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Secrets of the Alchemist Dar

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Secrets of the Alchemist Dar is a book written by Michael Stadther and released in September 2006. The book is a story about fairies and other imaginary creatures. The book includes hidden puzzles for an armchair treasure hunt, the prizes for the treasure hunt consist of 100 rings, valued at over 2 million dollars. The book is a sequel to A Treasure's Trove (ATT), another armchair treasure hunt and contains the same characters although the author has stated at book signings that the two books are not connected puzzle-wise.

The author's website includes Official Rules for the Treasure Hunt and the Treasure Hunt's Forum where (as of Feb 07) over 10000 users have registered for the hunt.

Treasure Hunt Status

As of May 21, 2007, none of the 100 rings are known to be found. The current ring status is available at the Media Room.

By April 2007 the number of posts to the forums had almost ground to a halt, occasionally punctuated by trovers claiming to have solved parts of the puzzle, but unwilling to share. From this lacuna, Lordrhast instigated an inspirational petition and fanclub designed to get the book into the mainstream media and encourage children to read.

Things Worked Out So Far

Template:Spoiler Template:Solution

Title Anagram

The fairy on page 2 sits next to a list of numbers. If you use these numbers to pull out letters from the book's full title you reveal a hidden message: SECRETS OF MICHAEL STADTHER.

Poem on the Letter Blocks

The letter blocks as images within the text of the book include lines of a poem. The poem describes the general rules for the treasure hunt. Source: Hunt Forum. The two letters on each block also anagram to "Secrets of the Alchemist Dar" or "Secrets of Michael Stadther".

Each letter block contains:
Page Block Letters Phrase Image of a character
Pg 19 E T Nothing said on where to go Grasshopper
Pg 24 R C Less on1 telling what to do Bee
Pg 38 E H Nothing hidden on private lands Butterfly
Pg 46 T S Nothing again in anyone's hands Firefly
Pg 50 M E Someone to see a place to be? Hummingbird
Pg 56 F R Another possibility Ladybug
Pg 71 L T Always be safe and take no chances Spider
Pg 91 C D Obey the laws make no disturbances Snail
Pg 98 E A Nothing seen is what you'll find Ant
Pg 100 S I A secret treasure in your mind Dragonfly
Pg 104 H S Look inside yourself to see Beetle
Pg 107 A O A code for infinity 2 Caterpillar

1A few believe this should be read as "lesson" instead of "less on".
2Some people add in a "be" here.

Morse Code Clues

Hidden Morse code within the images appears to include more hints for the treasure hunt. Source: Hunt Forum

Handy Morse code Reference
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 --··
  • Pg 3 (Title Page) Dandelions and Clovers - WELL BEGUN IS HALF DONE*
  • Pg 19 Acorn and Leaves - NOTHING VENTURED NOTHING GAINED
  • Pg 26 Dandelions vertical and Dandelions horizontal - SEEK AND YE SHALL FIND
  • Pg 29 Flower and Leaves - ONE MANS JUNK IS ANOTHER MANS TREASURE
  • Pg 47 Dandelions vertical and Dandelions horizontal - AVOID RING HERDERS which anagrams to AVOID RED HERRINGS
  • Pg 48 Dark green leaves outside ring of the wreaths and inside - YOU CANT GET THERE FROM HERE
  • Pg 80 Flowers and Leaves - A GOOD BEGINNING MAKES A GOOD ENDING*

*Pg 3 actually decodes to WELL BEGUN IS HAFF DONE and Pg 80 to A GOOD BEGINNINW MAKES A GOOD ENDING, but whether these 'errors' mean anything or are just the authors own style is not known. There were similar 'exceptions' throughout ATT.


Quinary in the Book of Spells

The page numbers for the Book of Spells are in a pictograph version of Quinary or base 5 numbering.

  • 0 = A white sun - ○
  • 1 = A black sun - ●
  • 2 = A right facing black moon - ◖
  • 3 = A left facing black moon - ◗
  • 4 = A right facing white moon - Moon

A picture reference for this is here Moon Code


Red Hare Rings

The quinary code also appears in groups of symbols on the background of most pages of the Book of Spells alongside direction triangles and rings and red hares. For example, the following symbols are on page three:

  • ●●○   ●○○    ◖○●    ◖◖ triangle and
  • ◗●●    MoonMoon    ●◖◗    ●◗○ triangle red-hare-ring.

These can be decoded to the following quinary numbers:

  • 110 100 201 22 triangle and
  • 311 44 123 130 triangle red-hare-ring.

Translating from quinary to decimal numbers yields:

  • 30 25 51 12 triangle and
  • 81 24 38 40 triangle red-hare-ring.

The decimal numbers are decimal degree coordinates which are Geographic coordinate system coordinates for:

  • 30 degrees 25 minutes 51.12 seconds north latitude, and
  • 81 degrees 24 minutes 38.40 seconds west longitude.

Which is a coordinate for Little Talbot State Park in Florida. Note that the triangles indicate direction (North/South or East/West) of the lat/long pair. Note that coordinates in the United States are west longitude, which is indicated as a negative number (i.e. 81 west = -81). The remaining coordinates locate similar points of interest.

Much early comment was made on whether these 20 locations should be ignored or not because they are tagged with red-hare-rings (or red herrings). Some trovers have researched the locations, in some cases throwing up possible thematic links. Since then the author has repeatedly stated that the hunt can be solved without leaving your home.

Constellations in BOS

The Book of Spells includes black spots on each page which appear to be constellations.

1Some trovers favour Lyra constellation

Swirl Picture

On the inside cover of the "Book of Spells" is a swirly picture. This picture looks to have been made by taking the illustration of the doth on the inside cover of the main book and graphically manipulating it using many swirling processes.


In Touch Clue

The Feb 5th edition of In Touch Magazine contained a new clue. On a spell type page a ring of black marks surround ambigrams of the words SUN and MOON. Hidden within the marks is the message: YOU DONT HAVE TO LEAVE HOME

Unsolved Puzzles

This section describes puzzles which have been identified on the Offical Trovers Forum.

Caution: There is technically no way of knowing if these are the puzzles, because they have not been solved yet, but it seems likely that they are.

Page numbering Acorns

Most acorns point down. 3 point left, 3 point right, 2 point up, 1 point in each diagonal direction. Some trovers think page 31 should be flipped since the sun is upside-down at the top, in this case the acorn would point up bringing that total to 3.

Page 10,11 Mushrooms

Surrounding the book's preface (pages 10 & 11) there are 59 trees. Between the trees are clumps of mushrooms which always number from 1-5. As almost all of the gaps between the trees can also fit into 5 different measurements, it has been speculated that a Polybius Square, (a throwback to ATT), may be somehow involved. Oddly several of the trees and mushroom images are copy'n'pasted two or three times around the border further adding to the confusion.

Page 58 Apples and Berries

Many seem to think that this page is important and somehow a Cipher Disk may be involved, but no clear theories have developed. There are 32 notches around each apple, 6 red and 26 orange. There are 113 berries along the bottom of the page of which 17 are red. There is evidence supporting both claims that the wheel is to be populated with letters from the alphabet by placing them into the lighter colored notches, as well as populating the entire wheel with letters darker ones included, while the former has yet to yield any tangeble clues, populating the wheel with letters in a sequence: 1-32 = A-Z + ABCDEF has yielded the words "Page Number IV" or "VI" Trovers are quick to point out there is no way to confirm this as a solve.

Page 80 Gems

The leaves have been used for a morse message above, which leaves the Gem encrusted medallions unused. There are 16 of them and several clues on this page and in the trailer pointed to the idea of reflecting this page by 180 degrees and overlaying it on itself so that Zac and Ana comingle, but there the trail has run cold.

Page 94 Berry Border

There are 17 sprigs of berries on each side. They are symmetrical except for the way that they are colored; each sprig has at most one coloured berry. There are also colored in tiles similar to page 108.

Page 108 Border

The border is again tiled and 17 tiles are picked out in a darker green.

Ladybug rings

Throughout the Book of Spells there are 41 rings, 36 are ladybugs and 5 are red diamonds. The colors of the ladybugs fit into three groups: RED, YELLOW and BLUE. Not considering rotation or size variations, there are 11 different types. It has been speculated that page 19 should be flipped horizontally so that there are only 9 distinct types. Interestingly, the Red ladybug rings depicted in the Book of Spells do not appear to have any spots.

Filled in Letters

Throughout the first few pages of the Book of Spells certain letters are filled in. There are 52 on page 1 and 104 all together. There are 10 different filled in letters: a b d e g o O p q R.

Droplet Symbols

Pages 2 & 5 of the Book of Spells contain strips of geometric symbols. 38 + 30 + 35 = 103 in total. The number of sides on the symbols neatly goes from 1 to 6 and there are 11 different types. It has been speculated that one of the pages should be turned upside down so that there are only 10 distinct types.

Celtic Borders

Pages 3,4 & 5 of the BOS are surrounded by multicoloured celtic braids. There are at least 7 different colors used to fill in the braids and also many white parts. This looks to be the least popular puzzle.

Huge Code Blocks

Pages 16, 17, 18, 19 of the Book of Spells include huge blocks of code which have been dubbed HCB (Huge Code Blocks) on the Official Hunt Forum. These blocks include similar symbols to the Quinary page numbers, but are much more complex. Players on the Official Hunt Site speculate that the HCB are keys to understanding the treasure hunt.

Taken in its simplest form the HCB can be completely constructed from 4 shapes:

  • Crescent (moon)
  • Circle (sun)
  • Line
  • Bar

These 4 can face in various directions, can be large or small, and can be white or black.

Taken in its most complex form the HCB consists of over 8000 symbols of which over 700 are unique. The larger symbols can be made up of as many as 9 smaller components. The most common symbol is also one of the simplest; a small white sun, which appears approximately 670 times alone and over 5000 times in all.

  • Further, small snippets of the HCB symbols appear on page 6 of the Book of Spells. These 4 snippets can be combined (through rotating and overlaying) to form 13 characters that may be a key to de-coding the HCB. Source: Official Hunt Site
  • Page 16 has 77 small black dots in five sets. When these dots are 'shifted' across the HCB on that page they pick out certain symbols. Source: Official Hunt Site Some trovers speculate that the highlighted symbols should then be removed from the HCB facilitating further constructions.
  • Further snippets of the HCB have been released in the Trailer, where oddly the sequences are directly taken from the HCB but have been colored in (blackened) differently.
  • Michael Stadther released yet further HCB code in the New Clue on Christmas Day whilst appearing on Fox TV. This time the HCB symbols encircled an ambigram of the word Reflection.

Digitizer101 has re-created the HCB for easier printing and cracking, however these recreations do not include the small black dots mentioned above. The digitized versions of the HCB are available at: Page 16 - Page 17 - Page 18 - Page 19

Others

Other pages have been discussed as possible puzzles (or parts of puzzles) including:

  • Book's front cover and its oddly tiled trees.
  • Page 31 where the sun at the top is upside down.
  • Page 41 workshop with 25 fairies and a variety of wood shavings and carpenter's tools.
  • Page 48 contains one hidden message (see above) but has room for another?
  • Compass page in BOS.


Trivia

  • "The Alchemist Dar" is an anagram for Michael Stadther.
  • The author of the "Book of Spells" (BOS) within the book is Kiem Redthast, another Mike Stadther anagram.
  • "Malic Hest", the evil race of whom Dar is a member, is an anagram of "Alchemist".
  • The images include elements that are very reminiscent of the art of Alphonse Mucha.


Characters

  • Ana - a half-elf, married to Zac
  • Dar - a Malic Hest, the villain
  • Pook - a Doth
  • Booger - a Doth
  • Zac - a woodcutter, married to Ana
  • Yorah - a tree
  • Snail
  • Butterfly
  • Spider
  • Caterpillar
  • Beetle
  • Ant
  • Bee
  • Grasshopper
  • Firefly
  • Hummingbird
  • Dragonfly
  • Ladybug


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