7. The Swiss Age
Once I had recovered from the ordeal of a cheezy link, I made my way to the huge salt block. On the bottom left-hand corner I noticed some text engraved into the block... "takes a lick'n & keeps on sittin'" Whether this was a clue or something else, I had no idea.
I entered the equivalent salt shaker value, 1/2, and placed my palm on the image.
This age is highly vegetated. There is a path stretching out before me up a mountain.
I climbed the mountain up to a stone wall. There was a break in the wall with a large, strange contraption in the middle. The contraption consisted of a round, grey button above three Swiss army knives. I found that they were not real instruments, and that they were presumably part of a lock of some kind. The first two instruments were currently knives, with the third instrument a corkscrew. All three instruments had a positive sign on the front of them.
Between the first two instruments was a written arithmetic problem, '-4 + 9'. Between the second and third instruments was the algebraic expression, 'N + F'. After some experimentation, I pressed the first instrument four times to create a fork, and the second instrument nine times, to create scissors. The second instrument now had a negative sign on the front.
The third instrument was a little more difficult. I reasoned that 'N must be a constant for knife, and 'F' for fork. Since 'N' was two presses of the instrument away from the corkscrew, and 'F' one, I again reasoned that, by adding these values together, I might just strike the code.
1+2=3, so I decided the corkscrew should be number one. I pressed the device two more times, pressed the round, grey button. Suddenly, a portion of the contraption with the tools slides down, revealing a hidden vault.
Inside is the middle portion of the milker combination: Water
Droplet, Water Droplet, Pitchfork. There is also a bottle with some
sort of liquid inside, and most importantly, a linking panel back to Mylk.
Finally, there is a piece of paper, probably belonging to Farmer Ben.
I copied the contents of the note into my journal:
| to do:
liquidate german stocks (tick) refill moonshine jug (tick) chew tobacco (tick) find arsenic-laced corn (tick) shred documents (tick) spit tobacco |
What a wonderful life Ben must lead. This jug must be called a moonshine jug.
I checked that all my gear was in order, and placed my palm on the linking panel, back to Mylk.