The following answers to Six Questions captures so much of what Treasure Hunting is about! As you read about Nick’s and Robert’s adventures, you can feel the excitement, and joy of victory, they experienced. I love sharing Found Treasure stories like this! Thank you so much, Nick and Robert, for giving us all a run down of your incredible Quest!
Robert Brewer, the creator of The Lost Skull Treasure armchair treasure hunt is to be congratulated, along with the Grand Prize Winners, Nick and Robert. Brewer combined his talents of artist, game designer, and writer to offer the amazing armchair treasure hunt: The Lost Skull .com.
But KNOW the hunt is not over! There is a runner up prize of $500 cash to the first person who sends photos of the ten locations decoded from the book. Also there are ‘Champion Prizes’. All hunters who do the same as the runner up (just after), will receive a numbered, sure to be collectible, Skull!
What an excellent Quest! Let’s hear more about Nick’s and Robert’s!
Six Questions with Nick and Robert:
- Q1)When did you first hear and learn about the Treasure Hunt of The Lost Skull?
Nick: I first heard about the hunt through the Mysterious Writings website. I read the Six Questions with the author and was really blown away by the artwork. I didn’t jump in right away and completely missed the KickStarter. In hindsight, if you were to give me a time machine, I would have invested the full amount on the Kickstarter after the great experience the hunt gave me.
Robert: I am not really sure when it was that I first heard of the hunt, but I know I finally ordered the book in the middle of November some time. Nick and I had been working on other hunts at the time like The Oracle and Beacon Star and didn’t feel like we were getting anywhere, we just kept coming up with the same things.
When Nick and I started looking through The Lost Skull it was like things began to fall into place and we were really moving along. When we had work out enough that we thought we had the right location, I took the six hour drive with my son to try and dig it up. This first BOTG trip was unsuccessful, but it helped us work out what we needed to work on and fix and finally this time we were successful!
- Q2)What inspired you to become involved and begin searching? How did you meet each other?
Nick: Robert and I crossed paths a couple of years ago on the Mysterious Writings forum. After some back and forth we became a two-man team on almost every hunt since. We really complement each other well as we reinforce each other’s weaknesses. We each have brains that work differently but when combined covers a lot of the aspects you see in these hunts. Robert ultimately talked me into pursuing the Lost Skull, and as soon as I received the book and flipped through the artwork, I knew I made a good decision.
Robert: I was inspired by the artwork of the book. Like almost everyone on the Mysterious Writings Forum, I have dipped my toes into trying to find one of the Secrets casques, and the artwork in that book is great. However, there is something about Robert Brewer’s art in The Lost Skull that really drew me in.
I convinced Nick that we could look into one more hunt for a little bit and like I said earlier, things started to fit into place right away. Nick and I are an awesome team if I do say so myself. We both know what we are each good at, and we can get the best results by breaking up the work. It also helps that he thinks the same as me when it comes to treasure hunts. For us it’s not about the prize (though the money is nice), but about breaking and solving something that others have created and others still have struggled with and ultimately being the one who solves the puzzle first. I feel like many of the great code-breakers must have felt like throughout history!
- Q3)What was your most favorite part about the Treasure Hunt?
Nick: So many… First, meeting my treasure hunt partner for the first time was really cool. Putting a face to the voice is always something… and he’s a lot taller than me and has a way cooler accent. Second, having the ability to visit locations in the USA that are dear to the author’s heart was quite an experience. Some of these locations are breathtaking, which makes the runner-up prize of 500$ something we chose to leave for someone else to find in order to share in the experience and at the same time expose more people to what I feel is a breakthrough treasure hunt author in Robert Brewer.
Robert: I could write a small book about my favorite parts of this hunt, haha. I will echo Nick and say that one of the best parts was definitely meeting him in person for the first time. We have worked together for so long that you almost forget that we hadn’t actually been in the same place at the same time before. I know my wife found it funny that I would always mention ‘my friend’ Nick and we had never met before!
Being at the end location together to finish something we had put a lot of effort into to dig up the prize really made it that more special. There are a lot of really great puzzles in the hunt but one of my favorites was Aphrodite because the answer to this particular puzzle is completely location based. The answer will never be able to be solved without being BOTG and going there (trust us we TRIED!).
Last December my son and I drove the six hours to the location and after getting a good night’s sleep went to check out the spot. I was looking around the area looking for the missing number we needed. My seven year old was walking in front of me down some steps and so so excited to be on a treasure hunt that when we finally got to where we needed to be, he found the numbers and we were both running around and jumping everywhere. I was so excited. I got right on the phone to Nick and he was doing the same at home it was a pretty awesome time!
- Q4)What was your least favorite part about the Treasure Hunt?
Nick: For me, I was most stressed in the digging phase. I knew before I even boarded a plane that GPS coordinates were only accurate to about 15ft on a good day. When something is buried, you need to be dead on. You could be off by an inch and move on. As fate would have it, trees and overcast were causing the GPS to jump around a bit. We dug quite a few holes the first night until we realized one of the numbers was oriented incorrectly. This moved us 100ft, and into the area that made total sense. A few holes later, early the next morning, and it popped out of the ground.
Robert: Digging and waiting were the hardest parts of this hunt! We were very confident in our solve, and even if we were off by a little bit we felt we could still find it. However, looking at a map and being on the ground are very different things, and when you are looking for something buried that is the size of a hardback book you could be inches away and never find it. I was closer to the end location then Nick at just over six hours away, so it was hard. We felt like we had solved it, but we couldn’t just go and dig it up. Finally we were able to arrange a time we could both head out to the final location, but waiting until then was a killer!
- Q5)What is the best or most unique thing you found while searching for The Lost Skull?
Nick: So The Lost Skull is the skull of Orion. One of the bonus clues stated Orion was last seen hunting Durathror. Durathror is represented by a deer. When I first arrived at the site I came across a deer skull with attached vertebrae. So naturally, one would say “AHA!! I found Durathror! However, even though the idea fit like a glove, it wasn’t related to the puzzle at all 😉
Robert: What was the most unique thing that I found, again, there were many. From finding the missing numbers to meeting Nick face to face to actually digging up treasure this hunt had it all. But personally, I really had the best time researching each of the locations in the book and learning so many cool things, some needed, many not, about such a cool area!
I am not going to give anything away, but each location has its own story to tell and I would never have known about them, let alone visited them without this awesome hunt. You see a lot of people thanking Byron Preiss and JJP for the Secret and what it has done, personally I want to thank Robert Brewer for this amazing hunt!
- Q6) There are still runner up prizes to claim. Would you recommend the hunt to others, and can you offer any advice on how to go about solving it?
Nick:. I would 100% recommend the hunt. I don’t think this is the last we will see of Robert Brewer. He has a very unique way he crafts puzzles and his artistry is at a level that rivals the likes of JJ Palencar and Kit Williams.
Advice: Don’t get too bogged down that it’s 10 locations. Brewer stated in the original Six Questions that the locations are within reasonable distance. I can echo that, as I have photos at all of them and it’s doable in a day if you got some pep in your step.
Robert: Yes, yes, yes, 100% yes I would recommend that someone still go for the runner-up prize! The Lost Skull is unique in that is has the runner up prize so that the puzzles can still be solved and the locations can still be visited, they are not all that far apart and the puzzles itself is worth solving.
My only advice is that if you are having trouble, find yourself a treasure hunting mate, someone you can really rely on, then try again, it will make all the difference. Oh and think outside of the box, and don’t lock yourself into a answer just because you think it fits, try different things, on this hunt it will really help!
,
Congratulations to Nick and Rob! Nice story!