breadbox wrote (May 22, 1997):
This notice is to inform you that one (1) copy of the map to theHubert Feathers has been issued to the player with the name Alfvaen.
You do not need to respond to this notice. It is provided forinformational purposes only.
breadbox wrote (June 08, 1997):
This notice is to inform you that one (1) copy of the map to theHubert Feathers has been issued to the player with the name two-star.
You do not need to respond to this notice. It is provided forinformational purposes only.
two-star wrote (June 09, 1997):
Taking care not to step on actual Cow Town Hotel property, I go to itssouthwest corner, and walk 1972 paces north. I inscribe the words"PLEASE GIVE UP" onto the ground, and dig with a strong shovel.
breadbox wrote (June 10, 1997):
I, on the other hand, return to my home - where I have a nice view oftwo-star walking around and drawing things in the dirt....
Alfvaen wrote (June 10, 1997):
Beginning at the southwest corner of Cow Town Hotel(though, as my Evil Twinnoted, not entering it), I proceed north 1972 paces. On the ground Iinscribe "PLEASE GIVE UP". Then, using "a strong shovel", I dig.
And if that don't do it, I don't know what will.
two-star wrote (June 10, 1997):
I think the problem is that the kaas are contiguous, so if you are notactually entering cow town property, then you are entering sunflare'sproperty, which you have no permission to do. (For that matter neitherdo I.) I think one of us is going to have to actually go into cow town.Since I'm not about to commit a crime just to get in gaol, (and it'squite likely the sentencing process would not put me there,) I'm a bitworried that the gaoler will catch on and beat us to it. Maybe we needto impeach him. Or kindly ask him to step down. (sorry Mr. LunaticFringe...)
breadbox wrote (June 11, 1997):
> Beginning at the southwest corner of Cow Town Hotel(though, as my
> Evil Twin noted, not entering it), I proceed north 1972 paces. On
> the ground I inscribe "PLEASE GIVE UP". Then, using "a strong
> shovel", I dig.
Alfvaen has found Treasure 141, consisting of the Hubert Feathers.
The map to Treasure 141 read:
BEGIN AT THE SOUTHWEST CORNER OF COW TOWN HOTEL
PROCEED NORTH A NUMBER OF PACES EQUAL TO THE
YEAR OF THE CONCEPTION OF INTERCAL
INSCRIBE ON THE GROUND THE LAST STATEMENT OF
THE SAMPLE INTERCAL PROGRAM IN SECTION TWO
WITH A STRONG SHOVEL DIG
Alfvaen has also found Treasure 142, consisting of 5 Processing Chips,10 PFbreadbox, A$20, the Gravitational Monople, and the Little Bag O'Chips I.
The map to Treasure 142 read:
Find Treasure 141.
I look forward to Alfvaen's description of his search (as well astwo-star's, who just barely failed to fulfill the conditions).
And a final note to Malenkai, our eternally
industriousTreasure-harfer: the last Clue on the Treasure page can be
put underT141. For the record, the hidden message was:Tc tn Gc dcr Frc . it ncan tn t vc ' c cr tnc r yn t a k
To the Golden Frog: it means that you're on the right track
Alfvaen wrote (June 11, 1997):
I blow a very polite raspberry in the general direction of my Evil Twin,who is still standing outside of Sunflare's House. :-)
> The map to Treasure 141 read:
>
> BEGIN AT THE SOUTHWEST CORNER OF COW TOWN HOTEL
> PROCEED NORTH A NUMBER OF PACES EQUAL TO THE
> YEAR OF THE CONCEPTION OF INTERCAL
>
> INSCRIBE ON THE GROUND THE LAST STATEMENT OF
> THE SAMPLE INTERCAL PROGRAM IN SECTION TWO
> WITH A STRONG SHOVEL DIG
> I look forward to Alfvaen's description of his search (as well as
>two-star's, who just barely failed to fulfill the conditions).
Well. I knew that the text of the treasure map breadbox supplied had tohave some kind of concealed message. I also quickly realized that"selecting every third soldier in each group to form an army" wassignificant(though "Task the Tenth" sent me down a few blind alleys).It took some time, however, to try selecting every third letter, everythird character, every third word, until I ended up with the thirdletter in every word, which spelled out
"send mail to breadbox with a subject of the 1st rsa challenges magic words"
(By the way, I very much enjoyed the last three sentences of the clue,which contained only one word each with more than two letters. 'Be asredditive as it is in Ys' is now in my tagline file. :-)
After some web-searching, I discovered a page talking about the 1st RSAChallenge, a test of the RSA encryption scheme, which, when solved, hadyielded the message "THE MAGIC WORDS ARE SQUEAMISH OSSIFRAGE". Sendingemail to breadbox with the subject "SQUEAMISH OSSIFRAGE", I expected tohave the feathers in my possession. Instead, all I got was a SummonedSpider(was that an automatic script? Written in Intercal, perhaps? :-)who delivered to me the _real_ map(which I include here in its entirety, myapologies for its length, which is not my fault):
#1#190
#2#160
#3#192
#4#80
#5#32
#6#110
#7#130
#8#88
#9#38
#10#218
#11#24
#12#112
#13#158
#14#58
#15#216
#16#72
#17#128
#18#24
#19#40
#20#72
#21#216
#22#160
#23#38
#24#66
#25#208
#26#168
#27#216
#28#208
#29#88
#30#70
#31#18
#32#144
#33#94
#34#66
#35#208
#36#8
#37#230
#38#218
#39#56
#40#8
#41#120
#42#110
#43#242
#44#32
#45#200
#46#136
#47#112
#48#226
#49#70
#50#192
#51#88
#52#48
#53#32
#54#0
#55#128
#56#30
#57#146
#58#128
#59#168
#60#32
#61#24
#62#14
#63#130
#64#126
#65#146
#66#200
#67#248
#68#112
#69#160
#70#88
#71#70
#72#18
#73#144
#74#94
#75#250
#76#136
#77#192
#78#32
#79#216
#80#198
#81#98
#82#24
#83#224
#84#40
#85#80
#86#46
#87#218
#88#56
#89#238
#90#218
#91#24
#92#112
#93#82
#94#182
#95#248
#96#32
#97#56
#98#70
#99#18
#100#144
#101#94
#102#218
#103#24
#104#112
#105#158
#106#66
#107#208
#108#128
#109#176
#110#32
#111#152
#112#224
#113#152
#114#160
#115#128
#116#110
#117#18
#118#144
#119#94
#120#114
#121#32
#122#72
#123#136
#124#88
#125#136
#126#64
#127#80
#128#226
#129#0
#130#190
#131#32
#132#168
#133#8
#134#120
#135#184
#136#80
#137#160
#138#158
#139#18
#140#128
#141#110
#142#218
#143#24
#144#112
#145#158
#146#34
#147#152
#148#88
#149#72
#150#56
#151#80
#152#30
#153#218
#154#24
#155#112
#156#158
#157#210
#158#176
#159#184
#160#160
#161#38
#162#58
#163#160
#164#168
#165#88
#166#136
#167#240
#168#16
#169#48
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#171#38
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#179#58
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#182#168
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#184#144
#185#158
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#187#32
#188#72
#189#136
#190#88
#191#136
#192#64
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#194#46
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#196#192
#197#88
#198#16
#199#152
#200#200
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#202#174
#203#114
#204#32
#205#110
#206#58
#207#40
#208#224
#209#152
#210#152
#211#160
#212#128
#213#110
#214#218
#215#64
#216#248
#217#162
#218#102
#219#88
#220#104
#221#24
#222#14
#223#130
#224#126
#225#58
#226#160
#227#224
#228#88
#229#128
#230#144
#231#222
#232#58
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#234#32
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#240#144
#241#176
#242#146
Again, I tried to decode this one using any of a number of techniques--straight conversion to ASCII(but many of the characters were not printable),summation, difference, reversal, even subtracting a Fibonacci sequence(while I had the program lying around from a previous treasure...:-)Nothing yielded any results. I groused about it a few times on the publicforum, and eventually breadbox told me there was a small clue in one of theemail messages he'd sent out... After flipping through the archives, Isuddenly knew it had to be something to do with Intercal.
So I looked over the Intercal manual, tried subjecting the pairs of numbersabove to the basic Intercal operations(a very idiosyncratic set, I mustsay), but to no avail. But I happened upon another page which noted thatthe output routine for Intercal used the differences of _reversed_characters. (So if only I'd put differences and reversing together...)
What I got when I did that was still mostly gibberish to me(I suspect Ishould have used EBCDIC instead of ASCII), but the character set was smallenough that I could decode it as a cryptogram.
This is the point I was up to the night before two-star made hisattempt at the treasure. In the morning I quickly solved thecryptogram, and when I did so, I got
begin at the southwest corner of cow town hotel
proceed north a number of paces equal to the
year of the conception of intercal
inscribe on the ground the last statement of
the sample intercal program in section two
with a strong shovel dig
It was only on observing the failure of two-star's attempt(which was,in retrospect, no less successful than my attempt would have been had Isolved it first)that it occurred to me that perhaps a trinket was needed,as have been in many other treasure solutions I've seen. So I created thestrong shovel, and I tried it myself. I'd actually thought it hadn'tworked, and was going to let two-star try his technique, but I guess I waswrong.
As a consolation prize to two-star, I offer him the strong shovel, forpossible future use. :-)