Four codes were hidden in the handwritten pages. These codes were needed to open the four boxes. The four boxes contained hints to open the other boxes and to find the location of The Golden Barrel.
The First Box – Red
This code was hidden in the first AND second page.
If you take a look at the first letter of each sentence (on the first and second page) you get this:
"T-H-E F-I-R-S-T C-O-D-E I-S A-P-P-L-E."
The code was: apple.
The red box contained a scroll with the following hint: "The first letter of each word of the sentence written in blood. This hint will let you open the next box."
The Second Box – Yellow
This code was hidden on the second page.
You found the clue, as explained when you opened the Red box, in the sentence written 'in blood' on the Duesenberg:
‘Kmuz ak lzw wkkwflasd eqklwjq’.
You had to decrypt it with this table: The letter A = S, B = T, C = U, D = V, and so on.
The sentence written on the Duesenberg was: "Such is the essential mystery". The first five letters of this sentence are: s-i-t-e-m.
The code was: sitem.
The yellow box contained another scroll with the following hint: "The first three letters of the last word. This hint will let you open the next box."
The Third Box – Blue
This code was hidden on the third page.
Each sentence contained emboldened letters. The letters within each sentence were actually words, but shuffled up. Once the letters were unscrambled into words and put into a sentence you would have got:
"The last word in the Buzz article The Skies Have Turned Green is the code for a box."
You can find this Buzz article in the first edition. The last word in this article is AceAdam. The first three letters of this word are Ace.
The code was: ace.
The blue box contained the third scroll with the following hint: "The last four letters of the rockband. This hint will let you open the next box."
The Final Box – Green
This code was hidden on the fourth page in all those strange numbers.
You needed an old-school cell phone to decrypt it. ‘444’ means you had to press the button 4, three times. This will get you the letter ‘I’. The whole story decrypted was: "I left the boxes and these pages because I love riddles. The intelligence of the police is pathetic these days. This are my last words for you: climb into the ring for a battle that you can’t win, swing as hard as you can swing it will still mean nothing."
The hidden band in this story was Nickelback. The last words are from the song 'This Means War'. The last four letters of Nickelback are back.
The code was: back.
The green box contained the last scroll with the following message:
"Alright, The Golden Barrel is located in my car. The car is for sale in the store for $16,892. I’m not telling which car and which state. Make sure you don’t change the numberplate."
The car was a Stutz located in Colorado.
I hope you all liked the riddles and you can expect more in the future. My thanks goes to Poison for all the hard work!
For now: goodbye!
~ ShyGuy
A note from the Editor:
"Huge thanks go to everyone who took part, and to ShyGuy for all the effort he put in to writing and running the competition, as well as his sizeable donation of 1,000 points of course! We're currently talking to him about the next contest we at the Buzz will be hosting, So watch this space."
