Alana,
Abny, Jordan and Ed Win the August 2007 Philly Ravenchase
Adventure!
Alana, Ed, Abny
and Jordan with the Golden Penn's Pen
I stumbled upon Ravenchase when glancing
at the adventure activities in the City Paper (this was
for their July 7th event). Couldn't make that one, but
vowed to sign up for the next one, which turned out to be
"The Quest for Penn's Pen" on August 18th. I
enlisted my trusty Urban Dare partner Jordan, who brought
in Abny and Alana to make a team of four (the team sizes
appear to go from one to many). We were sent this clue a
few days beforehand and preceded to get totally stumped
trying to solve it:
Although we found most of the hidden
words, we did not find "utilize" which would
have been a big help (being a verb!) and never noticed
that "REVE" and "NGEI" anagram to
"Vigenere" which is a cipher code that I had
read about (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigenere_cipher) to learn
how it works... and to get your own free solution sheet
for future use!). So, the night before the start I
emailed the organizers and after some vaguely helpful
clues finally received the "use the Vigenere
cipher." I even found an online automated program
that delivered the answer "start at Penns Landing by
Ships of Delaware Sign." I was seriously hoping that
the event would not include solving lots of obscure
codes!
Below is an image from the famous
Rassilon with the solution to the puzzle.
Saturday was a gorgeous day. I had to
work the morning, but got off in time to meet with Abny,
Jordan and Alana at the start. There were two other teams
there (Rassilon (Geoffrey G. Wynkoop) and Team Pink
(well, they had a longer name, but I can remember it -
there were six of them in coordinated pink shirts) and
one on its way (Team Jersey - 2 people). We were each
given a small gold coin that got us a free drink at the
end - provided we got there. Robert and Kristine, who
organized the event, briefly explained the directions and
then handed us our first puzzle. The starting challenge
consisted of a scroll and a gift basket with a dollar,
two quarters and a penny in it. The scroll said that we
had to tell Kristine (the starter) how many heads were on
the dollar bill - that information was determined by
matching the flags listed on the sheet with their
corresponding letters (the sign was a few yards away from
the start). Sad to say, I won't tell you the answer, but
after some hints and more careful observation, we got the
solution on our last try. We were off!
Kristine gave us the trusty Ravenchase
carefully aged, ripped and water stained treasure map,
which showed the five known locations that we would be
visiting (Fireman's Museum, Betsy Ross House (for some
reason marked as Atwater Kent Park), the Tamanend statue,
Welcome Park and the Vietnam Memorial), plus three clue
sheets. For some unknown reason I was convinced that the
five paragraphs on the Clue 1 sheet referred to the five
locations, and that the five paragraphs on Clue 2 sheet
referred to five hidden locations... or something like
that. So, somehow we concluded that we could go to any
location and start there. Of course, choosing the Vietnam
Memorial took us in the exact wrong direction and left us
all alone. We spent a bit of time wandering around there
when it finally dawned on us that Clue 1 - the whole clue
- referred to one location and Clue 2 another. And those
happened to be the Fireman's Museum and Betsy Ross House.
And so we were off again!
As we trekked back to the correct place,
we spotted Robert walking towards us, and then turning up
a side street. I joked that he was on his way to the
memorial to place the big gold coin (there is one on the
course and it gives you a 20-minute bonus if your team
finds it) at the memorial. Alas, I was right. As we
passed the Tamanend statue, I pointed it out to the team,
and that's when we spotted another scroll under the trash
can. It was for Clue 5 - the Vietnam Memorial - meaning
we had a leg up (inadvertently) on everyone else. I was
sure we were in dead last. We looked at the sheet and it
mentioned needing the penny and a password, so we knew
the penny was important.
When we arrived at Fireman's Hall, the
Jersey Team was there looking around. The museum was
closed, so we figured the clue was somewhere around the
building. We were wrong. A few minutes later the Jersey
Team was talking on the phone, but then they moved off.
At that moment Team Pink and Rassilon showed up (from the
Betsy Ross house) and began looking around. Since Robert
had mentioned that the clues could be 2-300 yards away I
figured we should be looking up side streets. As Jordan
and I trekked up one of them, Abny waved us back. It
turned out that the museum was supposed to be open and
Team Pink was getting the answer (since we couldn't see
it), and then giving it to Rassilon and us. We could have
saved about 10 minutes if the Jersey Team had alerted us,
but karma would catch up with them later.
Once you put the phrase into the grid on
Clue sheet 1, you used the numbers listed on the page (so
49 is the letter in row 4, column 9) to spell out
"go to Elfriths court and under two stars a
gem." I knew that the stars were the covers on the
wall hiding the bolts that ran through the house to keep
the walls from falling off - a common Colonial practice
to keep the houses up (but did Franklin also invent
this?).
We actually deciphered this later, so
our next stop was the Betsy Ross house to solve Clue 2.
Just as we entered I spied the Jersey Team leaving - we
were picking up time! We knew we had to go inside the
house and find a tool. Of course we waited to decode the
rest of the poem and marched inside. I was looking for
something special while the rest of the team was scouring
the tables (we were in the gift shop). I figured we did
not need to go into the museum part of the house. That's
when (I believe) Alana spied the penny-stamping machine.
Of course! We had 51 cents, exactly the right amount to
stamp the penny. A big breakthrough and a really neat
idea. Since the first part of the clue described the flag
I thought we should use that one (plus it had just been
stamped and the Jersey Team had just left without
covering their tracks well). Apparently some teams were
not so confident and got all four styles (for an extra
$1.53). We then decoded the rest of the poem, which told
us to use the quarters to stamp the penny. Our intuition
was faster than our puzzle solving skills!
We hit Elfreth's Alley (note correct
spelling) and quickly deduced that the destination -
probably Clue 4 - was down the side alley (Bladen's
Court). There it was behind a tree. We spent a few extra
seconds searching for the coin - I figured we were still
dead last and someone had found it already... but just in
case. Leaving the alley we moved quickly to Clue 3 -
Welcome Park. This clue had a big word search that
unscrambled as "if you wish to conquer this clue you
must find the answer to this question in Welcome Park
what was penns wife name?" Reading the timeline
showed that Penn had two wives... but only one actually
lived there (at the Slate House): Callowhill. There were
10 letters left in the square that I swore were a clue
(they were not), but we didn't spend much time on it.
The next Clue (4) was at the Tamanend
Statue and it was some number-letter substitution puzzle.
Jordan argued (correctly) that the clue there probably
told us to find the scroll for Clue 5 - which we already
had. We knew that Clue 5 said we needed a password (which
we just got) and a penny (obviously the stamped one), so
we were good to go to the Vietnam Memorial for the final
instruction. I was concerned that the riddle might tell
us something else and that we needed to go there.
Conventionality won out and we went to the statue, though
in hindsight it was obvious we should have went to the
memorial.
When we got to the statue the Jersey
Team was hard at work on the puzzle. I noticed the
sequence 3,2,2 at the start and 2,3,3 at the end of the
puzzle. The instructions indicated a one number to letter
substitution, based on the treaty quote on the statue. I
bet the first word was "look" and the last
"scroll" with 3 as l and 2 as o. And lo and
behold the first three letters of the quote was
"t,o,l." That confirmed our suspicion, but I
still wanted to get a few more letters to make sure. The
rest went ahead, while I got the first 10 letters -
everything matched to make "look to where Tamanend
points and get a scroll." Another great puzzle! I
left the Jersey Team still working on the puzzle.
When I got to the memorial, the rest of
the team was looking around inside and out. The poem
clearly pointed to the big name wall and directed us
beneath an inscribed cross. After a quick scan showed
nothing but names, I said there had better be someone
named Cross on it. Sure enough, there he was - and right
below were three small flags. I spotted some text on one
(turned out to the manufacturer) and Jordan spied the one
with a sticker on it. It was a phone number! We all
agreed that Callowhill was the password (not those other
ten letters that made no sense) and Jordan called the
number. We had to hurry since Team Pink was just around
the corner, as well as Rassilon! Well, the password was
right and we were off to the Bongo Bar on the Moshulu
just across Delaware Avenue. We hadn't found the big
coin, but we solved everything. And it got better!
We bounded up the gangplank, and found
Robert and Kristine at the bar... and no other teams!
Still, they were near us and the big coin would give them
20 minutes and the win. Finally Team Pink called in with
the password and arrived... without the coin. Then
Rassilon came aboard and still no coin. The Jersey Team
started a half-hour behind us (though technically we
should have all started at the same time... even if they
were delayed), so there was a bit of time (even assuming
they did not get the coin) before we would capture first.
Well, we won by a few minutes as they
arrived about 35 minutes later without the big coin
(which turned out to be on top the memorial, directly
above the flag... I was right!). They actually might have
won, but they couldn't find the flag with the number.
Then Rassilon commented that he didn't find it either! I
said it seemed impossible that Team Pink could find it,
but Rassilon arriving five minutes later would not (I
couldn't imagine anyone coming along and taking it).
That's when Jennifer "Sticky Fingers Flag
Stealer" from Team Pink produced the flag from her
bag! She figured there was one-per-team and took theirs.
Uh-oh. That dropped them to 4th (they had been tied with
Rassilon), giving 3rd to Rassilon and 2nd to the Jersey
Team. We hung around for our free drink, and few more,
before journeying back home with the golden Penn's Pen.
Team Clubedventures.com did great - everyone had their
moment in the sun that day (some of us even got a sunburn
to prove it!) and it was a very enjoyable teamwork
victory. A great day for all!
|
