I will hold the drawing and announce the winner tomorrow.
For now though, please find below the solution for THE QUEST.
Thank you all for participating in each and every one of the hunts, and donating to the 4 different charities. We donated over $4000!
More on the Third Annual Masquerade Tribute upcoming!
The Solution to The Quest:The words around the first image frame stated what to do: SEEK FIND HIDDEN RIDDLE.
Then after the word RIDDLE in the frame is shown 3 steps leading to a ‘treasure’. This hinted that after the Riddle is found (and understanding it), 3 additional steps were needed to complete the hunt and claim the treasure.
First seek the pieces and find the Riddle.
The 3x3 Grid of numbers were clues to the needed parts of the Riddle. Each number matched the number of letters in a word of the Riddle.
47-NINE REVEALS
44– NINE FROM
54 – THOSE NINE
5 - FOUND BY
9 – BEGINNING
4 – WITH
35 – THE FIRST
23 – OF THE
5– QUEST
Also, the Red letters in the text provided the beginning letters of these pieces. Each on a separate line.
NR – NF – TN – FB -B – W -TF -OF – Q
Searchers were to notice the connection of the easier solved puzzles of QUEST with the red Q in the text and 5 in the Grid, as well as NINE FROM with the red NF in the text and 44. This helped connect and confirm the puzzle pieces of the Riddle to those remaining in the images – and provided clues for what they would be by providing the first letters and word totals.
The pieces of the Riddle were all found and solved by searchers. Congrats to Samanatha, Puzzledrifter, Pop, Mike6888 and Mofinn who discovered the various pieces:
NINE REVEALS – TXFYMSWYFXR - Shift letters by the only 11 letter word in text – FORTUNATELY
NINE FROM – Green letters in border frame
THOSE NINE – 628526195 - There are nine different, nine letter words, in the text. Take the number of letter in the word as found (skipping over duplicates) (anagrammed)
FOUND BY - All images/words on the right side border of second image have an I in them– take the letter before the I (hinted by the puzzle being ‘before an image of eyes’) F-ish, cOins, sqUid, aNimal, Dice, caBin, Ying yang
BEGINNING – convert letters to numbers and then apply to each of the nine paragraphs taking Word/Letter (anagrammed)
WITH - 84, 22, 11, 78 - Letter of the object the Clock Hour time pinpoints (8 oclock, 4th letter =pinWheel, 2oclock 2nd letter = aIrplane, 1oclock, 1st letter=Train, 7oclock 8th letter = rockingHorse)
THE FIRST – 5 13 22 15 23 18 2 6 - first letters of the counted word in the poem beside them(anagrammed)
OF THE – first letters of 1 5 2 C 8 or One, Five, Two, Hundred, Eight
QUEST – Card totals to letters
Once the complete Riddle was found – it needed solved.
Nine Reveals Nine From Those Nine Found By Beginning With The First Of The QuestThe first part to solve of the Riddle was what ‘The First of the Quest’ referred to.
This was the letter ‘R’. The first word in the Quest poem (the secret) was the word ‘IN’. This was noted by PUZZLEDRIFTER. What is ‘IN’? It is the CENTER OF N-IN-E.
Searchers were to Draw an X by using the letters of NINE in the border of image 1. The X, center of NINE, pinpoints the letter R (in the word ARE). A clue was given to nudge towards this discovery.
Nine reveals Nine - From Those Nine - Found by Beginning with ‘R’.
Those Nine in the Riddle refer to letters found by using the numbers found in the Quest.
2-4-1-1-4-10-10-2-4
If you use the numbers on the Riddle, and count, beginning with R (in Reveals), you will get the following Nine Letters.
ELSNFIBGI
nine r
Evea
LS Nine
Fromthosen
Inefoundby
Be
Ginn
Ing
The numbers in Th3 Qu35T used to find these letters were also discovered by searchers – congrats to Pop on finding the numbers.
The title, Th3 Qu35t, hinted to there being numbers in the Quest - as there actually were numbers in the words ‘the quest’ - (which was the name of poem). The numbers also added to 38 to confirm these were correct when found(and there was also nine of them).
Nine reveals Nine.
The STEPS in the image hint to three steps needed to finish the puzzle. The first step was to find the numbers to use to find the letters to then find the answer.
The letters: HKJDSJRTC to numbers- 8-11-10-4-19-10-18-20-3
Shift the letters, ELSNFIBGI, by those numbers (wrapping around the alphabet if needed)
13-23-3-18-25-19-20-1-12 =
MWCRYSTAL
Nine (HKJDSJRTC) reveals Nine (MWCRYSTAL) from those nine (ELSNFIBGI) found by (counting with the numbers in the quest) beginning with the first of the quest(the letter R)
One of the treasures for this hunt is a numbered MW CRYSTAL. (#11)
Thank you again- !