn't.
I was looking in the completely wrong place, did a bunch of math and letter-counting, for an embarrassingly long time.
I believe it was at this point that my sister informed me that "You haven't figured out yet the ways in which the map is supposed to help you!"
That took me a whole while longer. But I might as well tell you now: When there's two paths coming out of a solved puzzle, one of them is the linear progression, and the other one is for the end game, so something to leave for later!
All the while, the answer was hidden in plain sight - on the bathroom image above. Can you see it?
The numbers simply translate to the according letters.
...E CODE IS WISDOM THE CODE I...
Armed with the newfound wisdom, I texted Dani the right code word, and thus the dragon on the mountain spoke:
You must travel to two lands.
Visit the forest of the rustling leaves and the place where two paths meet.
