On Sept. 9, 2006 Cryptic Crawlers ventured down the Nile to the Valley of the Kings in search of the lost tomb of Pharoah Sparkhenaten. Ok, it looked a lot like Lower Huron Metropark, south of Belleville but it had a river flowing through it! Throughout the day they would solve 12 puzzles which would lead them to the lost tomb. They were:
4 Starters…Starters were simple pencil-and-paper puzzles whose answers led teams to certain map locations.
4 Volunteer Puzzles…The locations indicated by the Starters had puzzles run by volunteers.
4 Solo Puzzles…When you got a Volunteer puzzle correct, the volunteer would give you materials for a Solo puzzle. Solo puzzles could be anywhere in the park.
Starter puzzles were worth 5 points each, other puzzles were worth 10 points, so a perfect score was 100. In addition, the first team to locate the Tomb got an extra 10 points, the second team 8 points and so on. Points were deducted if a team called for hints throughout the day.
(All descriptions below are for the Regular clue set - the Advanced set had fewer helpful clues)
The Volunteer puzzles were:
Volunteer 1: Pyramids
The Starter directed teams to the Ellwoods picnic area and to a clue which told a story of a man who knew history of the pyramids so well, he could just look at them and read them like a book. One day he decided to climb them. He started at the bottom and each step took him closer to the Zenith. The end of the story asked how many years it took him to complete the task. At the puzzle site, teams found a model of 5 pyramids of different heights. Next to the pyramids was a single block labeled "A Pyramid".
Teams had to realize that each step up the pyramid was one step closer to Z. The single block showed that one step was an "A" pyramid…two steps high would be a "B" pyramid and so on. Counting the heights of the pyramids and getting a letter from each spelled "FIG AD". There was an ad for "The Flying Fig" - a place to buy figs - in the players' clue books. The ad boasted that the Flying Fig had been in business for 15 years. 15 was the correct answer.
Volunteer 2: Rising Nile
The location was the North Fishing Area and the Crawlers read a clue that described how important the annual flooding of the Nile was to ancient Egyptians as well as various devices used to gauge the depth of the Nile. A story about Pharaoh Khafre consulting a soothsayer said that he'd find an answer to his kingdom's problems when the water level had changed by the height of 10 crocodiles.
At the puzzle location, Crawlers found an ornate Nile-o-meter with height markings on the inside. Also, there were cups with crocodiles on them and a waste bucket. The Crawlers needed to remove 10 cups of water from the Nile-o-meter and see which height marking it corresponded to. However, when they removed 10 cups of water, there was no number next to the height marker-it was an ankh. If they looked closely, however, they noticed that the waste bucket had markings inside it as well - The Nile-o-meter gauged how far the water had fallen but the waste bucket gauged how far the water had risen! The answer, 8, was in the waste bucket.
Volunteer 3: Senet
The location was the Tulip Tree picnic area and the clue described the ancient game of Senet, played by all levels of Egyptian society. Instead of rolling a die to move a piece, Senet had four flat sticks, light on one side and dark on the other, which were tossed into the air. The sticks were said to represent good on one side and evil on the other (though most people reside in between). It said that the rules had long ago been forgotten and those who discovered them again would reveal many answers about ancient Egypt.
Upon arriving at the clue site, players found a volunteer playing Senet by himself. He handed them a Senet stick when they walked up. One side of the Senet stick had the letters "RLCCO AQFAFB" and the other side had "XPEGU CSLGHH". The answer was "in between one side and the other…The letter halfway between R and X, then halfway between L and P, and so on. When solved it spelled out "UNDER BRIDGE". Looking under a nearby bridge, players found a drawing that showed 2 Senet sticks light-side up "+" 4 senet sticks dark-side up. The key was watching the Senet player and learning the rules to the game. Normally, when the sticks are tossed, the player moves his piece as many spaces as the number of sticks that land light-side-up. However, all 4 landing dark-side-up does not mean 0, it means 5. The Crawlers had to watch the Senet player, understand how the sticks correspond to the moves. So the message under the bridge was 2 light-side-up + 4 dark-side-up or 2 + 5. The answer was 7.
Volunteer 4: Weighing of the Heart.
The location was the South Fishing area and the clue told of the Weighing of the Heart. Ancient Egyptians believed that you went through a ceremony after death where Anubis took out your heart and weighed it against a feather. If it balanced, you went to heaven, but if lies or deceit had made your heart heavier than the feather, you would immediately be consumed by Ammit, the devourer. Special favor would go to whoever could balance 5 hearts against a single feather.
When players arrived, they found a digital scale and a bunch of weights - one marked with a feather and the rest with hearts. They all had letters on the underside. The trick was to weigh the feather (29 g) and find 5 hearts that together weighed 29g. Once they found the correct 5 hearts, they looked at the letters on the undersides. They spelled F-I-F-T-Y, the answer.
After solving each Volunteer puzzle correctly, the volunteer would give a new clue to a Solo puzzle to the team. The Solo puzzles were:
Solo 1: Eye of Ra
After solving Pyramids, teams received a photo of a plaque. The photo had been cut into puzzle pieces. After the puzzle had been assembled, one piece was missing from the center. The teams had to find the place in the park where the photo was taken and get the number that would have been on the missing puzzle piece. After finding the location, Giblin's Grove, they saw the number on the plaque was 52.
Solo 2: Nut, the Sky Goddess
After solving The Rising Nile, teams received a clue explaining Nut, goddess of the sky and keeper of the stars. Teams had to cross the road into a field and find the "stars" (colored golf balls glued to tees and stuck in the ground). The balls were numbered and some were yellow, some were orange. It was a huge connect-the-dots puzzle and the teams had to realize that the yellow puzzle was separate from the orange puzzle. If they connected the dots properly, they got an orange 2 and a yellow 7 laid over top of each other - is it 72 or 27? An ad for a nut exchange in the clue book held the answer - it gave exchange rates for different-colored nuts and orange ones were worth 10 times yellow ones, so the answer was 27.
Solo 3: Apophis
After solving Senet, teams were given a description of the sun god Ra's nightly trip through the underworld (the sun has to go SOMEWHERE at night, right?). One portion of the journey was a battle with the snake-demon Apophis. Players received a transparency showing a tomb-painting of the battle and a journal entry. The journal entry said that attempts to find the original tomb painting were foiled because "the road was marked 'No Motor Vehicles'-I wonder what's behind that? If we can't get through, we may take a dip in the oasis" . If they traveled to the park's swimming pool, they found a "No Motor Vehicles" sign and on the back was a sticker that said "<--30 paces. Look to the sun." When they walked 30 paces and held up the transparency, they noticed that Apophis looked suspiciously like the water slide. If they matched the slide to Apophis, the sun perfectly framed the number 25 on a speed limit sign. 25 was the answer.
Solo 4: Where's Ahmet?
After solving The Weighing of the Heart, teams received 4 photographs and a thumbtack. Their clue told of a young boy who always ran from his mother. She'd find him because she always figured out the underlying plan to his route. She'd poke him in the chest and get very cross. He was punished by having to clean graffiti off of public buildings.
There were a lot of words in the story starting with "ex-": "explain, exhausted, explore", etc. The photos showed an Egyptian town crowded with citizens. Ahmet was in every photo if you looked for him closely (much like Where's Waldo). Since he always "had an underlying plan to his route", teams had to lay the photos over their map and "poke him in the chest" with their thumbtack. After 4 photos, there were 4 marks on their map. "Getting cross" and all the "ex-" words hinted that you had to draw an X through the marks on the map - where the lines crossed was the location you had to travel to. When they arrived there, they found that there was a message written on the public building (in sidewalk chalk) : the answer was 10.
Finding the Tomb:
After teams had solved all 12 puzzles, they went back to Erin. Their answer sheets were corrected (with points deducted for wrong answers). Then the final clue was given to them. "You have incurred the curse of the Pharaoh Sparkhenaten! All your answers are two short! When you have corrected for this, use them (ignore the Starters) on the Erin's message in your clue book. The Tomb's location will be revealed." (Advanced teams had the clue read to them, and had to work out that what sounded like "too short" was "two short")
Adding 2 to the answers and using them with the article (15=15th word, etc.) yielded "Tomb lies under palm. Down stairs. Cross stream." There were many palm trees on the map - which was the right one? Well, going to a palm tree was a wild goose chase…there was a picture of a Pharaoh on the map with his hand outstretched. The tomb was under his palm! Traveling to that area on the map, players found stairs that led to a hidden area of the park. Following a path across a stream, they found a shelter. Looking around the shelter yielded a pad of sticky notes tacked to the wall. The top one said "You are the first team to find the tomb! Take this note back to Erin to receive 10 points!" Each note underneath was worth fewer points.
Bill, Lea, Justin and Tabby (Advanced) found the tomb first and scored 103 points. Cherish, Ross, Jon, and Becky scored 100 points, and Ray, Ed and Don scored 96.
In the Regular clue division, Judy, Shelley, and Kim found the tomb first and scored 95 points. Minutes later, Alice, Dave, John, and Roberta found the tomb but ALSO scored 95 points! The tie-breaker went to the team who finished first.
Going by the number of hints given, "Pyramids" was the hardest puzzle, followed by "Senet". Special thanks to Jamie and Melissa Mason and Patrick McNeal for volunteering and to Sara Armstrong for playtesting!
