Escape from Wizard Prison Party: Escape Room Game, Part 2 Dark Arts Alley

** For all Escape from Wizard Prison party posts, see the Escape from Wizard Prison section of the blog HERE**

The clues provided in the wizard shops led to the dark arts alley:

Inside the dark arts alley, the matching 'finger point' sign helped clue that they were in the correct room. The rune was a hint that runes were important... and the key to unlock the next box. The shrunken head audio, while it explicitly noted to go to the dark arts alley, was also a clue to look closer at the shrunken head in the shop window...

... and a clue was found hidden in his hair!

The rolled up paper in his hair had nine runes with the numbers 1,000-9,000 underneath each rune.

Next to the shrunken head, in the window was a box of 'spider legs...'

It was a Halloween party after all, and this is a spooky area... so this box is actually a prank box. When opened, a spider attacked your finger. Little things amuse me. 😜

However, it wasn't just a prop. On the back label of the box there was an additional rune clue:

Nine additional rune clues, this time 100-900.

By this time, the group had noticed that there was a locked box in the room with a 4 digit lock. They also deduced that the rune they were given in the wizard shops had some importance. None of the runes they found so far matched exactly... but PARTS of their rune matched the runes they were finding.

... Hmm...

The additional runes that were easily spotted were hidden in a poster in the room. These were numbers 1-9:

So... now they had found a thousands place, a hundreds place, and a ones place. They correctly deduced that they needed to build a 4 digit number, and they were now missing one piece, the TENS place.

This one was deceptively hard to find. See... there were several "Wanted" posters in the room. They were ALMOST all irrelevant. Except one of them. On ONE of the posters the runes on his mugshot placard were replaced with the 10-90 runes.

Once they had all 4 sets of runes, they were able to piece together that the rune they were given in Diagon Alley was equal to 6859. This number unlocked the 4 digit box in the room.

This box contained:

Two new clue cards: The Grim & a divination ball with an eye and five colored balls.

A second small key.

A piece of acetate with random letters on it.

The Grim and divination ball clues led them to the next room: the divination classroom. 

* At this point, the group did also find a book "Ancient Runes Made Easy" in the room, which was a locked book box. This was a 3 digit number lock. However, the clues they just found led them somewhere else... so they knew that something was left undone in this room...

Next up, the divination classroom!