The Secret Stone
The setup
- In the Release Notes for Update 22 - Legacy of the Necromancer released on March 6,2018 was a single cryptic comment:
- Quests and Adventure Areas
- Something secret will become available on March 21st. Good luck!
- Quests and Adventure Areas
- This triggered a vast speculative frenzy in both the Forums and in on-line chat.
- Then a post appeared in that thread:
Originally posted by LastScavenger, March 21, 3:26 AM Source: https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?662488-March-21st-Secret-Event&p=7824010#post7824010 Secret Stone Treasure Hunt King Thorin III has asked you to try to locate an ancient relic known as the Secret Stone. But what dangers did the poem warn about? Can you solve this mystery on your own? This difficult treasure hunt will require community teamwork and resources outside of the game itself. Good luck!
- along with stories of Old Chests found around Erebor containing cryptic messages in Dwarvish runes ... and the Treasure Hunt was on!
- The first Quest: The Secret Stone has the poem mentioned.
- Extensive collaboration by players across multiple servers managed to solve the riddle quite quickly. Cordovan congratulated folks by mid-afternoon.
Originally posted by Cordovan, March 21, 1:57 PM Source: https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?&postid=7824174#post7824174 Congratulations to the folks who have figured it out! Just a quick note: You do have to have completed Introduction: Northern Mirkwood in order to run The Secret Stone. Also, this event unlocked today, but is available from this point onwards. There had been a question about whether this was a today-only thing.
- Then the next day, the author enlightened us:
Originally posted by LansuEV, March 22, 11:29 AM Source: https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?&postid=7824384#post7824384 Nameless Hello! I am responsible for this puzzle I will come out from behind the curtain since this is mostly solved. Nameless was the keyword for the keyword cipher that lets you decode the ciphered text. Basically, this step was skipped because that quipquip website (I have never heard of before!) let you brute-force the cipher and got you most of the way there. Now that the text is all translated, what does the first letter of each of those text bits spell out? I numbered them for a reason!
Thanks for playing, everyone! I'm glad you enjoyed it!
- https://quipqiup.com - Quipqiup is a fast and automated cryptogram solver by Edwin Olson. It can solve simple substitution ciphers often found in newspapers, including puzzles like cryptoquips (in which word boundaries are preserved) and patristocrats (inwhi chwor dboun darie saren t).
Old Chest Pages - Clues
- Old Chests containing a
Scrap from an Old Tome can be found at
- Originally posted by ChromiteSwiftpaw, March 21, 07:46 AM
page Coordinates Description Page 1 [26.3N, 25.7W] Grytgate Page 2 [21.0N, 29.0W] north of Garthness Page 3 [21.8N, 25.6W] Page 4 [28.5N, 24.7W] between Refugee Camps and Erebor Page 5 [29.3N, 29.0W] north of Ravenhill Page 6 [26.4N, 21.6W] north of Eldby Page 7 [16.9N, 31.0W] below the falls, on the river edge, north of Loeglond Page 8 [17.2N, 22.0W] south of Urûshoba Page 9 [26.5N, 29.8W] at the base of the cliff south of Ravenhill
![[26.3N, 25.7W]](/wiki/File:Eryn_Lasgalen_and_the_Dale-lands_map.jpg){kind=link}
- Each chest contains a Scrap from an Old Tome
- Originally posted by lenny322000, March 21, 11:31 AM
page encrypted text Decrypted text Page 1 Znqnbanqns dr walql tal gly qlindjr Zaragharaf is where the key remains Page 2 Ujelq bunqe. Yku wdhh jlle tk oqlrljt tclrl: Under guard. You will need to present these: Page 3 Edsslqljt rtkjl, enqg nje rtqkjb. Different stone, dark and strong. Page 4 Rltqdlvle sqki tal ello odt, Retrieved from the deep pit, Page 5 Ujelq bunqe ks tal bjnwdjbkjl. Under guard of the gnawingone. Page 6 Bkhe, idjle nje skqble dj ikqdn. Gold, mined and forged in moria. Page 7 Ujtdh yku akhe talrl dtlir, tal wny wdhh qlindj rcut. Until you hold these items, the way will remain shut. Page 8 Jkjl aut tal hdjl ks Euqdj iny gjkw ks dt, aut None but the line of Durin may know of it, but Page 9 Euqdjr skhg, alwnql want huqgr djrdel. Durins folk, Beware what lurks inside.
- Note that this decryption of the poem contains:
- Z U D R U G U N D -- as the correct set of first letters.
- Zudrugund at Nár's Peak in Enedwaith
Prerequisites
- Access to Moria and Skumfil instance
- Access to Caras Galadhon is reputation based. You have to own Lothlorien xpac. The "inner" is the name of the stable, not the house/palace in trees.
Walkthrough
- In addition to the walkthrough in each quest page, an excellent walk through was done by the Department of Strategy: