by Jeff Briden (a.k.a. Jep)

A man of bright sense, Jeff sums up his gaming strategy as “Trying to hack Cliff’s website. Trying to bribe Cliff. Trying to bribe Cliff’s friend David. Trying to get inside info from Cliff’s friend Elonka. Trying to get inside info from Bill Kalush. Trying to get inside info from everyone at Metze design. Trading Tim’s Hiero method, hints, and answers with just about everyone via email in return for their loyalty and every idea they had. Changing the colors, fonts, and formatting in Sonny’s Hiero spreadsheet and passing it to Tony so he could cross-check “my” work. Purposely posting mistakes in my work to see if anyone was actually reading it. Joining at least four different ‘secret’ puzzle groups and almost immediately betraying secrecy agreements in every one of them to better my position in the game.”

Our challenge begins at the end of David Blaine's semi-autobiography, "Mysterious Stranger, A Book of Magic".  Here, one finds two pages of tiny text innocuously titled:

How to Participate in
BLAINE'S CHALLENGE
OFFICIAL RULES

With twelve numbered paragraphs of obligatory legal disclaimers, deadlines, instructions, and warnings not to destroy public property, a few of these tedious sentences are worth noting:

Hidden throughout the Book are puzzles, enigmas, and conundrums ("Clues") that, once understood and solved, will direct you to the location of a Treasure Map (the "Map") concealed somewhere in the forty-eight contiguous United States. The Map will guide its finder to an Amulet (the "Treasure").  The first individual or group of individuals who, using their own intellect and skill, solve the Clues, and then locate the Map and the Treasure... ...will win a cash prize of one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000) U.S.

At the bottom of the last page of the rules, is a black-and-white Polaroid of David Blaine sitting with his back against a brick wall.  The number 174517 is seen tattooed on Mr. Blaine's forearm.  The picture is captioned with the curious words:

International Registry; Imbroglio 332.333.343; Interchange 222.332.232

Research, reveals the tattoo as holocaust survivor and author Primo Levy's prisoner number - an interesting but useless bit of trivia.  Puzzler's intuition might conclude that this strangely captioned Polaroid will be useful later on, and indeed it is.  The first puzzle element seen upon reading the rules is the final key to unlock the secret location of Blaine's Treasure!    

The main body of the challenge is a set of forty-one silly sentences or clues to be decoded from puzzle elements sprinkled throughout the margins of the book.  

The  first and not least difficult task is to identify and extract the essential elements.  The book is an eclectic mix of biographical facts, magic secrets, and trivial tidbits about Blaine's interests and influences.  The richly worded text and numerous drawings, figures and photos serve as an effective camouflage, easily distracting the puzzler and blurring the distinction between essential and non-essential information.

A listing of each puzzle element, page of first occurrence, quantity, and brief description:

Pg IX  Chinese Dragons: 14 lavender dragons with curly fingers.

Pg 4   Swirls: 40 lavender decorations resembling sideways treble-clefs.

Pg 5   Borderline Codes: 40 sets of black border lines found in the corners of the margins.

Pg 6   Lizards: 14 lavender lizards with varying numbers of dots, fingers and toes.

Pg 7   Morse Codes: 40 sets of black dots and dashes along the bottom of pages.

Pg 10  Gryphon: 13 winged and non-winged (furry) lavender gryphon.

Pg 18  Vines: 11 lavender vines with varied leaves and branches along side text boxes.

Pg 19  Filigree Aliens: 9 tiny black interlocked decorations with dots.

Pg 20  Labarinto: 12 lavender cards with images and letters along the bottom.

Pg 24  Sea Serpents: 6 sets of lavender serpents in circular groups of three.

Pg 34  Hieroglyphs: 6 vertical columns of black hieroglyph symbols.

Pg 44  Card Suits: 4 vertical columns of black card suit symbols.

Pg 92  Devils: 4 lavender laughing devils with dancing flames.

Pg 130 Keys: 13 lavender keys.

Pg 200 Windows: Photo of buildings with white symbols in the windows.

Pg 214 Tattoo: Photo of Blaine with 174517 tattooed on his arm.

A short course in cryptography is helpful in decoding the 41 clues from the puzzle elements.   A given collection of elements encodes two or more clue sentences.  Ciphers vary in difficulty from easy to "CIA experts only".   The following sections show how cipher symbols reveal the 41 important clues.

Labarinto Cards:

Cards are placed in page order. Letters along the bottom are unscrambled to form two sentences.

Window Symbols:

Three sentences are coded by slicing 3x5 pixilated characters in half and only using the top or bottom halves to draw the characters over the windows of buildings in a photo.

Card Suits:

Four vertical columns of card suits encode two sentences.  Suits are collected in page order, top to bottom, and grouped by four to form unique symbols.  Substitute letters to form sentences.

Morse Codes:

Not really Morse codes, but a simple substitution cipher using dots and dashes as cipher symbols.  Two sentences are decoded from odd and even pages respectively.

Borderline Codes:

Groups of lines in the corners of pages are carefully measured and categorized into symbols.  A different key table is used for top-left, top-right, bottom-left, and bottom-right symbol groups.  The decoded strings are reassembled into two sentences.

Sea Serpents (or Ring Dragons):

'Checkerboard' or 'Polybius' ciphers. One sentence is coded by counting scales.  Another sentence is coded by numbers on the serpents.   The cipher key is in the form of a 5 by 5 look-up table. Numbers are used in pairs to represent the row and column of a letter in the table.

Scales:

Numbers:

 The Devils:

Form sentences by substituting letters for flame types.  Mirrored flames code different letters. Phrases are split up the left and right sides of each devil. 

Chinese dragons:

Symbols are formed using groups of four fingers, toes or hairs.   Letters are substituted for symbols.  One key table is used for each sentence.

The Keys:

Letters are coded into groups of four elements from various parts of the keys.  Sentences use separate look-up tables and are coded into every other key in page order.

Filigree Aliens:

Two Polybius ciphers are coded into the dots along the edge of the designs.  The two sentences are interwoven between the two decorations.  Each sentence has it's own look-up table.

The Lizards:

Polybius ciphers.  Two sentences are coded by counting fingers, toes, and dots.

The Gryphon:

Two sentences coded into fingers, toes, and tick marks.  Symbols are interwoven between gryphon types.  Each sentence comes from two key tables.  

The Swirls:

Substitution ciphers.  One sentence is coded into the spiraled ends of the symbols. Another sentence is coded into the fancy 'plumage' on the other ends of the symbols.   Two key tables are used for each sentence.  Every other letter is assigned from a different table.  Spirals are categorized by number of rings and final angle of the endpoint. 

The Vines:

Four sentences are coded into the vines.  Each sentence uses it's own look-up table.  The sentences are interwoven using every other leaf.  Letters are distinguished by leaf types.   Mirrored leaves code different letters.  Symbols are ordered top to bottom, then page order by following which leaves branch off of the main stem first.

The Hieroglyphs:

Ten phrases are encoded using five alphabets.  The alphabets are interleaved across all ten phrases.

Symbols belong to an alphabet based on the types Object, Animal, Human, Double-Object, and Double-Human.  The Phrases are ordered left to right, top to bottom and in page order.

The possession of the 41 clues marks the beginning of the next phase of the challenge.  This stage of play is all about words.   But where are the instructions? 

A careful examination of the sentences shows that many of the clues resemble Cryptic Crossword puzzle instructions.  There are anagram indicators such as MUDDLED, SABOTAGED, and CONFUSED.  There are removal indicators such as BANISH, SHUN and IGNORE.   Homophones (sound-alike) rhyming words, and alliteration are also present.

To get things moving, an essential 'Ah-ha!'  must take place that groups the clues into a set of 21 'target' clues and a set of 20 'instruction' clues.   The following sections illustrate how the clues reduced to a list of 27 words that must be manipulated in a final step to reveal the final location.

1) Twenty who are muddled must mock their mate:

Explanation: Find twenty words that are an anagram (muddle) of a word in one clue and a homophone of (mock) a word in a different clue.  Use these words to group together (mate) and order 21 of the clues.  Example:  SWORD (sounds like) SOARED (anagrams) ADORES, so finding the missing word SOARED links two of our phrases together using the muddle-mock rule.

Trivia:  In the online puzzle circles, this clue became known as the muddle-must-mock-mate or M,M,M,M clue -  a play on the title of the movie "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World",  a favorite of Cliff Johnson's.  The term 'ah-ha' also took on a different meaning: Anagram/Homophone - Homophone/Anagram.

The Muddle-Mock rule is applied:

THE HORRIBLE SWORD THE KNIGHT WIELDED WITH SPITE      soared
EVERYONE IN ATTENDANCE ADORES THE IMP THE LEAST       leased
HIS SEALED HORSE COSTUME PREYS ON THE MIND            praise
SHREWD SCOUNDRELS DO ASPIRE TO CLEAR A MURDER PAST    passed
THAT KING OF SPADES MIGHT BE A MAN OF BRIGHT SENSE    cents
A SCENT SO SEVERE ITS SHEER PRESENCE GLARES           presents
HIS POTION OF SERPENTS AND VENOMS BREWS PORTENT       bruise
RUBIES INCITE THE FOULEST FEAR IN BLUE BLOODSTONE     fare
A FAIR BIRD ITS WINGS ARISE AND EASTWARD IT FLEW      raise
WHEN THE RAYS OF SUNLIGHT BLAZE THE SUBHUMAN DIES     side
AHH SIGHED THE MONARCH HOPING TO SOOTH HIS FLU        shoot
OUR COAL CHUTE PROVED THE BETTER SOURCE OF FOOD       course
THE VERY COARSE SCORN WASTE ONCE PAYMENT IS DUE       waist
WHILE THE BLACK CAT WAITS THE MICE SWAP TO THE RIGHT  paws
THE PAUSE GREW TENSE DARE YE TO STEP FORWARD          dear
MOST DEER ENVY THE FROTH THAT BLEW FROM THE NORTH     forth
MY FOURTH PHRASE CASTS SHY GLIMPSES NEAR SHADOW       earn
ITS URN THAT IT ADORNED WITH LEAF ENGRAVING SHATTERED flea
FOLKS FLEE ALONG ROUTES GROWN DENSE WITH NEGLECT      groan
HER ORGAN PLAYS TO SAINTLY ONES THEIR LAST RITE       nose
ONLY THE STORMY NIGHT KNOWS THE FORCE OF THE ROSE

THE HORRIBLE SWORD THE KNIGHT WIELDED WITH SPITE      soared
EVERYONE IN ATTENDANCE ADORES THE IMP THE LEAST       leased
HIS SEALED HORSE COSTUME PREYS ON THE MIND            praise
SHREWD SCOUNDRELS DO ASPIRE TO CLEAR A MURDER PAST    passed
THAT KING OF SPADES MIGHT BE A MAN OF BRIGHT SENSE    cents
A SCENT SO SEVERE ITS SHEER PRESENCE GLARES           presents
HIS POTION OF SERPENTS AND VENOMS BREWS PORTENT       bruise
RUBIES INCITE THE FOULEST FEAR IN BLUE BLOODSTONE     fare
A FAIR BIRD ITS WINGS ARISE AND EASTWARD IT FLEW      raise
WHEN THE RAYS OF SUNLIGHT BLAZE THE SUBHUMAN DIES     side
AHH SIGHED THE MONARCH HOPING TO SOOTH HIS FLU        shoot
OUR COAL CHUTE PROVED THE BETTER SOURCE OF FOOD       course
THE VERY COARSE SCORN WASTE ONCE PAYMENT IS DUE       waist
WHILE THE BLACK CAT WAITS THE MICE SWAP TO THE RIGHT paws
THE PAUSE GREW TENSE DARE YE TO STEP FORWARD          dear
MOST DEER ENVY THE FROTH THAT BLEW FROM THE NORTH     forth
MY FOURTH PHRASE CASTS SHY GLIMPSES NEAR SHADOW       earn
ITS URN THAT IT ADORNED WITH LEAF ENGRAVING SHATTERED flea
FOLKS FLEE ALONG ROUTES GROWN DENSE WITH NEGLECT      groan
HER ORGAN PLAYS TO SAINTLY ONES THEIR LAST RITE       nose
ONLY THE STORMY NIGHT KNOWS THE FORCE OF THE ROSE

THE HORRIBLE
THE IMP THE
HORSE COSTUME
TO CLEAR A MURDER
MIGHT BE A MAN OF BRIGHT
SO SEVERE ITS SHEER
AND VENOMS
INCITE THE FOULEST
BIRD ITS WINGS
OF SUNLIGHT BLAZE THE SUBHUMAN
THE MONARCH HOPING TO
PROVED THE BETTER
SCORN
THE MICE
GREW TENSE
ENVY THE
PHRASE CASTS SHY GLIMPSES
THAT IT ADORNED WITH
ALONG ROUTES
PLAYS TO SAINTLY
THE FORCE OF THE ROSE

THE HORRIBLE
THE IMP THE
HORSE COSTUME
TO CLEAR A MURDER
MIGHT BE A MAN OF BRIGHT
SO SEVERE ITS SHEER
AND VENOMS
THE FOULEST
BIRD ITS WINGS
OF SUNLIGHT BLAZE THE SUBHUMAN
THE MONARCH HOPING TO
PROVED THE BETTER
SCORN
THE MICE
GREW TENSE
ENVY THE
PHRASE CASTS SHY
THAT IT
ROUTES
PLAYS TO SAINTLY
THE FORCE OF THE ROSE

THE HORRIBLE
THE IMP THE
COSTUME
A MURDER
BE A MAN OF
SO SEVERE ITS
AND VENOMS
THE FOULEST
BIRD ITS WINGS
OF THE SUBHUMAN
THE MONARCH HOPING
PROVED THE BETTER
SCORN
THE MICE
TENSE
ENVY THE
CASTS SHY
THAT IT
ROUTES
SAINTLY
THE OF THE ROSE

HORRIBLE
IMP
COSTUME
MURDER
BE MAN
SEVERE
VENOMS
THE FOULEST
BIRD ITS
SUBHUMAN
MONARCH
BETTER
SCORN
MICE
TENSE
ENVY
CASTS SHY
THAT IT
ROUTES
TO
SAINTLY
ROSE