The Quest for the Haunted Hoard Solution - Part 1

Whilst we might have a winner who has claimed the Cursed Hoard for themselves,  there are still many questing and getting lost on the path. Thus we are here to present you with the first stage of the quest. If you still want the joy of working your way through it on your own, by all means keep going; if you want some hints and help though, read on!

1) The very first post contains 3 hints at the quest

a) The first is a statement and a link. The link is an invite to our social Discord. The second part of this is the wording itself. "Exalaimed Traskvale". Within Discord there are exclaimation commands and if you type !Traskvale and hit enter in our discord that will add you to a brand new role - Treasure Hunter.

Gaining this Role allowed you access to the main body of the quest on the Discord in the form of multiple new channels appearing.

The Great Hall was the first, setting the mood as you stepped into the Castle Proper, but also giving you an option to talk with those also questing for the treasure as well. A chance to team up, aid each other, swap ideas and work things out, even whilst you all competed for that final prize!

b) Tik ed - a deliberate spelling mistake and a hint to check our "TikTok" website for something. Heading to Tik Tok and there's a spooky image of a boat at the shore nesteld at the top. Something that isn't a model we've released nor related to one, something that stands a little out of place.

Clicking it gives you a short video with some watery sound effects and a short bit of text mentioning an acidic king.

A little more scouting in the Tik Tok and you can find a king riding a boat - and Ooze King! This was an older video and there's nothing in the description to aid you, but lo and behold in the comments!

A link which takes you to a password protected page. The message mentions knowing the coordinates which tells you that you need to find some, however right now this chain of the quest is over. You'll have to find out the code to enter through another path of the puzzle

c) Direct.ly a hint to check our "Direct Me" website. Heading over you'd see a whole selection of links to our various websites and if you go down there's a curious one. The Cemetary!

Once entered you appear on a new site which shows you two things, one is a scroll with some words, the other is the Cemetery itself.

The scroll hints at someThing with the titling a subtle hint as to where you need to go, our Thang's store. The cemetary itself contains words on several tombstones, however only one relates to a free model on our Thang's store - Jakob Grimsby. The puzzle here was to realise the importance of the names and to hunt through our freely accessible lore to find the right name linked to a model on Thangs. One that was free to access (since there are no paid parts of this quest).

You get that free model off Thangs, download and open it up and behold, within is a surprise. Another STL for a Cypher. Something that you'll need to complete many more steps of the quest.

So now you've got a Cypher, a password protected page and a selection of rooms in the Castle (Discord Channels). So lets now take a deeper look at those rooms in the castle and see what they turn up.

1) Chapel. This is the room at the very top, so lets start there. It shows you a picture of an organ, some text and a note!

If you study the note you can see the bolded "PIPES" and then further you can see that multiple letters are italicised and some strange typos. If you pluck out all those strange hints you get the following

watch?vequalssi7IkXT8tUI

Which you can turn into a youtube link!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=si7IkXT8tUI

Following the link takes you to a video of an organ playing a tune. Whilst the clue in the note told you to pay attention to the pipes, its the music the pipes are playing which you need to focus on. Working out the musical notes gives you

D Eb Ab D

Which spell the word "DEAD" a good theme word for a Halloween puzzle.

There's more, for in the text below is a strange phrase referencing the number two.

For now these hints seem to have led to a dead end. You've got a word and a number, time to try another room

2) Library. This is a curious channel because not only is there an image and text, but you can also type here, unlike all the others (save for the Great Hall). If you read the text this gives a hint as to why.

So they are asking a question relating to characters and the ghost wants to hear the answer. If we recall that there are commands in Discord then clearly the ghost wants you to use an exclamation mark and then type out the answer.

This means diving into our lore and hunting down the name of the character who fits the description the ghost tells you.

Finding that answer in our lore gives you the name thumine and thus the code !thumine

You are rewarded with another role added to your username and another room appears within Discord. Library Hidden Room

3) Library Hidden Room.

Here we have some text and two images. The text mentions the number 3, whilst the two images show you a crossword and some clues. Each clue refers to something from our lore, so just like the name you found to bring you here, you've got to dive into the pages of our lore to find each of the answers to the crossword.

Not only that bit if we look closer at the background of the crossword itself we can see a repeating series of numbers in Latin, with one highlighted. That marks the starting point along with the 3rd slot of the first clue being highlighted. Thus we take the answers in order 1 through to 8 and for each one we attach the relevant Latin number and write down the letter that is sitting in that slot.

triatriaquattuorduounusseptemduosex

Tria 3 = l

Tria 3 = z

Qauttuor 4 = e

duo 2 = h

unus 1 = s

septem 7 = p

duo 2 = h

sex 6 = n

giving us: lzehsphn

And the number 3 from the first part of this clue

A pattern is emerging now. Letters and a number at the end of many of the puzzles

4) The Laboratory. Upon entering we have another phrase which this time metions a "one man miniature factory"; and an image with a phrase upon it "They are nothing but Bones to me" with "t bones to m" being bolded

The bolded letters are an anagram making the word "Tombstone". Meanwhile that message in the post references both the number 1 and also a miniature factory. A hint to head to My Mini Factory and our Tombstone model!

Searching in our store for the Tombestone model gives you a result!

A hint for any who might not know, but hitting "objects" tab instead of the store tab gives you a search bar. Making it much easier to find specific models in our store!

Super easy that one, the description has a link which takes you to a folder on our Ice Drive called "The Tower"

4) The Tower has two images; a telescope and the other showing you a few clues!

The first part mentions faces and then two phrases. If you take off to our facebook you can try searching for terms based on those two phrases. You might even remember Salt Con! A convention we attended. Head to the post and you can find a message and puzzle

The puzzle is a straight forward maths one, whilst the references talk about a lake and coordinates - AHH! recall way way back to one of the very first puzzles and that boat where you found a website you had to enter a code into?

Enter the code 18134 and poof! You are rewarded with a very short fight for your life and a model STL - the Thing from the Lake! Your second STL quest prize

Not forgetting lets go back to that image that led us here and the riddle

"About you I will wrap thicker than soup, but lighter than air

You will never drown in me, but never be dry

Your cries will never be heard

You will never see a star within me"

The answer was "Fog"

If we also recall at the very start of this room we found the number 1 mentioned before the hint to head to my mini factory. So yet again we've got a number and letters at the end of the quest.

1 and fog

5) The Ballroom. A video instead of an image this time and another text message, this time mentioning the number 4.

If you play the video and notice the flickering lightning its in Morse Code and spells out:

–. …. — … -

GHOST

A quicker room, but again we have letters and a number.

6) Servants Quarters.

Now this is a little different to the others. The text this time is in specific lines and if you note the first letter of each one they spell out the word "concept". There's also the word "SPLIT" highlighted.

If you take the hint and head to our concept channel you can go back through time and eventually find - the Splitter - which has a link edited into it

Follow the link and it takes you into The Cellar - and there, there we take a break!

To summarise the quest so far we've found

A Cypher STL

A Thing in the Lake STL

four clues with unresolved ends:

Dead 2

lzehsphn 3

Fog 1

Ghost 4

Everything we need to progress is now found in The Cellar. If you've not yet made it that far perhaps take a look around and see if you can find your way a little deeper into the Quest before we post the next part of the solution to the end!