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Yesterday, someone came to me and told me that he had found a treasure map. I told him that it was just a map of France, but he insisted that there was something with this map that could lead us to one of the greatest treasures of France, because he found it in a map with important documents for his entire family. However, we had no clue where to start.

Can you help us finding the treasure?

enter image description here

If you have found anything useful, you can post an answer.

Hint:

You can find text in the image. If you don't know how, but you want to know, see the community wiki answer. This text is encrypted with Vigenère chiper and the key consist of three English words that shouldn't, given the image, not be to hard to guess. Also, the flag is just to make sure that everyone sees that it is France.

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2 Answers 2

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First post on this site! I would just leave a comment, but I don't have enough rep.

The vigenere key is

mapoffrance

That gives us (referring to Jonathan Allan's answer:

hallofmirrorspalaceofversailles

I take no credit for this whatsoever.

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  • $\begingroup$ That is correct! I am accepting this because you found the hardest part of the answer, considering it has been unsolved for five days. $\endgroup$
    – wythagoras
    Commented Apr 28, 2016 at 7:11
  • $\begingroup$ ...and I gave up on vigenere. Good job. $\endgroup$
    – Jonathan Allan
    Commented Apr 29, 2016 at 19:05
  • $\begingroup$ How did you find this ? hallofmirrorspalaceofversailles I am not able to get plz explain. $\endgroup$
    – Rahul Bali
    Commented May 21, 2016 at 20:07
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The slightly dark line on the white of the flag leading to the small red wobbly shape is the text: taaztkdietsdseoqftebhzqrhonqcef

I imagine this is the first step.

I found no Rot, Beaufort or Vigenere with stat/dict attack French/English, no Ceaser shift, no Caeser ASCII shift. Although my French is not that strong.

Where is this?

The small red wobbly shape is in the location of and has the shape of Lac d'Orient near Troyes

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    $\begingroup$ "Troyes" looks more promising to me: bigger city, shape is similar, looks closer and... two other things which looks like clues: sounds like 3 (three) in french and also like Troy - the ancient Greek city which was really treasure. $\endgroup$
    – kamenf
    Commented Apr 23, 2016 at 13:29
  • $\begingroup$ @kamenf and others - this is a community post, feel free to add what you find (keeping spoilers) if you have 100 rep or more. $\endgroup$
    – Jonathan Allan
    Commented Apr 23, 2016 at 13:40
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    $\begingroup$ It could be something. $\endgroup$
    – kamenf
    Commented Apr 23, 2016 at 13:42
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    $\begingroup$ @JonathanAllan Actually I think the shape rather matches this. $\endgroup$
    – Sleafar
    Commented Apr 23, 2016 at 13:57
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    $\begingroup$ Tried vigenere with "bleu blanc rouge" and "liberté égalité fraternité" in french and English, changing order, reversed letters, etc. Found nothing. $\endgroup$
    – fffred
    Commented Apr 25, 2016 at 17:06

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