Bank Heist: Stage 5 of 5 - The First Theft
The Codebreaking Challenge is Steemit's first puzzle-solving and code-breaking game designed by me (@wilfredn). It's a real-time game that will have you competing and collaborating with other players to solve a puzzle and progress to the next stage. Compete for a prize pool that grows in size as more players join in the fun.
The voice in the room continued, "For their first mission, the founders of the organisation decided to take something precious from right under the noses of important people. It was a joke and they merely wanted to see if these people would notice. The theft was of course a success. And no one noticed after all. They returned it quietly after a month."
"From the very start, they wrote down every detail of all their missions. Ever since then, the organisation has kept up with the practice. These are the books on the shelves behind you. Have a look at the very first one."
Source: Pixabay
With some guidance, Ted managed to find the dusty book and removed it gently from the bookshelf. On the very first page, there was a drawing and a picture of the object, and the following riddle describing it:
I was the light that illuminated the path
for those who dared follow.
Kings and princes prostrated
in reverent gestures down below.
Yet I now sit in dusty chambers,
a relic in Beaumont.
My visage dimmed,
my brilliance brought low.
Finally, written in bold at the bottom, there were what appeared to be smudges of a few letters and numbers. It looked like a labelling code of some sort for the object and had the following format:
Can you recover the labelling code?
Find the Secret Key, which is [seed word from last stage] [solution to this stage's puzzle]. Solve the following encrypted message on AES Encryption Website:
pa/4CJ0KZsdEBsoPR+Vt8x99LZFpVsMExwas/NFyiqN6a8CF0V4BSsVQ7sEIVxKsqjqttFNn/DnBhk0shQHOvNKDKr5yL9gUwFnoIfqa6CblSjrmfX6vIrmsV0bF4oWS3pjFNwCrJ6lAL85i9va03ciQ3eh1MUz80Ly3Vi/uyJlptWk5w9s4aGd5/g9P1LQzhji6fOqb1pUX+Ky/oplKcFOWOwQ7VvYXOTppESP889oqYV8TS9vpFzg3G4KzR7tVowZMSiQONkO2fDbqj4LXie/S34KsscitRqNzTLLkBN93GYvde1b5qFwprY/x5eA9a+0n8F6drb+B9fonlcEDoNsUBjEMtFa2B/QmV5rgiq5lDE7f3UxeHRSmlqA75DNokW1fvHHo8EGu0WLKRYz6stEjenAbbSB98bFxt8j/YAHrRKsZFY5GQIaXS2xj1/xvLsKiT9f0dCP73smqPtu0PuzGOEbsz4A1iY6Gu4fk1+tC1Q9396uVcG/soUassvCaBgxglWaWbQB6OyZTQ4eoSGKfTEQRoUxmuRuzTmF0Hnc=
Hint: Remember that the Secret Key is always in lowercase. The solution takes the given format xxxxxx.x where x can be a letter or a number.
EDIT (25th Feb): Hint 2: The solution can be found on a relatively major website and on a prominent page. So it's definitely not hidden in some dusty corners of the Internet! I'm not that devious.
You'll need this: AES Encryption Website.
Good luck! Remember to follow the rules (upvote, resteem, follow!) and instructions.
You need to solve all the previous stages to get the seed word for this puzzle. If this is your first time playing, start at Stage 1 (use the codebreaker tag to find all the posts)!
