THE VAULT
| THE VAULT | |
|---|---|
| Doc created a game ... The first hero to beat it will get to loot his private VAULT valued at $10,000 real dollars. 10,000 BONES. 10,000 BIG BOIS. | |
| Creator | Stash |
| Discovered | 2018-11-16 |
Main Page > List of Investigations > THE VAULT
The Vault is an online Alternate Reality Game involving code-breaking, real-world exploration, cryptography, and collaboration among solvers. It involves a fictional cast of characters, including the villainous Doc and helpful Dampé. The game began on October 31, 2018 and gameplay has centered around the discord server located here: https://discord.gg/vault. Stash, the creator of the ARG, is an active participant in the Discord Chat and occasionally posts hints, clues, feedback to direct the fellowship.
The first Vault ran from late 2017-spring 2018 and awarded a $5,000 grand prize to the person that solved the final puzzle.
Plot
Our friend Dampé needs our help. His ship was attacked and crashed into the surface of Io, Jupiter's fourth-largest moon. We need to land and investigate, but the moon is enveloped by a force shield created by our nemesis Doc. Doc is currently campaigning to be Galactic Mayor and is attempting to rig the election by getting 100,000,000 votes. The number of votes is tied to lowering the shield.
More detailed information regarding progress to date can be found at the working summary here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mZMp7aTngtYUYOCtBX4riEagNnRAaR9T1e4NQHMjkOE/edit#
We will continue to try to port over as much information as possible from that master document to this site as time allows. For now, please review the summary above and join the discord serve to participate.
Riddles
One
The earliest stages of The Vault involved discovery of a campaign website for Doc's Galactic Mayor campaign. The Vote for Doc site (https://votefordoc.com/) had a list of Fedex locations. They correspond to the GPS coordinates in the transmission image with an addition of Bellevue, WA. It told us to go there and grab Vote For Doc campaign materials, just like the transmission.
SOLUTION: Heroes who arrived at the listed FedEx locations received a packet of two pages. Each location contained identical printouts, but were labeled with a unique Volunteer Center number. We were able to call many Fedexes and ask them to read off the numbers. The Volunteer Center numbers, when assembled in the order of the GPS coordinates, spelled out the following list of numbers and letters:
H1!441ND7431NV174710NF1ND443431PPL34S3!
Translated as leetspeak, the clue read: "Hi! Mind the invitation, find me help please!"
Two
The Campaign materials also included the following riddle:
Spread the news--tell your friends! Electing Doc is your ultimate end? But to play, you must append The path below with a card for friends.
/docs________
Status: SOLVED
SOLUTION: “You must append the path below” refers to the fact that we must add a path [Wikipedia Link on URL Syntax] to the URL of the Vote for Doc site using the “/docs_______” and “a card for friends” which is an invitation. Therefore, we are led to: https://votefordoc.com/docsinvitation which contains a video from Doc [Youtube Link].
The Doc’s Invitation video is a reference to Anorak’s Invitation video from Ready Player One.
Three
Clue: 100,000,000 votes
Context: We are told in both Doc’s Invitation video and on the Vote for Doc site that he needs 100,000,000 votes in order to win the election for Galactic Mayor. There is a voting button that serves as Doc’s vote counter on the Vote for Doc site.
Four
Clue: 001 DocLetter Packet [Solved]
Context: We received another transmission from Doc on Tuesday (11/6). Once again telling us to go back to all the new and old Fedex locations to retrieve MORE materials. This time Stash has learned to notify the Fedexes to not tell information over the phones.
Hello once again Earthlings! It's your favorite space doctor and pirate, back again. It's Doc! ARG!
Your elections may end today, but mine's just getting cranking. The treacle-like outpouring of support has been...treacle-like. But I really love the dedication of the group massing outside the Io shield. I can hear you chanting! DOC! DOC! DOC!
I've sent out :new: campaign materials for you. Get out there my campaign heroes, and get me votes from anyone who cares about the galaxy! DOC! DOC! DOC! Details on my super site.
Vote for Doc. All for one.
Note: Now the campaign listings have been moved to https://votefordoc.com/campaignoffices.
Status: SOLVED
SOLUTION: It was a lot of collecting information in order to solve Clue: Recipes. We were able to backsolve some of it, which means that we do not need to gather any more of these packets. Scanned 001 DocLetter packet of each retrieved location: [FOLDER]
Context: Each 001 DocLetter packet from each FedEx location has a different recipe for “Fungus Pulmenti Turtur” on page 2. The main differences are the ingredient values and the 4th step being “Cook” or “Coquere”.
Status: SOLVED
SOLUTION: @MaToMaStEr found that the recipe matches with the numbers found in the Roman Maze path when removing the binaries (See Clue: Path of the Roman Maze). You get the same numbers, when you plug the ingredient amounts to the following equation: Value = T + W - M + B + D/2 + L Value = W + B + L + 1 (from the relation between T, M and D, discovered by @dvorak42: Mushroom is always double Turtle, and Dionaea is always 2 more than Mushroom) This is using the facts that “Trim your mushrooms” means to subtract the mushroom amount and “Halve your buds” means to divide buds by two.
Spreadsheet version of the recipe values by @MaToMaStEr: [SPREADSHEET]
You can also compare the English/Latin word of “Cook”/”Coquere” on the 4th step of the recipe with how the number is expressed in the Roman Maze path (either in decimal or roman numerals). Assuming that English=Decimal and Latin=Roman numeral, these following locations don’t match.
Clue: Path of the Roman Maze [Solved]
Context: Each 001 DocLetter packet from each FedEx location has one floor (out of four) of a Roman Maze on page 3.
Status: SOLVED by @Ricimon and @dvorak42
SOLUTION: By stacking each floor of the Roman Maze on top of each other as implied by the icon on the top right corner of page 3. We can see the they are connected by the up and down staircases. We found the path that goes from the Entrance on Floor 1 (bottom) to the Exit on Floor 4 (top). It contains a mixture of binary, decimal, and roman numerals. Manipulation of the paths are detailed in Clue: Dampé Webmaster and Clue: bless_up Maze.
Digital version of the maze in a spreadsheet made by @aleina1313: [SPREADSHEET]
The path reads (from Bottom to Top): 1000111CXLVII0010CLIII0110CCLXXVI0101CCVIII0110LXXVIII1101620110LXXXVI0101CX01101691101CDLXXIV0110DXXXII00101210110CXXIII0101CLX01111690010CDLXXIV0101DXX1111CXVIII0111LXXVII0011LXVII0110LXXXII10001240110CIII0001CDXL01113510010LXXIV0110CCXL1001DCCCXLVII0110CLVII1110LXXXI0110660111LXXXVIII0101LXXVIII1111770110XCIII1001CXIX01111060011750101LXXXIX1111CXII0110CXLII0011XCVI0110LXXVII0001900111CXXVII0010LXXVIII0110LXXVIII10011340110LXXIX1110LXIX0110LXXIX0111
Formatted with spaces: 100 0111 CXLVII 0010 CLIII 0110 CCLXXVI 0101 CCVIII 0110 LXXVIII 1101 62 0110 LXXXVI 0101 CX 0110 169 1101 CDLXXIV 0110 DXXXII 0010 121 0110 CXXIII 0101 CLX 0111 169 0010 CDLXXIV 0101 DXX 1111 CXVIII 0111 LXXVII 0011 LXVII 0110 LXXXII 1000 124 0110 CIII 0001 CDXL 0111 351 0010 LXXIV 0110 CCXL 1001 DCCCXLVII 0110 CLVII 1110 LXXXI 0110 66 0111 LXXXVIII 0101 LXXVIII 1111 77 0110 XCIII 1001 CXIX 0111 106 0011 75 0101 LXXXIX 1111 CXII 0110 CXLII 0011 XCVI 0110 LXXVII 0001 90 0111 CXXVII 0010 LXXVIII 0110 LXXVIII 1001 134 0110 LXXIX 1110 LXIX 0110 LXXIX 0111
If you just take out the binary: 0111 0010 0110 0101 0110 1101 0110 0101 0110 1101 0110 0010 0110 0101 0111 0010 0101 1111 0111 0011 0110 1000 0110 0001 0111 0010 0110 1001 0110 1110 0110 0111 0101 1111 0110 1001 0111 0011 0101 1111 0110 0011 0110 0001 0111 0010 0110 1001 0110 1110 0110 0111 Which translates to (from 8bit to ascii using https://www.dcode.fr/ascii-code):
remember_sharing_is_caring
[STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION]
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