The Treasure Hunt of Increased Difficulty, day 1
23 October, 2011Apparently, my birthday treasure hunt two years ago was too easy. This one, says Charlie, should take a bit longer. He wished me a happy birthday, handed me a locked box and a letter, and once again refused to give me straight answers to any of my questions.
It's a handmade box, too.
Heh, off we go then 
Aha! The letter has sequences of numbers!
None of the sequences of numbers in the letter opened the lock (and that was after watching videos of high school students explaining how to open their lockers to make sure I was doing it right). The HTML code resulted in a murky maroon-brown website. Not much help.
Meanwhile, my blog stats page* showed up some unusual referrers:
Looks like a clue.
That last link is something to do with bitcoins. Why would anyone go from a bitcoins utility site to my blog?
Bitcoin transactions.
Oho, a sequence of three numbers? Go on then…
What the...
In the box was a latex glove filled with those slimy green balls you are supposed to put flowers in. It was really very unpleasant to handle, like a Fun House game made of tapioca. There was something else inside, too:
I tried crushing one of the balls. I immediately regretted it.
Got it.
That looks familiar.
This is the same USB stick that I found in a blob of polymorph in the last treasure hunt, and there was nothing on it that I’d not seen before. This is a dead end. I must have missed something. Back to check the box…
A secret compartment!
Ha. This hidden USB stick has two partitions. One appears to be empty, and one contains three files: a picture of a kitten being chased by creepers, a sound that sounds like a picture, and a script for a play.
* I look at these more often than is healthy.
