10
$\begingroup$

When I was just a little kid my parents died in a terrible accident, and I was left alone in the world. When I reached the age of 18, I received an envelope with a letter that read the following:

My dear child,
If you are reading this, then I am no longer among the living. You are now an adult and it means all of the family heirloom now belongs to you.

To make sure that it doesn't fall into the wrong hands, I had to hide the money. I encrypted a special message so that you will know where the money is.

Inside the envelope there was also a note with numbers and some pictures:

27011d5304171d0c0153000b530111170d1d1d49111d4920011a081a49360101090547582a060d53080a16490c1b0c58180c015d63391f1e190a1a58210c1516041a161b5453000c541a581d060c531e101c49011c1c58121b1d531c16170c0a1d0c19070154530b0d07490f1b080c53101706491c1c490c1b080c530d1d150016161a580a060d5d

enter image description here

Where is the heirloom and what is my name?

Hint 1:

each picture represents part of the key

| improve this question | |
$\endgroup$
  • $\begingroup$ Isn't your name pirate? $\endgroup$ – a guy Dec 31 '18 at 8:32
  • $\begingroup$ No, it's only an alias $\endgroup$ – pirate Dec 31 '18 at 8:35
  • $\begingroup$ Yes. That was a joke I made. Good job on finding the joke. $\endgroup$ – a guy Dec 31 '18 at 8:36
  • $\begingroup$ I got the joke ;) $\endgroup$ – pirate Dec 31 '18 at 8:37
4
+50
$\begingroup$

You are ...

... Bruce Wayne. and the heirloom is hidden in Wayne Manor.

The first step was solved by j3App and others:

The note is a long number in hexadecimal, or pairs of hexadecimal digits, rather. The pictures define the key with which to decode the note:

  • The first picture shows Tantalum with atomic number 73.
  • The second picture shows the album cover of Day69.
  • The last picture shows an old phone with "pt" in its display, which you get by typing 78 on the numeric keys.
The key is 736978,which must also be treated as pairs of hex digits. Now the message can be decoded by xor-ing the note with the key, starting over when the key has run out. Treat the resulting numbers as ASCII and the message reads:

The money is hidden in Xrspi Nrhqv. You are the key. Always Remember, it's not who you are underneath, but what you do that defines you.

The next step ...

... is to find out what "Xrspi Nrhqv" means. "You are the key" is important, of course, and it looks as if the place were encoded with a Vigenère cipher where the key is the name of the heir, which explains why that is also part of the question.

The note is probably meant to allow us to guess your identity, but I solved it by brute-forcing the code: I ran a dictionary against "Xrspi" and when the key "Bruce" produced "Wayne", I knew I was onto something: "Xrspi Nrhqv" decodes to "Wayne Manor" with the key "Bruce".

(The heir knows his name and can decode the message, but I'm not sure how we are supposed to find the key. The note says "It's not who you are underneath", but isn't Batman Bruce Wayne underneath?)

| improve this answer | |
$\endgroup$
  • $\begingroup$ Hm. But I didn't find the quote and I relied heavily on the work of others. (And I'm not such a big fan of "Do this and you'll get the tick".) Frankly, I don't quite see how the heir is supposed to identify himself by means of a quote related to him. If you want to wrap up your puzzle and are not satisfied with the solutions, you could write your own answer and accept it. $\endgroup$ – M Oehm Jan 7 '19 at 18:06
  • $\begingroup$ ROT13: V fnl tvir uvz gur gvpx. Gur dhbgr "vg'f abg jub lbh ner haqrearngu, ohg jung lbh qb gung qrsvarf lbh" jnf fnvq gb Oehpr Jnlar ol Enpury Qnjrf va Ongzna Ortvaf. $\endgroup$ – Larry Alton Garrett Jan 7 '19 at 21:22
4
$\begingroup$

The key is:

736978
based on the 3 pictures:
- Tantalum {atomic nbr 73}
- Day6ix9ine
- Pt = Platinum {atomic nbr 78}

And the main message is:

The money is hidden in Xrspi Nrhqv. You are the key. Always Remember, it's not who you are underneath, but what you do that defines you.

Now it seems we need

another key for decoding Xrspi Nrhqv. (You are the key)

| improve this answer | |
$\endgroup$
  • $\begingroup$ You got the right key, now decode the message! (For the last picture, you actually got the right number in a different way I intended for) $\endgroup$ – pirate Jan 1 '19 at 8:09
  • $\begingroup$ For the benefit of other solvers, you should probably say that the ? ? is "Xrspi Nrhqv", which looks like another cipher. And it would be nice if you could explain how the cipher works. $\endgroup$ – M Oehm Jan 1 '19 at 15:36
  • $\begingroup$ I didn't want to give it all away before the mystery has been fully solved. Don't want to ruin the fun $\endgroup$ – j3App Jan 1 '19 at 15:41
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ Well, the moment you post a partial answer here, you basically say: That's how far I got, perhaps someone else has an idea about it. If you don't want to do share your findings, hold back the post until you've solved everything (and risk that someone else gets there in the meantime). At least that's how I see it. $\endgroup$ – M Oehm Jan 1 '19 at 15:47
  • $\begingroup$ You're getting there $\endgroup$ – pirate Jan 2 '19 at 13:11
0
$\begingroup$

Very partial, not even an answer:

27011d5304171d0c0153000b530111170d1d1d49111d4920011a081a49360101090547582a060d53080a16490c1b0c58180c015d63391f1e190a1a58210c1516041a161b5453000c541a581d060c531e101c49011c1c58121b1d531c16170c0a1d0c19070154530b0d07490f1b080c53101706491c1c490c1b080c530d1d150016161a580a060d5d

something in base 16...

Left most pic:

a candle, perhaps made of platinum, based on the hint on Nokia(see below)?

Nokia:

Numbers on screen may be of great importance, clearly PT was a hint, and font matters, based on edit history ;)
pt may refer to Platinum/ Point, so numbers=coordinates?

| improve this answer | |
$\endgroup$
  • $\begingroup$ But F is a valid hex (base 16) digit. A through F represent 10 to 15. $\endgroup$ – M Oehm Dec 31 '18 at 12:55
  • $\begingroup$ oh youre right... $\endgroup$ – Omega Krypton Dec 31 '18 at 12:55
  • $\begingroup$ @MOehm Thanks, but i dunno how to decipher base 16, can u pls help me? thanks!! $\endgroup$ – Omega Krypton Dec 31 '18 at 12:56
  • $\begingroup$ try this: unitconversion.org/numbers/base-16-to-base-10-conversion.html (never mind, it's too long) $\endgroup$ – Excited Raichu Dec 31 '18 at 13:00
  • $\begingroup$ The edits I made were only so it looks more aesthetically, but you are right that it is a hint. Also, google is your friend here. $\endgroup$ – pirate Dec 31 '18 at 13:11

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.