The forests of Finland are being invaded by killer squirrels. These
ostensibly docile creatures have started attacking forest visitors
and have even been seen carrying weapons.
The first recorded case of a killer squirrel was 63 years ago when
a berry picker in Kauhava was found bitten to death. At the time
nobody suspected that it was a squirrel attack and the entire
incident remained an unsolved mystery.
However 10 years ago there was another incident when a jogger in
Joensuu was chased out of a forest by an angry pack of these
vicious rodents. The jogger survived and although the story was
extensively reported in the Iltalehti newspaper, no research was
ever followed to explain the incident.
Things then seemed to be rather quiet again until one year ago,
when a dramatic rise in the number of attacks became apparent. It
was then noticed that there was a correlation between the number of
attacks and the number of geocaches being placed in the forests.
These seemingly harmless plastic containers placed in the forest
can be chewed by up to four squirrels at a time with devastating
consequences. Nobody knows why the squirrels like to chew on these
containers, but the plastic they ingest after only eight minutes of
chewing causes a dramatic mutation to occur in their genes. This
mutation is the cause of a dramatic rise in their aggression and
intelligence levels (increases in aggressiveness have been
documented in reputable journals as being as high as 21%).
Unfortunately, the squirrels are now becoming braver and are
reported to be hunting geocaches in large packs (some packs of
squirrels are known to have reached 33 in size). If this trend is
allowed to continue, they may soon start to venture out of the
forest and into the urban areas.
So big is this threat that the very future of geocaching is now at
risk as well as civilization as we know it.
But now an elite group of five dedicated geocachers have started
to fight back. The leader of this group is the renowned scientist
Zacharias Ranger. He has developed a new type of plastic geocaching
container that will be able to destroy the mutant gene in the
squirrels by radiating a special scent.
There has only ever been one of this type of container made
though. And the only way to test if it works is if it can remain
undisturbed by the squirrels.
Therefore the cache must be placed very carefully so that the
squirrels cannot discover where it is hidden.
Because this was such a dangerous mission, Zacharias Ranger and
his team of the bravest geocachers in the world took many
precautions before going into the forest to place the cache.
That was one month ago and nothing has been heard of them since.
There has been no radio contact and nobody knows if they succeeded
in their mission.
However, just before Zacharias Ranger left, he did mention that he
would be leaving some clues behind so another team of brave cachers
can continue should he have failed.
Your mission is now to find out what happened to Zacharias
Ranger and his team and to discover whether they managed to place
the cache successfully. Remember that the squirrels are very
organized and you will need all of your stealth skills to be able
to succeed. Good luck.
It is worth noting that besides his GPS, Zacharias never went
anywhere without a laptop!
