The Legend of the Hidden Jewels
In the Outskirts of Wilson City, a city of twenty thousand, a family lived in a large mansion. The mother, Jan, was a doctor who is one of the top five where she works. The father, Keith, is a computer mechanic. They have two daughters and a son.
There had been a legend that during 1884, a previous family that lived in the mansion were rich and had valuable jewels. This family hid the jewels from thieves well enough that they didn’t remember where they put them, so they couldn’t find them. No one really knows if this really happened as they never told anyone about the location of the jewels nor that they even had jewels. However, the family left clues around that they were unable to solve.
Having heard about the hidden jewels, the family conducted a massive search in an attempt to find these valuables as their budget had been going poorly. While the mother was at her job, the father tended the children at home. Keith had to go to his job five hours later and onlyworked part-time. The family never knew about any secret passages that were in the house.
As Keith and his son searched in the attic of their two-story house, his son, Mike, came across something suspicious. It looked like a jewel, but it was a fake. They checked it out, but Keith noticed text written on it. It said, "floor 1, NE corner".
They all went back to the first floor where their daughters were searching and told them they found a possible clue. Keith grabbed the compass and found northeast. This directed him to that corner. They searched around the entire area, but they found nothing but a penny. Their oldest daughter, Sandy, looked at the penny, but there were no clues or suspicious things about it. This confused the family. They thought that the little text inscribed on the fake jewel was a hoax.
Their youngest daughter started playing the piano. On page seventeen of the thirty-two-page book of music, she found something written on it. It was very small and hard to read. "Come here, I found something!", yelled Cindy, their youngest daughter. Keith ran to her and saw the small text. Keith went to his bedroom to get his magnifying glass. With surprise, he read "4. A BAD BAG FED CEECEA" in all caps. That sentence was meaningless. It didn’t seem to make much sense either. To their surprise, they realized that only seven letters were used. They were the letters used in music. Cindy played the notes in order, but nothing happened. She played the notes continuously exactly as they were. They also wondered what the four was. Cindy thought that the notes were supposed to be quarter notes as it takes four to make the length of a whole note. She played them again with quarter notes, but nothing happened. This was confusing and they wondered if it was another hoax. Cindy thought that maybe the spaces represented a rest. Since the four would probably indicate that they were quarter notes, the rests would have to be quarter rests. She played it exactly as planned and they heard something from above.
Curious to find out, the family went upstairs to about where the sound occured and found a new pathway in the northwest corner of the house. Suddenly it closed just ten feet before they got there. Cindy went back and played the notes again and ran back. The whole family entered their first secret passage. Inside the passage, there was a note written on the wall. In blue paint, it said, "you are getting warmer". It meant nothing for a little while; however, about twenty feet beyond the entrance, they found that the path split in two directions in a line perpendicular to their current path. Keith and Mike went to the left while Cindy and Sandy went to the right.
On the end of the left route, they found a large room that was twenty-five by thirty feet. It had no windows and furniture except two chairs and a table in the very center. They checked the two chairs and the table for any clues, but this time there were no clues to be found. They checked the floor, but found nothing. Even the walls had nothing.
On the end of the right route, there was a room with another fake jewel. It said "Wrong way. Go south." That would take them back to where they were at the entrance of the secret room they found. Little did anyone know that the "you are getting warmer" message was a clue. Sandy found a small lever hidden very well in the floor. She pushed the lever back and heard something moving. It was very faint and almost inaudible. Cindy saw another piano and tried that same note pattern. The wall to the entrance of the secret area opened again. Keith and Mike headed out to meet the other two. They found vital clues. Keith finally found a small bit of wording written in the floor. It said, "On the southern end of the house on the west side on floor two, look for a red square in the wall and push." They quickly got out of the room just before the gate closed.
They headed to the southwest side and searched the walls. Keith found a small, faint black-outlined square in the corner. He pushed it and the walls moved away from each other creating a secret passage. In this secret room, there was a large dinner table taking up half the sixteen by sixteen foot room. There were twenty-four chairs lined up all around it which were all dusty. They were all numbered, but placed in random order around the table. Chair number seven had a small piece of text written on it, "Go directly below and find the trap door".
They exitted the room and went to the area mentioned. This time they couldn’t find the trap door. Cindy started to move their furniture and under the loveseat, she found it. The family ran to the area but couldn’t find a way to open it. From watching mystery movies, the family had seen, the trap door open when someone steps on it. That was very risky. Indeed, they took the risk, but in an intellegent way. They moved the loveseat so that the back, left leg was directly over the center of the trap door. Nothing happened. The family picked up the loveseat so that a lot more pressure could be exerted on it and it opened with a loud bang. The family moved the loveseat away, but it was dark down there.
Keith went to find his flashlight and shined it down. Keith found that there was a lot of water below. The water was clear enough that the visibility could extend to one full mile! Keith went outside into the garage to grab a twenty-foot rope. He tied the rope very securely to the one-ton couch. Keith knew how to climb ropes very well so he went down with the flash light. He found a switch in the ceiling and turned it on. The whole area lit up. It has been undisturbed for over a century. There was no dust floating around in the air, and all living organisms had died. Keith spotted a small ledge about two feet away from the rope. He also found monkey bars on the ceiling. He thought that the monkey bars would be dangerously weak after a century of erosion and weathering. Keith went down to the edge of the water and touched it with his feet. It was quite chilly. He didn’t think that he should go in. It was estimated to be ten feet deep all around. Keith did know how to swim; however, the water was too cold to fool around in. Keith climbed up again and got back onto the first floor.
"I’m afraid that there isn’t much of an option down there. There’s a pool of chilly water ten feet deep down there. There are monkey bars on the ceiling that may be weak if due to weathering and erosion. I did find a small ledge, but it is very hard to reach. It is two feet from the wall and I was twelve feet from it. There is a pathway all around the entire pool that gradually rises. I guess I’ll probably have to take a swim or something." said Keith in a nervous way.
Keith went down again and slowly entered the cold water. He swam to the lowest edge about ten feet away from the rope and got on the gently rising slope. He ran around the slope three times to reach the top. On the top, he found a fake saphire with "NW1" written on it in big letters. He ran all the way down the slope again and hopped into the cold water again and swam to the rope. He climbed up quickly. At the top, he was shivering. He was wrapped around by towels and placed by the heater which was nice and warm. He warmed up rather quickly.
The family checked out the "NW1" code written on the fake jewel. They thought it was "northwest on floor 1". This led to another empty wall. There was a book shelf with six books on it. Four were short and two were long. Keith opened the largest book, 108 pages, and flipped through the pages searching for any clues. This offtered no help. The whole family got in at it. The shortest book went to Cindy which was thirty-two pages long and was mostly images. Mike found a clue on page seventy-seven on the second largest book. It said "tap the center wall seven times and you’ll see something blue".
The center wall was just to their right. Keith tapped it seven times and it opened. There was a huge pool of brilliant blue water with a nice diving board. The family entered cautiously, and noticed something etched in the water. Because of a constant shaking of the ground, the moving water distorted the writings. Keith touched the water and realized that it was quite warm. "I’m going down to see if I can read it," Keith said. He went into his bedroom to grab his swimming goggles so he could see clearly underwater. He hopped in and dove to the bottom. He read, "Play all clues possible and win the hangman round". He surfaced and swam to the edge of the pool and got out. "The writing says, ‘play all clues possible and win the hangman round’".
They took out the old hangman game they remembered seeing a while earlier on the northeast corner of floor two. They looked at all the tiles carefully and noticed that there seemed to be extra letters. Mike thought of a superior idea. On the box, there was a listing of how many letters there were of each. Mike counted ten "t’s" when there were supposed to be eight. He counted each and every letter. He realized that there was an extra "a", two extra "e’s", two extra "s’s", two extra "o’s", short one "u", an extra "h", two extra "t’s", and short one "n". He wrote down the letters: "aeessoouhttn". There was also "three words" written on the box of the old clue game. After about two hours figuring it out, they came up with "east, south, and one". That meant that they’d search the southeast on the first floor.
They eagerly went to the first floor, but they also found something that wasn’t there before. For some reason, an image of light appeared on the wall. Inside the image, and well-hidden, was "north roof". They went to the outside where it was starting to rain. Mike climbed the ladder to get on the roof of their house and found two clues. The first one, on the north side, "go south", and the second one said "the trap door offers another great secret. Use the monkey bars and get on them to find out". This was rather risky for Keith again.
The family went down the ladder and entered the area with the trap door again. Keith climbed down the rope and got on the monkey bars. They didn’t fall or break as he thought they would. He slowly crossed to the platform on the other side and got to the top. He searched the ceiling, but found nothing. After five minutes, he found something on the bar directly in the middle. It said, the final location is enclosed in a strict lock with code ‘B4, C17, A2, D6, then B10’". This was it. Either someone had to open the lock, or they’d break it open. Keith also found something on the bar closest to the rope, "look down in the center of the pool below to find the location of the lock". This was that cold water that Keith went in and swam in. Keith jumped toward the rope and grabbed it swinging for a minute quite rapidly. When the rope calmed down, he approached the cold water and looked down. He saw "floor two, southeast corner". He rose to the top climbing the rope and got out. "Go to the southeast corner of floor two to find a lock. Enter the code, ‘B4, C17, A2, D6’ then ‘B10’," Keith reported.
The family ran quickly to the area mentioned, but didn’t find a safe. Did they miss a clue? Keith had a feeling that it was behind something. Just then, Jan came home. Keith had only one hour left before he had to go to work. Keith rushed to Jan and told her that they may have found the location of the lost jewels. Shocked, Jan went to the area the last clue offered. Jan had a feeling that it was behind the book case. That bookcase was nailed very securely to the wall. Keith went outside in the rain to get the pry bar. He pried the bookcase away from the wall, but there was nothing behind it. There were still a nightstand and a closet entrance blocked by panels of wood. They tried the nightstand, but it too was nailed to the wall. Cautiously, Keith and Jan moved it away and there they saw the safe. Keith got out his notes with the code and entered it. The lock didn’t open. He tried again much faster and it opened. There were no jewels in the safe except one fake one. Words written on it said, "The final resting place is a secret pathway in the main pool." Secret pathway, but no clues? Uh oh.
After a long stuggle figuring out how to enter the pool area again, they entered. Once the family entered, Jan was surprised "Have you been searching all the while I was at work?". Keith replied happily, "Yep, all day so far". It was the last clue Mike spotted a small, faint, red spot on the diving board. Mike got on the diving board and laid down on it to reach the red spot. He touched the wall in the area and saw the pool walls lowering. The walls were in the water, again, but this time they saw some sparkles. In shock, Keith jumped right in the brilliant blue water and swam into the secret area. There were jewels in every corner! Keith swam up to some and realized that they weren’t fakes this time. Keith swam upright to the wall area and yelled, "Get me a bag, our fortune is down here!". The whole family was excited. Everyone came back with two bags to total eight. Keith took them and filled the bags with the jewels. There were so many of them that by the time the sixth bag was filled, only one corner was cleared! Keith took the jewels over and showed them to everyone. They were so clean and beautiful and the worth could be several million dollars. Keith returned to the area to pick up the other corner’s worth of gems. After the eighth bag was full, the family loaded them into the car and took them to a shop. The gem shop owner saw the beauty of them and bought all of them for one hundred million dollars! There were still another fifty million left in the corner. "I got more coming, so just wait for about fifteen minutes". Keith returned to the pool area just to find it all closed up again. It was reopened and Keith started to retrieve the jewels.
Mike accidentally pressed the button again and closed the wall trapping Keith, but another wall opened revealing even more jewels. Keith was worried to why the wall suddenly closed. Jan said, shocked at the addional, hidden jewels, "Oh my goodness! Over two hundred million dollars just recovered!" Keith heard that through the tiny gap on the pool floor. Mike pressed the button again and the previous wall went up while the next wall went down. This one had nothing in it. However, after Mike pressed the button a fourth time, the wall above the family went down. Jan ran all the way around and saw mostly diamonds with a few scattered rubies. They were all amazed.
Jan called the news department and they soon arrived. Keith was supposed to get to work by now, but with so much money being made in this tiny moment of time, he can take the day off. Jan called and the boss let Keith have the day off.
The news team arrived all set and ready.
"This is the best story yet. It had better be for real," said the male newscaster.
Mike pressed the button and the wall where Keith was stuck went down. The newscaster turned the camera on and pointed it directly to the jewels as they shined very well. Keith was camera-shy, but he didn’t know that he was being filmed as he was loading the jewels. Mike pressed the button again and the walls switched revealing so many jewels that were easily viewed. There were rubies, saphires, even a small amount of gold scattered in that area. Even the newscaster was shocked. Mike pressed the button again to open the wall with nothing. He pressed it once more to open the other wall. The newscaster ran all around the pool to view the diamonds. There were so many of them that there was no way that they could be cleared in six hours’ time!
The newscaster came and said, "Gems, jewels, diamonds, everything you can think of well hidden in a pool! Behind four normal-appearing walls, with one empty, lies nearly a half a billion dollars worth of treasure. Keith suddenly found a small written object, but it was too dark in the area to see it. Keith took out his flash light, which was water proof, and read "Those who are lucky enough to follow the clues completely deserves the fortune of forty million dollars of jewels!". On the wall was a description to what lies where. It turns out that the area that was "empty" was actually black jewels, called opals. Keith was shocked. Just before exitting the room, Keith spotted cameras moving about outside. He was scared and went back in. The water in this area was five feet deep. The other areas were the same to where the jewels were.
After the news team left the pool, twenty minutes later, the family was offered an interview. Keith didn’t find the news casters anywhere so he got out of the area. Just before reaching the exit, the wall closed before he got a chance to get out. The family realized that Keith was missing. Mike pressed the button under the diving board again and the wall opened. Keith didn’t see the newscasters outside so he felt free to come out. Keith didn’t follow, but he got out of the water.
By evening, when the news came on, the whole family saw their story being featured as the first story. The next day, they received the newspaper and four magazines that published the article. In amazement, Sandy noticed that the "black wall" was distorted as it didn’t appear perfectly flat, even in the water.
Notes on story: This was a story I typed up from a school assignment and I thought it may interest anyone. It's not of the true format I do, but, however, it gives you a general idea on how well it can get. Since the mass-upgrade of Rise of Atlantis, my quality is likely much greater than this.
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