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Treasure Quest rings in the New Year with the EXECUTIVE WASHROOM KEY!

by eli

Happy New Year! Hope you've got the day off, because you'll need it to discover the secrets of the EXECUTIVE WASHROOM KEY!

========================================================= ~~~~~ THE EXECUTIVE WASHROOM KEY APPEARS! ~~~~~~ =========================================================

Image removed.
What do you want to do?

1. Go to Treasure Quest Leaderboards
2. Visit the Key Gallery
3. See Your Character
4. Attempt to Enter a Key Code, Gate Code, or Treasure Code

As a vision of the EXECUTIVE WASHROOM appears before your eyes, you hear a hard-boiled newspaperman's voice say:

It's 1958. A Muncie boy, fresh-faced and bright,
walks right into the mailroom, under Waring's final flight.
The board thinks he's a patsy, and they plot their tiny bids,
But he's got something up his sleeve. His pitch: you know, for kids!

.

Note: in the thread below, Questers are sharing info with each other and getting hints; if you want to solve this puzzle without any help, don't keep reading as there are SPOILERS below!

Comments

Submitted by cherylo on Mon, 01/02/2012 - 3:26pm

I keep checking for the new key post too early, then forgetting about it. At least it wasn't for several days like I have done previously. Working on finding the gate item now.

the thing I'm having trouble with is that the riddle to find the gate (fictious item) does not seem to ask a question or directly indicate what we're looking for. I've tried lots of keywords associated with the subject in the aadl catalog search, but I really have no idea what I am looking for.

Keep thinking, Cherylo. And searching... ;)

Tricksy, tricksy on the Treasure Code, eli. I picked something a little more straight forward the first go, but i got there in the end. :) Hejgu Beamp

Oh dear, now I'm quite stuck at the treasure code...I have absolutely no idea what it means...outside of me knowing that it uses the key and gate codes and involves some sort of cipher and encoding.

Submitted by rimpopu on Mon, 01/02/2012 - 11:37pm

I think I got a half of treasure clue. One word is still eluding me. Too many options to choose from. Any hint?

Congrats, Brady! Nicely done!!! CherylO, the first line of the gate clue tells you exactly what you're looking for. And bysoroni, a big hint to help narrow it down can be found if you carefully examine those plans.

Keep at it, questers; Brady has shown it can be done, and bysoroni is very, very close!

-[:eli]

I'm positive I have the gate code...it's 29 characters without the numbers....but I'm not sure where to put the numbers....before...after....in between? I've tried all of them.

EDIT: Whoops....got it :)
I somehow counted waaaay wrong.

As bysoroni said, it's alphanumeric, and as eli said, there's 29 letters without the numbers.
Part of the 29 letters in the code is what is "not counted" while adding up the floors.....think about that one hard. The floors he fell should be pretty simple to find.

Submitted by 0liviap0pp on Wed, 01/04/2012 - 11:03am

Not necessarily, but you should be able to find the floors and what is not counted pretty easily using websites (ex. the script, IMBD)

So far, I've re-read the script several times and watched the scene in question, as well as several others more than once. The part I'm sure is not counted is 9 letters long. Another thing that might not be counted (or counted on incorrectly) would be 19 characters. Other ideas seems possible, but not much is jumping out at me. I'm starting to think I'm going to have to re-watch the whole movie to figure this one out. (It's very discouraging, especially since I guessed the key item from reading the riddle once!)

Oh, I see.
Not sure if my example will help, but I hope so.

Person 1: How many floors did he fall?
Person 2: 238753828 floors.
Person 3: Well, "238753827 (insert-word-here) (insert-phrase-that-includes-words-that-add-up-to-14-letters-here) "9-letter-long-word""
There's a phrase before the 9 letter long word that shows what the 9 letter long word is about as well as a word after the number showing what the number represents.
And there aren't any parentheses, that's just to show the different parts of the code. No quotes either.

And 238753828 or 238753827 floors is definitely not how many floors he fell (just saying).

Trying not to give away too much.
If you really can't get it, look at the script or IMDB quotes, it should help as well. There's a part in there where people are discussing how many floors he fell.

Recap: Number + word that shows what the number is + phrase that shows what the 9 letter long is about + 9 letter long word

Hope that helps, and hope it doesn't make it even more complicated because it really shouldn't be that complicated.

Mission accomplished. The (insert word here) part of this helped immensely. I guess the form of these riddles is just leaving a lot of format questions for me untl I get far more hand-holding than I really like. Sorry, and thanks.

Submitted by brady.emmett@g… on Thu, 01/05/2012 - 10:52am

I'm not sure how to give a hint for the treasure that doesn't give away the whole shebang. I'll just say that it was a different method of encryption than normal, and if you look close, you should be able to easily figure out what you need.

Submitted by cherylo on Wed, 01/04/2012 - 10:54pm

Don't be AQUIF when enciphering the first half of the treasure code. After some amount of frustration, I found a clue to FUNNEL me in the right direction; you also may need another LINE of inquiry. There's also something to be said for looking closely to help extrude the needed term.

Ompopp, my hint will only help if you're most of the way there...and got stuck the way I did. The encryption for this is not as cut-and-paste as it has been for previous keys...there's no direct software enciphering tool AFAIK. You have to dig into the subject to get the right code words.

Thanks for the compliment, bradyemmett. :) I hope it helps somebody.

Submitted by Morgsush on Fri, 01/06/2012 - 11:47am

I think I got what half of the treasure riddle means, but I'm not sure.
Pretty much, back in the old days, you could use a code to cipher your messages to save money, since less words means the telegram costs less. Use it on the key code, but it wouldn't save you any money, because the amount of words(or letters, I don't know) would be the same.
But, I have no idea what the code is. I tried searching for the Universal Trade Code, but it didn't help.
Any hints?

Submitted by eli Staff on Fri, 01/06/2012 - 12:10pm

That Universal Trade Code is the right track! As always, you'll probably get the best results if you visit an open library.

-[:eli]

Aha! All the hints together finally got me there.
Hah, I never knew you could OPEN that sneaky little online book.....
I agree....hejgu beamp is the way to go.

I didn't understand the "AQUIF" part of your clue, cherylo, but the rest of it definitely helped :)

Submitted by rimpopu on Sat, 01/07/2012 - 4:02am

Treasure code is still out of my reach. Found the plan long ago, have been looking closely as there is no other way to read those tiny words, the exact translation of the two words is not working. So what am I missing?

Submitted by rimpopu on Sat, 01/07/2012 - 3:58pm

Tried numbers, letters, combination of the two but not working. Got aquif and the Letter with words and numbers, still stuck. Is it specific type of Letter? or something else altogether? This is frustrating.

Submitted by Morgsush on Sun, 01/08/2012 - 12:51pm

If you look closely at the bottom right hand corner, you will see two numbers, one on top of each other. Go to a open library, and search for "UTC". Try to find those numbers in the book.

Submitted by rimpopu on Sat, 01/07/2012 - 9:38pm

Phew...finally got it! Thank you very much Morgsush. I forgot about the codes in EPD. Went clueless all over UTC trying to translate BL. Plain text of this book was easier to open but very confusing. Had to read online to make sense of the codes. Can't wait for next month's clues :)

Submitted by Bookbird on Sat, 07/28/2012 - 8:47pm

My friend tried to convince me to join, but I didn't really get the puzzles. When I heard about what she had to memorize.... *shudder*. So I didn't join

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