The Skull CTF

A mind-bending hardware puzzle in three acts

Nov 30, 2020

Project update 7 of 18

Harnessing the Power of the Beaver Moon

by Uri Shaked

Ahoy Mateys!
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TL;DR - We need your help tonight at midnight!

A city on the Seine.
Tunnels under earth with
dormant skulls, no brain.
In their faint signals
the answer may pertain.

The cryptic note above was attached to a mysterious package that appeared on our desk this morning. A city on the Seine is undoubtedly Paris, and the tunnels under earth… We’ll get to that in a moment. The package contained what looks like a medieval EEG device attached to a model skull:

And it arrived just in time! We grabbed it on our way out the door, and now here we are: writing to you from 32,768 feet as our private jet speeds toward Paris. Tonight is the full moon for which we’ve all been waiting—the Beaver Moon.

In preparation, we’ve gathered a small army of 208 Cataphiles who’ve agreed to help us invade L’Empire De La Mort, widely known as the Catacombs of Paris, in order to realize the plans we shared previously:

Regarͩdleͧss,ͯ we hăve no cͫhoͦice now but ͬto waͭit. Aͧt midnͦight uͬpon the next full-mooN—the BeAVer Mooon—we will take the victorious Jack
to ͧan ancͫiĕntͮ bͥurial ground and ͮcommit what ͣlittlͭe e͒nergy̍ we ͟ha̿vé l̊ef̤t̩ t᷅o͋ t͖h̑e͖ t̿as͊k̓ ̰at̝ ̻h̻̅a̳n̍d:̌ ̭͋e̍x͡tr︠ac︡t̄͊i͜n︣g̹᷇ ͋n᷇e͑︠w͍ ͢͠b̨᷇y̓̓t́e̍́ś ͉͌f̌̇r̮̰o̜̦͡m̢᷾︡ ̊͒͑o̜̭l̵͙̊͞d̗̝,̰̱̹ ̨̽̅t͍͢i᷀́m͎̓e᷂͡w͘o̮͝ȑ̌n̜ͅ ̃̓͑b︡́ò̳᷈̈́n͎̳̾e̵̶̫︠s̫᷀̀̈́ ̔̇͝͠a̪̫᷁᷅ṉ͈͜d̩᷈͗᷁ ̴͌̑̄͞ų̛̼̜͊́s̩̗̃̋᷁͞ͅi̴͉̾̈̈̔̈́͡ng them to complete the skelEton of our ǝɹɐʍɯɹᴉɟ.

But we need your help as well. We ask that you contribute the barest sliver of your life force—tonight at midnight (12 AM CET)—to help empower the ritual of protection upon which we must rely to keep the horrors of the subterranean world at bay.

But don’t worry, it’s easy. Just hold your hands together and say, "Catacombs, Catacombs, Catacombs!". At midnight. That’s all we ask. And wish us luck. P.S.: Please don’t mention the private jet to Crowd Supply. They are quite strict about how campaign funds are spent.


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