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The tenebrus 8000 Box Mystery Cache

Hidden : 5/26/2015
Difficulty:
4.5 out of 5
Terrain:
2 out of 5

Size: Size:   small (small)

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Geocache Description:

Dear tenebrus,

Congratulations on reaching milestone #8000!!  You have provided the caching community with 8000 hours of vexation over your many devious puzzles.  ;-) Here is my humble attempt to pay it forward.

Your logical caching friend, hikecycletri


This cache is not at the posted coordinates.


Last summer, I solved tenebrus' 4.5 difficulty puzzle, FYI: Self-Referential Cache is Self-Referential, in about 5 minutes and claimed it for my milestone #500. What a great logic puzzle! It took me about three times longer to solve the model for the puzzle below. That's not enough puzzling time for tenebrus to scratch his head, break a pencil, or post a flaming cache note! Therefore, I have added a tenebrus twist.

To make this a bit more challenging, all numbers in the clues below have been replaced by caches. You will need to begin by figuring out how these caches translate to numbers. All information needed is readily available via standard geocaching.com means. Alternate statistics gathering tools were not used in developing this puzzle. Links are provided for the caches to remove the tedium of copying and pasting GC codes into a search engine. Perhaps this will reduce solving time, reduce time spent on false starts, or, simply, allow you time to reflect upon many exceptional caches.

The Puzzle

Each of the boxes in the diagram contains a different number between He had a dream... [which is tenebrus 1st Virtual find] and Crandall Monuments [which is tenebrus 21st Wherigo find.] From the clues given, can you place the correct number in each box?



Once you have placed the numbers into the correct boxes, solve for letters T, E, N, and R by summing the values of the eight boxes surrounding each letter. Using these results, calculate the coordinates as,

N 42 24.U W073 4S, where:

  • T = sum of upper left quadrant
  • E = sum of upper right quadrant
  • N = sum of lower left quadrant
  • E = E
  • B = box, such that B1 = the value in box 1 of the diagram
  • R = sum of lower right quadrant
  • U = ((B16 + B12)(B15 + B19)) - ((B12)(B20))
  • S = (R(B3) + T + ((B5)(B10 + B6))) / B14B20



Additional Hints (Decrypt)

Ybbx ng gur gebcul sbe gur vasbezngvba qngrq 2015. Guvf vasb gryyf lbh gur rknpg ahzore svryqf gb pbapragengr ba sbe gur fbyir. Lbh jvyy arrq gb frcnengr gur TP pbqrf vagb gjb qvfgvapg naq ybtvpny tebhcf, gura qrgrezvar juvpu bs gur gubfr ahzore svryqf fubhyq or hfrq pbafvfgragyl sbe gung tebhc bs TP pbqrf. V'yy eryrnfr shegure pyhrf gb gur nggraqrrf bs gur arneol TVSS rirag ba 11/5/2016.

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)