Monkeybrad: It is a sad day, but changes in ownership at Stage 2 and big topographical changes at the final site make it necessary to archive this one. But for those of you who have been watching this one, I feel it is my duty to explain some of the cryptic clues and give up SOME of the secrets of this first of it's kind cache.
Stage 1
This stage was inspired by Charles Dickens' semi-autobiographical work David Copperfield. If you remember young David's first job it will do you no good, but if you combine that with what I learned in "How to Hold a Crocodile" you will have a good start on finding this set of coordinates. Add in a healthy dose of Newton's second law of motion and you have this tiger by the tail.
David Copperfield cleaned bottles, how to hold a crocodile explains that to empty bottles faster you should swirl them to create a whirlpool. At the site there was a corkscrew shaped slide with the coordinates to stage 2 halfway down on the roof. So if you slid down the slide you would find the coords.
Stage 2
Take one part "Fairie Queene" by Edmund Spenser, one part Matthew 16:18 and one part of Mr. Ritter's Shortening. Mix well and find coordinates. I hid this stage with a cannon, and you've got to keep that in mind.
Ah, the dreaded stage 2, The Fairie Queene was a red herring of sorts, although I thought it might make some people think of Spencer's, a former occupant of this mall that sold something you needed at this stage. Mathew 16:18 talks about build "on this rock". The Mr. Ritter in question is Wilhelm Ritter who first discovered light of "shorter" wavelengths, now commonly referred to as ultraviolet or UV light, also known as blacklight. The corner stone of the wall had the coordinates for the final etched into them with a special (read expensive) outdoor invisible ink that reacted to strong UV light. The coords were in plain sight all along, if you looked at them under the correct lighting conditions. This was to my knowledge and to the knowledge of everyone I have consulted with, the first use of UV technology on a cache.
Final Stage
The final resting place of this cache can be summed up in one word, and that word is Ozymandias.
Not too far from stage two stands the remains of the base that the Battle of Nashville monument used to stand on. The cache was hidden 45 feet from it next to a broken fence. I had three different people find this cache, without ever visiting any of the other stages, based on this clue alone.
I hope that you found this one entertaining and frustrating, I hate to see it go, but the world changes and not everything can make it to the final reel. Look for "Son of Epic" coming to a cache site near you soon.