Johann Heidenbergs story M006 H021 Mystery Cache
Johann Heidenbergs story M006 H021
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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Fifty barrels were found in a shipwreck. Inside the barrels they found many different things. Vinegar was among the things found in nine of the barrels. Even though vinegar is a liquid and not a thing. Nothing of real value was found or so they thought until they poured all the vinegar out of one barrel. Inside they found a smaller barrel made of some kind of metal without any apparent openings but with seven strange markings. None of the persons assembled could identify the metal. Experts had to be called in.
One of the experts was Arthur Paulson. Notorious Expert in metallurgy. Even he could not identify the metal. Seven other so called experts could tell nothing of the origin or content of the small barrel. In fact the only thing they could tell was the obvious so they decided to x-ray the barrel. X-ray showed nothing, it could not penetrate the metal.
Ole Hauptman, an expert in geology, suggested using explosives to try to open it. None of the other thought that was a good ide. Eventually he was sent home because of his bad ideas. Zealously they tried for many days. Eight days they tried without results. Ramping up the effort they called in more experts. Of these there was a man called Henry Willard. None of the other experts had heard of him and only a few knew about his area of expertise. In fact he was the world leading expert in exobiology. Naturally the others was very skeptical to him. Even when they found out he had achieved doctorates in both biology and astrophysics.
Zero result was what they had achieved after eleven more days of work. Even Dr. Willard was flabbergasted but very intrigued. Resting only one or two hours a day he worked around the clock. Of all the so called experts he worked the hardest.
Of course the question was raised over the cost of all this work. Noteworthy billionaire and eccentric S.R.Hadden took care of the bill. End of that question. Other than the fiscal question there was the question of secrecy. Nobody had talked but the word was beginning to get out nonetheless. Evidently somebody at the secret facility was a blabbermouth. Other than the so called experts there was the usually staff of guards, cooks, maids and so on. Nobody knew who had talked to outsiders. Except the responsible one of course.
Occasionally there was wild arguments between the experts. None of these arguments escalated out of control fortunately. Everybody sort of got along, beside they was very focused on the artifact. The markings remained a true mystery. Whoever could solved that mystery would get a large bonus. Obviously they looked like nothing anybody had seen before. Either they were some abstract pictograms or just meaningless scribbles. In either case nobody made any sense out of them.
Group stress made an all time high. High enough to spark an outbreak of violence. The linguist punched the mineralogist in the nose so four drops of blood spattered onto the artifact. Finally something happened. In two minutes the small barrel grew to double it's size and then it just dissolved into nothing. Vile smells and a lot of questions was all that remained.
End of story.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
penpx, or pnershy