Runestone Basalt

Runestone Basalt
Active since 2022-01-19
Secret messages have been discovered in Old School RuneScape.
Type	Official
Creator	Jagex
Discovered	2022-01-19

Main Page > List of Investigations > Runestone Basalt

This article uses material from the Runestone basalt article on the Oldschool RuneScape Wiki and is licensed under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0 license.

This wiki page documents an ongoing puzzle hunt in Old School RuneScape, which started on 19th January 2022 during the Leagues III: Shattered Relics update.

Runestone Basalts

Runestone basalts with a card on top have been found scattered across the Shattered Relics League worlds. Upon interacting with these stones they displayed a message to the player saying "You reach for the card but it fades before you can grab it... as if pulled into another realm..." and opened up a cryptic image in the player's browser. After interacting with the basalt, the card disappears and further searches of the basalt now display a message saying "A faint warm glow can be felt where the card once was... I wonder where it went?".

Initial Message

Originally upon interacting with a runestone basalt it would link to one of three images, all with a triple spiral patterned design. The first image was just the plain triple spiral pattern image. The second image contained a hidden phrase in the background with the message keep watching keep waiting for the moment in and out of time. The third image similarly contained another hidden phrase that said keep watching keep waiting for the moment in and out of time. Three unique basalts have been discovered near the Lighthouse, Harmony Island, and Great Kourend. The basalts originally linked to these three images, but later were all updated to have a unique puzzle for their location.

Lighthouse Puzzle

Lighthouse Puzzle - Contains hidden letters in the background

The first runestone basalt was found near the Lighthouse, north of the Barbarian Outpost. Interacting with the basalt opened up a cryptic image in the player's browser. Hidden in the background of the image were the letters FHXSPLZLOUCUGS. The file name of the image is jato5xu7a4. Converting the numbers in the file name to letters (A=1, B=2, Z=26, etc), it becomes jatoexugad. Using this as a key in a Vigenere cipher with the string hidden in the image as the ciphertext, it decodes to WHEEL OF FORTUNE.

Harmony Island Puzzle

Harmony Island Puzzle - Contains hidden Chinese characters in the background

The second runestone basalt was found on Harmony Island, south of Mos Le'Harmless. Interacting with the basalt opened up a cryptic image in the player's browser. Hidden in the background of the image were the Chinese characters 暗輪鑰謎蠱籠間. By counting the amount of strokes in each character, and then converting the numbers to letters using the same technique as before, it produced the string MOYQWVL. Once again using this string as the ciphertext, and the file name thumbnaillarge as the key for the Vigenere cipher produced the phrase THE EVIL.

Great Kourend Puzzle

Great Kourend Puzzle - Contains hidden dark cyan pixels in the background

The third and currently final runestone basalt was found in Great Kourend, in the continent of Zeah. Interacting with the basalt opened up a cryptic image in the player's browser. Hidden throughout the image were seven dark cyan pixels. These pixels could be found in the image in the following X and Y coordinates (146, 85), (500, 100), (312, 301), (1271, 111), (1420, 500), (1122, 341), and (816, 522). Going from left to right, by adding all of the digits in the X and Y coordinates together, and once again converting these seven digits alphabetically from numbers to letters, produced the string XJFXNLN. The file's name 5c2s0xcwug could also be decoded using the same method (with '0' recursively becoming 'Z') to get the key ECBSZXCWUG. Finally, using the string hidden in the image as the ciphertext, and the converted file name as the key for the Vigenere cipher, produced the string THE FOOL.

Confirmation

After all of the Runestone basalt puzzles were solved by the community, the images found near the Lighthouse, Harmony Island, and Great Kourend, were updated to contain the decoded phrases. As show in the photos, players are currently on standby for further messages. Additionally, hidden in the background of these updated images is the message seriously just wait.

• 

  The Lighthouse
• 

  Harmony Island
• 

  Great Kourend

Follow the Sound of the Flowing River

On the 8th of February 2022 the image redirect for the Lighthouse basalt was updated. The new image contained the clue "follow the sound of the flowing river" alongside an unusual cyan border.

Hidden in the cyan border were a series of pixels which when the blue segment of the RGB value was isolated, could be visualized as audio using a Temporal Frequency Analysis tool. When viewing the audio file, each border of the image gave a set of 4 letters.

Top: EQMK, Right: ILDD, Bottom: GEUF, Left: YJBZ

Additionally, playing the audio clip revealed the numbers 5490.

Decrypting each section of the border code with the word spoken using a vigenere cipher resulted in the string ZIRGDXJMTWHBZFKL. By shifting each character one space back and using a vigenere cipher with a previous puzzle solution ,WHEELOFFORTUNE, as a key, it revealed the location CAMBRIDGE ENGLAND

A River Torn Apart Yet Remaining As One

Alongside that players received a new image containing the clue "a river torn apart yet remaining as one" alongside a similar cyan border.

After being stuck on this clue players were given a hint in their discord voice channel through a series of morse code that spelled out oscilloscope.

By extracting an audio file in the same way as the previous puzzle and putting it through an oscilloscope players received a sequence of plotted letters and musical notes. By taking the letters shown on the screen as a ciphertext and using the musical notes played as a key for a vigenere cipher, it decoded to the following sequence of letters qqqrewsnwsskafbkfwkuuhi . Once again, by shifting each letter in this sequence and decrypting it using the phrase THEEVIL this time, revealed the second location wilmingtonnorthcarolina WILMINGTON NORTH CAROLINA

Eroded by the Tooth of Time

Alongside that players received a new image containing a clue in Norwegian that translated to "Eroded by the tooth of time, the language was. To the extent that the door of translation remained locked” alongside a similar cyan border.

Once again players were stumped on solving this puzzle until a hint was given by Mod Brow, containing the clue FIRSTMESSAGEOFEACHTRANSMISSION=🕭103. By once again converting the cyan border to audio and putting it through a program called minimodem to mimic a Bell 103 Modem, a series of numbers were received that decoded to LSSPH YPREL ILPRJ UKWFM in A1Z26.

After being stuck on this clue players were given a hint in their discord voice channel through a series of morse code that spelled out oscilloscope.

By extracting an audio file in the same way as the previous puzzle and putting it through an oscilloscope players received a sequence of plotted letters and musical notes. By taking the letters shown on the screen as a ciphertext and using the musical notes played as a key for a vigenere cipher, it decoded to the following sequence of letters qqqrewsnwsskafbkfwkuuhi . Once again, by shifting each letter in this sequence and decrypting it using the phrase THEEVIL this time, revealed the second location wilmingtonnorthcarolina WILMINGTON NORTH CAROLINA

"follow the sound of the flowing river"