It was a nice, lazy Saturday, and after last night's frustration, the thought of waiting until tonight for the last puzzle was not acceptable. Thankfully, my puzzling friend was happy to oblige, so we cracked the last pdf of Enigma Emporium's currently-free-to-play-digitally puzzle series "Wish You Were Here" open after lunch.
Caveat lector - Spoilers abound
The card opens with what appears to be an old oil painting, with a title under it (and apparent subject) of the Death of Caesar (underlining is on the card - a Caesar cipher?) by --Vinccienzo Campucchienir--, with XV on either side of the title. On the top, right, and left of the artwork appear at first glace to be decorative lines, but a second glance reveals they are stretched letters.
On the back, we find that the card was sent on July 27, 2018, another Friday, again from somewhere in the US. to the right of the postmark are a series of 5 stamps, each showing the globe, with a 2-3 digit number, broken by a period (dates?). Of note, on July 27th, 2018 there was a total lunar eclipse. In the space normally reserved for the address, there is a QR code. In the left, 'message' portion, there is a string of enciphered text, as well as a barcode (9-19, 13-25, 14-1-13-5).
The first thing we did was to read the side stretched text: SEOUL. The final location is, presumably, Seoul, South Korea. It appears to be the same text in each section.
A quick google search confirms that the painting is as it claims. Per wikipedia: "Death of Julius Caesar is an 1806 painting by Vincenzo Camuccini, originally commissioned in 1793 by Frederick Hervey, 4th Earl of Bristol, for whom he had already produced a copy of Raphael's Deposition." First stumble - the names differ. Taking the 'extra' letters, we get CIPHER. Combined with the underlined Caesar, a Caesar Cipher. Thanks! Guessing that with the roman 15 on either side, this will be a rot15 code, or a -11 to decode. Presumably this applies to the message on the back side. Let's see!
As I was about to start the Caesar, my swift eyed friend realized that the 'barcode' was in fact Morse Code (.--- .- ... --- -. / -.-. .-.. .- .-. -.-), spelling out: JASON CLARK. The numbers under it, with an A=01, gives you "IS MY NAME". So, our mysterious correspondent has a name!
A quick hop back to the Caesar, rot 15, and many thanks to dCode for a faster solution, we get the following message (spaces added):
Caveat lector - Spoilers abound
The card opens with what appears to be an old oil painting, with a title under it (and apparent subject) of the Death of Caesar (underlining is on the card - a Caesar cipher?) by --Vinccienzo Campucchienir--, with XV on either side of the title. On the top, right, and left of the artwork appear at first glace to be decorative lines, but a second glance reveals they are stretched letters.
On the back, we find that the card was sent on July 27, 2018, another Friday, again from somewhere in the US. to the right of the postmark are a series of 5 stamps, each showing the globe, with a 2-3 digit number, broken by a period (dates?). Of note, on July 27th, 2018 there was a total lunar eclipse. In the space normally reserved for the address, there is a QR code. In the left, 'message' portion, there is a string of enciphered text, as well as a barcode (9-19, 13-25, 14-1-13-5).
The first thing we did was to read the side stretched text: SEOUL. The final location is, presumably, Seoul, South Korea. It appears to be the same text in each section.
A quick google search confirms that the painting is as it claims. Per wikipedia: "Death of Julius Caesar is an 1806 painting by Vincenzo Camuccini, originally commissioned in 1793 by Frederick Hervey, 4th Earl of Bristol, for whom he had already produced a copy of Raphael's Deposition." First stumble - the names differ. Taking the 'extra' letters, we get CIPHER. Combined with the underlined Caesar, a Caesar Cipher. Thanks! Guessing that with the roman 15 on either side, this will be a rot15 code, or a -11 to decode. Presumably this applies to the message on the back side. Let's see!
As I was about to start the Caesar, my swift eyed friend realized that the 'barcode' was in fact Morse Code (.--- .- ... --- -. / -.-. .-.. .- .-. -.-), spelling out: JASON CLARK. The numbers under it, with an A=01, gives you "IS MY NAME". So, our mysterious correspondent has a name!
A quick hop back to the Caesar, rot 15, and many thanks to dCode for a faster solution, we get the following message (spaces added):
IF YOU KNOW WHERE I HAVE BEEN THEN YOU KNOW WHERE I WILL BE NEXT.
PLEASE FOR THE SAKE OF MY FAMILY TURN ME IN TO THE FBI.
IT IS THE ONLY WAY I CAN SAVE THEM.
PLEASE TELL THEM THE TRUTH ABOUT ME.
I AM NOT THE MAD CRIMINAL I APPEAR TO BE.
PLEASE TELL THEM.
On the first line, my brilliant friend assumed the next place would be the first letter of all the prior places, which gives us: RAPIS. Hopefully he's not a rapist ;) Instead, we shuffle, and get PARIS.
Two puzzles left: the stamps, and the QR code. Scanning the code is a hot link to an email address - presumably of an FBI agent.
My first suspicion is that the stamps are dates: March 9th, February 24th, January 13th, June 29th, and July 27th. As my perceptive puzzling buddy pointed out, these are the dates of the other postcards. And then we realized it was supposed to be a hint for the order of the location anagram, which we already had. So, it seems our puzzling adventure has come to an end, except for a final message to the FBI on where to find our penpal, who may or may not be the mad criminal he appears to be.
I opened a new email, and sent what we had found.
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