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This is an entry to the Fortnightly Topic Challenge #27: .

Steven the Stegosaurus has been kidnapped! It's now up to you to save him. When you enter Steven's cave, the only thing you can find is a note that Steven has left for you, along with a picture of him. Here it is: Steven lives in Ireland

If you found this note, it means that I was unable to find my way home although I had many tools at my disposal. I was so intent on finding bacon that I ignored every other thing in my path, and I must have met some unfortunate demise. I have included a picture of me to remember me by. -Steven

Compiling the hints I made in the comments:

Hint #1:

All the clues will be used.

Hint #2:

There is more than one way to represent location on a map.

Hint #3:

All the numbers in the solution in the imgur puzzle will be used in the final solution.

Hint #4:

Steven's kidnappers did not take him very far.

Other hints:

The way that Steven's location is represented only works in the country he is located in.

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  • 1
    $\begingroup$ How big is Steven? (Is he bigger than a breadbox?) $\endgroup$
    – Jasper
    Feb 22, 2017 at 4:46
  • $\begingroup$ @Jasper Steven is a young stegosaurus, not much bigger than an average adult human. $\endgroup$
    – suomynonA
    Feb 22, 2017 at 5:37
  • $\begingroup$ Lot of I's make me feel there is binary in there. Also, bacon hints towards bacon cipher. $\endgroup$
    – Techidiot
    Feb 22, 2017 at 6:19
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    $\begingroup$ He's definitely a steganosaurus. $\endgroup$
    – Rubio ♦
    Feb 22, 2017 at 7:38
  • $\begingroup$ what's he going to do with bacon? Stegosaurus is/was herbivore. $\endgroup$
    – Marius
    Feb 22, 2017 at 7:46

1 Answer 1

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Steven is at

Teaglac Muire, Main St, Meenane, Watergrasshill, Co. Cork, Ireland

The image is

Steganography! The note talks about many tools which leads to this tool. Decoding it with the website gives a huge string as

AHAETHATHERAHRBTHRAHBTRHARTAHAAEHATRBHBTHATRAEAHBTRHBTRAABBBAABHTRHRTAHRTHAHETHATEHETAHETHTBETHEBERHAETHAERTHAAIPBKBFGALBRTAKBEAALBRTALAHTRAHTRBHETHHTRAHBTRBTRBHBRTABYALAEAAKAAOBRTKKATRHIBPAKAAKBILAOLBUAAYHATGARAHBYBAOATYAIBREBRBCBVACXZABDFDGBJKNMAAUBRBBARTTABPATARBAJATJABJAJRTJABERHAAPIURBTBRJARAEYREBABITIBRTJBARJABWAAQBSBEBAUAIASAATRKABILPB

Cleaning the letters except A/B we get
AAAABABAAAAABBAAABBAABBBA ABAAAABBAAAABBABABAABAAAB ABBBBABAAAAAABA BAAABABAAAAABBAAABBBBAABB AABBBAABAABAAABAABAA BBAABABBBAABAABBBAAAAAABB

This is a Baconian cipher.
Decoding it gives
B IG GOI M G U R P IC R I G H T HE R E ZO J Y D

Which is BIG GO IMGUR PIC RIGHT HERE ZOJYD

But..
Tried with zOjyd.png doesn't give any imgur. Still looking for it..
If I treat O as $0$ and j as i I get z0iyd(https://i.stack.imgur.com/z0iyd.png) which gives an image but it looks irrelevant and just a coincidence-
enter image description here


Now, either I am not getting the right way to interpret the imgur or may be there is an error. Will wait for the OP to confirm.

Going ahead

OP confirms in the comment that the found image was irrelevant and we need to look for something related to albums. If @Carmeister's comment is right, we get - http://imgur.com/a/zOjyd which is an imgur album with the following picture -

enter image description here
Text form W
A=2548828127
B=5097656254
AA=5097656254
BB=10195312508
AAA=?
BBB=15292968762

Upon checking, it looks like -
A = B/2
AA = BB/2
Hence, we get
AAA = BBB/2 i.e. AAA = 15292968762/2 = 7646484381

Now as per hint, the numbers can be used only in Ireland

So, I found Irish Grid Reference to be the next step for finding Steven. The grid looks like this -

enter image description here

Now, we have letter W at the top. So, using this tool we can easily find Steven by entering the coordinate as W 76464 84381


http://i.imgur.com/Ad80fcl.png
Which is Teaglac Muire, Main St, Meenane, Watergrasshill, Co. Cork, Ireland

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  • $\begingroup$ imgur.com/z0jyd ? $\endgroup$
    – Callum Bradbury
    Feb 22, 2017 at 16:43
  • $\begingroup$ @CallumBradbury Nah. That can't be it :p $\endgroup$
    – Techidiot
    Feb 22, 2017 at 16:48
  • $\begingroup$ It's unlikely, for sure, but you never know... $\endgroup$
    – Callum Bradbury
    Feb 22, 2017 at 16:49
  • $\begingroup$ Steven is not very fond of pythons, but he does loves picture albums. $\endgroup$
    – suomynonA
    Feb 22, 2017 at 23:57
  • $\begingroup$ imgur.com/a/zOjyd looks like what you want $\endgroup$
    – Carmeister
    Feb 23, 2017 at 0:14

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