 |
||||||||
|
The Proposal As I was wrapping up my lunch break on the last day of October, there was a knock on my bedroom door. It was Jay, a friend who was living on the farm at the time. He handed me a puzzle box and told me it was from Nate, and that I had to do it right away. This wasn’t the first time Nate had sent me a puzzle with a note on the back, so I said ok and sat down to do the puzzle. It was an I Spy puzzle, but I didn’t stop to look for the items on the front, I flipped it over and read what Nate had written on the back: “Hello my dearest love! This is a start of a Halloween treasure hunt. Unfortunately there is limited time. The hunt ends 2pm 10/31/06. follow the hints to unlock the next puzzles, one of the clues I found that I enclosed in the box is of this female sheep. Good Luck!” “Next code to break: Hint A=1 B=2 C=3 and so on”
The puzzle that followed spelled out shashingadmin@gmail.com Pass= shashing1 After logging into that email account I found an email with the subject “Clue 2”, withing which was the following message: “Here is the Will that was found but not with the treasure. Attached is the Will that was found along with the 3 different puzzles and next clue.” Attached were three different sudoku puzzles that looked like this And the following document Also attached was the next word puzzle: “Next Clue:
Just like before. A=1, B=2, C=3 and so on.
__ __ __ __ __ __ . __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ @gmail.com
8 15 12 12 9 5 11 21 14 9 19 8 9 7 5
Pass:
__ __ __ __ __ 1”
19 3 15 20 20
The result of which is “hollie.kunishige@gmail.com”
Pass: “scott1” (Scott is Nate’s middle name)
I read the will and solved the puzzles, then logged into the next email account. In it were two emails, named Clue 3 and Clue 4. The clue 3 email held nothing but an attached picture: The clue 4 email held this message: “Her name will open the path to the next
clue. http://www.rarlab.com/download.htm download: winrar 3.61 or higher” I opened the .rar file, and when it asked for a password, I entered Mary, as I had quickly deduced who the picture was of, and this message opened up: “You have now seen the clues 1-3. There is only one clue left.
First pack your bags for 6 days and 5 nights. -bring a set of pants and light jacket -3 reading books -swim suits -comfortable shoes and slippers -bring mens underwear, swimsuit, and pants -bring your note book
To meet your last clue call: 808-690-3593 or 808-282-8937 He will show you the rest of the way.” Now, by now I had pretty much deduced what what going on, between the Will, Mary, and the picture of the Ewe (someone forgot I was an animal science major :-), but could hardly believe it was actually happening. Staring at my computer and shaking more than a little, I started to pack my bag. About half way through, still not believing what was going on, I broke down and called him. He calmly told me to continue packing my bag and call back when I was done. Not having much of a choice, I finished packing my bag and called back. At which point he told me he was just down the street and would be here in a few minutes. Totally flustered and even more excited, I waited. He pulled up to my house and walked in carrying a large, dark blue duffel bag, with a rather substantial combination lock on it. The combination of which I was to deduce from the three puzzles I had done earlier. In the end, he had to open the bag. First, I didn’t know how to spin the lock (which direction and how many times), and second, I had actually added up one of the puzzles wrong and didn’t even have the right number! Anyways, I opened the bag and found it stuffed full of balls. Some were toy pokemon balls, and some were the balls from the ball pit you jump into at Chucky Cheese’s. There were also a couple of small toy treasure chests, some little plastic things that flashed different colored lights, and some fake gold coins. He told me to find the treasure, I would have to look inside everyone of those balls. With my hands shaking, and my breath just this side of hyperventilation, I started looking in each ball for what I new I would find in one of them. Each one held something, various types of toy rings were most prevalent, including lots of ring pops, but there were also more fake gold coins, and flashing thingys. The little toy chests were just in there to tricksy my. So I pulled out every ball, and soon I had them all sitting in front of me, and hadn’t found this fabled treasure. I looked at Nate in confusion, “Are you sure you got them all?” he asked. So I reached back in and found one more ball tucked in a fold in the bag. I opened it up and found a small, blue velvet box sitting inside. I cracked it open and looked at the ring I had picked out two years earlier, it was beautiful. By this time I was starting to cry. Nate got down on his knee and told me “I am the last Clue”. Making the four clues “will”, “ewe”, “Mary”, and “me”. He stood up and I hugged him, crying. He said “you still need to answer”, and I replied “YES, of course”. He wisked me away to the promised five night escape. We stayed at two different bed and breakfasts, just relaxing and enjoying each other’s company. It was more than I ever could have asked for.
|
|||||||
