After last night’s stunning cliffhanger, we wrap up a day of touristing with another exciting chapter of… The Cursed Exhibition! Having napped, enjoyed an appropriate beverage, and ensured that our feline friends are cheerfully engaged with the envelope packaging, we dig in.
This envelope has a lot of components floating free. We have the standard square envelope and clue card; four photos; a letter from the police; a membership card to the Cult; a location fragment; an electric bill for “Ms. Cult”; a number of potential key ends; and an unmarked manilla envelope.
The envelope contains a package, smuggled out of her cell. We get a letter from the detective, as well as a map, a security manual, and some colored overlays that may be related to the cell. She tells us she has a contact in the next cell over who will help her if she helps him figure out the correct key. The photos are of messages scrawled on furniture and walls in her cell. One of them suggests that we should look at triangles not circles, others suggest we should read all phrases backwards, so circles not triangles. There are both triangles and circles under the letters of a third message. A fourth questions the ability of the security chief to actually investigate potential members and says he doesn’t read weird letters or numbers. We also get the security manual for the cult. They include references to Indiana Jones and Home Alone - top notch security indeed.
First, though, we need to sort out the key situation. We contact her ‘live’ via a ‘secure police channel’. We realize that the keys are tied to the electricity usages of the various rooms. We identify which room is their holding cell, and find the key that has the same electrical use pattern tied to its tines. Her neighbor is free! Using mirrors, we see that she’s in room 19 or 16. This is trickier, for while we can discard the key that got her neighbor out, the same pattern doesn’t seem to work for her own cell.
When we look at hints, we realize we started in the wrong place. We were supposed to hack the computer using the ID card first. But we don’t have a pin yet. The portal requests a name and pin. We have the name, but the pin? Presumably on the walls. After a bit of poking, we get a message “Read Every Fifth Word” then apply it to another message, getting our hint to the pin. Once in, there is a helpful ‘cell finder’. Each cell has a map of the lock pins for the key. So much easier than our approach, which may not have actually been an intentional solve… With that in mind, we set her free, but she won’t leave without the blasted artefact.
We assume that they would have moved the artefact from room 7, where it was last time, and there is no energy spike in that particular room at any time over the last few days. Still, we check with the detective. Then we read through some amusing chat groups, allowing us to rule out several of the electrical spikes. We learn that you are never more than 10 feet away from a spider, which is why I keep cats to protect me. We also find another location fragment, for use later. Based on the conversations, we know that it’s in the NW quadrant, and only one of those rooms had a power spike. We tell her to go there. We work her through the maze, having her drop into an unguarded room. Woot!
There is, however, a keypad in our way. Thankfully she has a UV light with her to see the prints on the keys :) Which spell the name of the cult. Of course. We guide her to the room, and with the help of some mirrors (how does she block three lasers with two hands?) gets access to the artefact. Which of course triggers the security to move the booby traps, for a different way back. We begin.
Once we get her out, with the artefact no less, she realizes we must destroy it (IT BELONGS IN A MUSEUM!). To destroy it, she needs another key, which we must piece together from various squiggles - coast lines and borders - and identify the key’s location. This is where having a geographer friend comes in VERY handy. Also, tracing paper. We identify the country and send a message off to the detective. And wait… And wait… There seems to be a glitch, and I did find the other artefact email in my spam. My friend’s account works, and we get a voice note from the detective, telling us we were correct, and that’s she’s on her way to get the final bits of the keys and artefact to end a centuries-long cycle of violence!
VICTORY!
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