Someone kidnapped our friend! He's been behaving strangely lately, changed his avatar and
nickname - for now we don't know who did it, but we believe that his new profile picture surely hold some kind of clue. We call upon you SteamGifts! Solve this mystery and you will surely get a reward from grateful victim!

The only clue we have for now is his original avatar from
before he was kidnapped.

Time to solve this mystery is a little over a week!

Hints may or may not appear in the future. Answer to most of your questions can be found here.

Sharing anything regarding the puzzle will be reported to support!


Puzzle Solution:

So I was kidnapped and it lead to multi-stage puzzle ;) The start was the hardest part, but almost every stage of a puzzle could be solved using my Puzzle guide.

At the beggining you've been just given my original avatar. To find out it was me who was kidnapped you should remember it from various previous puzzles and/or forum topic, or use your browser cache to find this image in older stored versions. But as I am a nice guy and promised hints - I started commenting on the topic - at first with invisible bumps and later on with normal comments. I even admitted that I was the one behind the puzzle and the one kidnapped :> So you have your starting point :>

The first step was going to my steam profile (look at Other Places to looking for links). There were two things to do: Reverse image search for my new Avatar would give you the name of an Anime this character is from, which is Azumanga Daioh. The second thing to notice was that I given a link to my MyAnimeList Profile right under a BlackList :>

Going to MyAnimeList Profile and later to Anime List you should search for Anime from my avatar - Azumanga Daioh. You can notice, that one of the tags seems weird. According to my guide again, you should use it as code for ITH puzzle (look at Code hidden in letters part of a guide), leading you here.

In this stage, you were given ciphered note in form of an image. You could either write it down, or use any kind of reading software to export it into text file :> Using Encryption of a guide you could easily see that it was encrypted using BASE64. Using xlate or any other software you could decipher it into following note:

Sorry friend, but our enemies knew about our meeting. I couldn't risk it! Please meet me in different place! For safety let's meet somewhere more public. Go to this coordinates [51.414846,19.678016] and meet me in big shop there.

Using Google Maps with given coordinates you should go to Street View and look around. As you can see that the name of the mentioned big shop is Kaufland. It was also the answet to ITH Question. Answering gave you this link.

In this stage you were given description and image of a wallet and was asked what organization kidnapped zelghadis. Viewing the image and deleting ".jpg" would lead you to image page with description (see More obscure ways of hiding a text from guide). The description says:

Upon closer examination you find this symbol hidden under leather: http://i.imgur.com/XGI0rEj.jpg.

Ofc it was NERV who kidnapped zelghadis, because they were angry about him stealing and modifying their logo! When correct answer were given you were given a hidden link (check guide again) next to a dot :> Link leads here.

In this stage you were given basically nothing. But a hint was that a previous link was hidden and word hidden in description as well. If you checked the source of a question you'd see a hidden link to this GA. In it's description there was a hidden link to this forum topic. In OP there was a hidden link to this comment - you should use SG+ to navigate there, but as well you could easily search topic for comment posted by me ;) In comment there was a last hidden link http://17812.ru/. So the code to the gate was 17812 :> When you entered right code, you'd get this message:

You must now navigate yourself through enemy hearquaters! Start Here and then follow by the clues.

So now you had to follow GA chain using given clues (see GA modification in guide).

a quantity measured with respect to an apsis, usually the periapsis when googled gives you Anomaly. You should go to Anomaly: Warzone Earth GA.

If you wanna bribe me you better put the money into some fancy envelope! leads to Sleeping Dogs: The Red Envelope Pack GA.

Bobofatt has his banhammer - I have a fancy hammer of my own as well! leads to Darksiders II - Fletcher's Crow Hammer GA. There are many hammers in my GAs, so you should check for one with strange description ;p Also it was a hint to franchise you could win a game from :>

This game in now owned by everyone of you, yet I managed to make a GA of it back in a days :> obviously leads to Dota 2 GA.

After this "small" journey you were given description:

You infiltrated NERV HQ, you hacked into their database using inside terminal - you must now find the name of the culptit that is a mastermind behind this whole kidnapping! But the firewall catches up to you pretty quickly - you just manage to capture a single picture.

ITH Clicky

Using image modification tools you could find the name of the actual kidnapper (see Text hidden in picture in guide). It was hidden here. The kidnapper was thejadefalcon. When you give correct answer you'd get a link to next part.

In this stage you were given an actual puzzle jigsaw :> When put together youd get a QR code (see QR Codes and Barcodes part of a guide). When decoded it would give you a password "EA still sucks!" and you'd get a link to a FINAL STAGE.

This stage was a simple lore quiz from WH40k ;) All answers were googleable ;)

A1. Machine Spirit

A2. Servitor

A3. Vaul

A4. Titan

A5. Tyranid

A6. The Golden Throne

A7. Fenris

A8. 12

A9. 13th Company

A10. Lion El Johnson

When answered all questions you were given a link to GIVEAWAY

Thank you all participants and BIG CONGRATULATIONS to three people who managed to solve it :>

11 years ago*

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i know who is he, but where i must put the answer O_o ?

11 years ago
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everything is viewable ;)

11 years ago
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this

11 years ago
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We are looking for Kazuma?

11 years ago
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no

11 years ago
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Bump for the sake of bumping

11 years ago
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Aint nobody got time for that!

11 years ago
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KILL HIM

11 years ago
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(•_•)

( •_•)>⌐■-■

(⌐■_■)

I have no idea what to do.

11 years ago
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WTF IS THIS... o.O how much time did you spend to prepare this, how much time will it consume to solve.. dafuq people, get a life o.O

11 years ago
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how much time did i spend to prepare this - quite a lot - how much it takes to solve it? fastest guy get there 30min after topic was posted, so probably even less ;p

11 years ago
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Well i suck at puzzles then, spent whole evening on it. Now wondering if maybe russian mafia had something to do with it. Or its just unusual. Well don't mind me, im probably insane already.

11 years ago
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bump for last day

11 years ago
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Sorry, victim, can't help you... :(

11 years ago
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but i know him and idk where i must wrote answer :@

11 years ago
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You're supposed to find a giveaway (reward from the victim)...

11 years ago
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Friend? FRIEND? HA! I hope nobody pays the ransom, at least we'll be free from his devilishly difficult puzzles...

11 years ago
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stfu and go back to solving it ;p

11 years ago
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bump for 5h left

11 years ago
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bump for 3h left :>

11 years ago
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bump for 2h left ;p

11 years ago
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bump for hard :@

11 years ago
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Good riddance

/hides :x

11 years ago
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leeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet

11 years ago
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:o

11 years ago
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where'd you go???

11 years ago
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come back ya noob!

11 years ago
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YO! dude :(

11 years ago
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Yo! dudette :(

:P

11 years ago
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11 years ago
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;*

11 years ago
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Are we looking for a certain chimpanzee?

11 years ago
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yup - you have 40 minutes left ;p

11 years ago
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What do we do with our findings???This is my first puzzle!! XD

11 years ago
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you will see soon enough, when the solution is posted :>

11 years ago
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Must we find the giveaway url??

11 years ago
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I thought I just finally made progress right before the puzzle would end...
But seems like a different unrelated puzzle.

11 years ago
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bump for solution:

Puzzle Solution:

So I was kidnapped and it lead to multi-stage puzzle ;) The start was the hardest part, but almost every stage of a puzzle could be solved using my Puzzle guide.

At the beggining you've been just given my original avatar. To find out it was me who was kidnapped you should remember it from various previous puzzles and/or forum topic, or use your browser cache to find this image in older stored versions. But as I am a nice guy and promised hints - I started commenting on the topic - at first with invisible bumps and later on with normal comments. I even admitted that I was the one behind the puzzle and the one kidnapped :> So you have your starting point :>

The first step was going to my steam profile (look at Other Places to looking for links). There were two things to do: Reverse image search for my new Avatar would give you the name of an Anime this character is from, which is Azumanga Daioh. The second thing to notice was that I given a link to my MyAnimeList Profile right under a BlackList :>

Going to MyAnimeList Profile and later to Anime List you should search for Anime from my avatar - Azumanga Daioh. You can notice, that one of the tags seems weird. According to my guide again, you should use it as code for ITH puzzle (look at Code hidden in letters part of a guide), leading you here.

In this stage, you were given ciphered note in form of an image. You could either write it down, or use any kind of reading software to export it into text file :> Using Encryption of a guide you could easily see that it was encrypted using BASE64. Using xlate or any other software you could decipher it into following note:

Sorry friend, but our enemies knew about our meeting. I couldn't risk it! Please meet me in different place! For safety let's meet somewhere more public. Go to this coordinates [51.414846,19.678016] and meet me in big shop there.

Using Google Maps with given coordinates you should go to Street View and look around. As you can see that the name of the mentioned big shop is Kaufland. It was also the answet to ITH Question. Answering gave you this link.

In this stage you were given description and image of a wallet and was asked what organization kidnapped zelghadis. Viewing the image and deleting ".jpg" would lead you to image page with description (see More obscure ways of hiding a text from guide). The description says:

Upon closer examination you find this symbol hidden under leather: http://i.imgur.com/XGI0rEj.jpg.

Ofc it was NERV who kidnapped zelghadis, because they were angry about him stealing and modifying their logo! When correct answer were given you were given a hidden link (check guide again) next to a dot :> Link leads here.

In this stage you were given basically nothing. But a hint was that a previous link was hidden and word hidden in description as well. If you checked the source of a question you'd see a hidden link to this GA. In it's description there was a hidden link to this forum topic. In OP there was a hidden link to this comment - you should use SG+ to navigate there, but as well you could easily search topic for comment posted by me ;) In comment there was a last hidden link http://17812.ru/. So the code to the gate was 17812 :> When you entered right code, you'd get this message:

You must now navigate yourself through enemy hearquaters! Start Here and then follow by the clues.

So now you had to follow GA chain using given clues (see GA modification in guide).

a quantity measured with respect to an apsis, usually the periapsis when googled gives you Anomaly. You should go to Anomaly: Warzone Earth GA.

If you wanna bribe me you better put the money into some fancy envelope! leads to Sleeping Dogs: The Red Envelope Pack GA.

Bobofatt has his banhammer - I have a fancy hammer of my own as well! leads to Darksiders II - Fletcher's Crow Hammer GA. There are many hammers in my GAs, so you should check for one with strange description ;p Also it was a hint to franchise you could win a game from :>

This game in now owned by everyone of you, yet I managed to make a GA of it back in a days :> obviously leads to Dota 2 GA.

After this "small" journey you were given description:

You infiltrated NERV HQ, you hacked into their database using inside terminal - you must now find the name of the culptit that is a mastermind behind this whole kidnapping! But the firewall catches up to you pretty quickly - you just manage to capture a single picture.

ITH Clicky

Using image modification tools you could find the name of the actual kidnapper (see Text hidden in picture in guide). It was hidden here. The kidnapper was thejadefalcon. When you give correct answer you'd get a link to next part.

In this stage you were given an actual puzzle jigsaw :> When put together youd get a QR code (see QR Codes and Barcodes part of a guide). When decoded it would give you a password "EA still sucks!" and you'd get a link to a FINAL STAGE.

This stage was a simple lore quiz from WH40k ;) All answers were googleable ;)

A1. Machine Spirit

A2. Servitor

A3. Vaul

A4. Titan

A5. Tyranid

A6. The Golden Throne

A7. Fenris

A8. 12

A9. 13th Company

A10. Lion El Johnson

When answered all questions you were given a link to GIVEAWAY

Thank you all participants and BIG CONGRATULATIONS to three people who managed to solve it :>

11 years ago
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I don't remember how but I think I started at the hitman giveaway stage. Probably just from random clicking on giveaways. I was unlucky though

11 years ago
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thats crazy, you skipped like 50% of the puzzle!

11 years ago
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I also skipped the winning part :P Congrats to you

11 years ago
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actually a lot of ppl didn'yt look at my steam profile at all and just found Dota2 description - too bad for most of them, as many ogt lost, especially as they had no referrence to previous parts and that each stage was mentioned in guide ;p

11 years ago
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I started at the dota 2 giveaway stage... But was uncapable to read the name... :(

11 years ago
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that was the hardest part

11 years ago
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the hardest part was I believe MyAnimeList one - the one you missed ;p Most ppl just went checking my BlackList not bothering the second link :>

11 years ago
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Eh, I opened the anime link... but... it hurted too much... >:D

11 years ago
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you had ANIME LIST link right in a profile below my avatar on MAL ;p

11 years ago
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well - like you mentioned in chat you used paint only - it was clearly not enough :> develope your puzzle skills more ;p

11 years ago
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yeah... i would have never solved this.

11 years ago
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i would have never went and go look at the myanimelist tags

11 years ago
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This ^. Anime scares me.

11 years ago
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well - it's quite a common puzzle method to put some links in steam profile ;)

11 years ago
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Can i win skyrim here?

11 years ago
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maybe some day ;)

11 years ago
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11 years ago
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:>>

11 years ago
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Damn dat finger of death. ;-;

11 years ago
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dat nose of no

11 years ago
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Oh hi, im back from the asylum. Totally failed with MAL, picked up the .ru "link" and Anomaly and got stuck. Well, thanks for the puzzle. Sorry for not rescuing you :< and waiting for another puzzle! hope it's gonna be soon.

11 years ago
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Welcome back! :p

11 years ago
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Closed 10 years ago by Nonos.