The crowd cheered as King Geepius entered the reviewing stand. News had traveled quickly that the King’s army was returning from their successful campaign in the Kingdom of the Oh-See to the north. The army had removed the usurper Despard the Desperate from power and restored the throne to the rightful heir, Calvin the Clean. Safely back on his throne, Calvin had ordered the Duke of Parsnip to journey to Castle Geepius to convey his thanks. Thousands had crowded the royal parade grounds to welcome the visitor. Trumpets brayed and all heads turned as the flamboyant Duke entered the parade grounds with much pomp and circumstance.
“Good King Geepius,” said the Duke, bowing deeply with his plumed hat in hand, “my King sends his deepest thanks for driving the usurper from our kingdom. To show his appreciation, I present to you a small token of his appreciation.” He made a grand, sweeping arc with his hat towards the parade grounds’ entry. The ancient gates creaked opened and four white horses entered pulling a large cart. King Geepius leaned forward with interest. In the cart was a curious ten-foot-tall cluster of gleaming metal plates of various widths mounted on a five-foot-tall pedestal. A collective ‘Ahhhh’ rose from the crowd. The morning sunlight danced on the shiny silver surfaces of a strange object as the driver brought the cart to a halt before the King. “Behold the Flame of Friendship,” bellowed the Duke of Parsnip. “King Calvin has heard about your past debac- , ah, difficulties keeping track of your geocaches. Well, those days are past! The Flame of Friendship allows you to hide your caches anywhere in your kingdom in a matter of seconds. And if the location is compromised, you can just as quickly relocate the cache without leaving the comfort of your castle.”
The Duke climbed into the cart. “The Flame consists of nine bars. The bars are mounted to the pedestal and each other such that the base of each bar is slightly higher from the pedestal than the previous one. The tops of the bars are also in the same relative order of elevation. This is very important because a magic spell has been placed on the top of each bar to transmit a number to the cache according to the bar’s height above the pedestal. The lowest bar (the stem, if you will), represents a one and the highest bar represents a nine.” “What about zero?” called King Geepius. “Touch the pedestal for a zero,” replied the Duke as he extracted a small cache container and a scrap of parchment from his coat pocket. “Let me demonstrate. First, place your cache on the pedestal - like this. Then, enter the desired cache coordinates by touching the bars in order. The Flame is preset for N32, W117 so you only need to enter the ten digits of the minutes.” He raised the small scrap of parchment high above his head. “I have here the coordinates of your stables.” As he recited the ten digits, the Duke touched the corresponding bars with an occasional tap on the pedestal. Upon entering the last digit, the tips of the Flame shivered slightly and emitted a low hum…and the cache container disappeared! The Duke asked the cart driver to fetch the container from the stables. The driver climbed down and ran across the grounds. In a few minutes, the winded driver returned with the Duke’s container in hand. The crowd and the King applauded wildly.
King Geepius was so excited that he immediately ordered a knight to go to his chambers and retrieve his latest geocache container. The knight soon returned with a small container filled with royal geoswag beyond description. “I’ve been planning this hide for weeks,” the King said, climbing out of the royal box and into the cart. He placed the container on the Flame pedestal, extracted a piece of parchment from his robes which read N32 31.286, W117 40.429, and began touching the bars of the Flame. “Now, let me make sure I get this right…For three, I touch the third highest bar from the pedestal. For one, I touch the stem, then the second highest bar, then the eighth…”After the tenth number, the Flame of Friendship quivered and hummed again and the King’s cache box disappeared.
The crowd roared, hats flew in all directions, and cannons fired. Spooked by the noise, the four white horses suddenly bolted, taking the driverless cart, the Flame, the Duke, and the King with them. The crowd screamed as the cart careened about the parade grounds. The Duke lost his balance and fell backwards out of the cart. The King hung on with all his might. The horses made a wide turn and headed back toward the reviewing stand. A brave sentry tried to grab the reins of the lead horse but was knocked to the ground and run over by the cart. The bounce threw the King from the cart. He rolled several times before landing in a flowerbed – shaken but unhurt. He watched in dismay as the horses made a very sharp turn. The cart spilled and the Flame crashed to the ground. It rolled end over end for what seemed an eternity before finally coming to rest. The poor horses dragged the overturned cart another 100 yards before finally stopping. Guards ran to help the fallen sentry while the Duke, the King, and several knights gathered around the wreckage of the Flame of Friendship.
Parsnip and King Geepius watched as the knights righted the Flame back on its pedestal. While the bars were still secure, they were twisted and bent. Suddenly, the bars quivered and hummed once again – and then went silent. The astonished Duke looked at the livid King with an expression of extreme embarrassment. “Oh my, the Flame seems to have relocated your hidden cache.” “But the bars are intact!” exclaimed the King, “the cache shouldn’t have moved.” “Yes, but remember that the magic spell is on the TOPS of the bars. It is the relative elevation of the TOPS of the bars that matter. They appear to be all mixed up now. The bar in the third position at the bottom is now the fourth highest at the top. Where it used to broadcast a three, it now sends a four! The seventh bar from the bottom is now the tallest at the top. While it used to send a seven, now it sends a nine! The cache has been relocated using the same sequence of bars that you entered but with different numbers for each bar! Unless we can sort this out…your geocache is missing for good.” “Not again,” grumbled the King.
Once the Duke of Parsnip had been politely escorted to the dungeon, King Geepius contemplated how he might find his new, missing cache. He had the Flame of Friendship hauled to a public platform high above the harbor at the published coordinates. He sent out a proclamation to all Royal Geocachers: Examine the Flame, sort out the order of the bars at their bottoms and tops, solve the puzzle, and find the missing cache. This puzzle is really twisted. Examine it from all sides. Good luck.
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Be sure to read the other exciting Adventures of King Geepius:
The Lost Cache of King Geepius (archived)
King Geepius and the Giant Toothache
King Geepius and the Okeanos
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