Templars Treasure was led by two kind and determined commanders: Brian“ Echo” De Jesus for Blue Illuminati and Daniel“ Gold Bond” Harris for Red Assassins. To help even the numbers, Gold Bond allowed TFL to switch to the opposing team. Echo continuously showed his support to his team members and made sure we felt valued. Both men exemplified Ohana PB’ s vision of being the best player family.
Many of you may know my husband, Zac Arbuckle from Inspire Photography, whose pictures are featured in this article. I constantly hear about these events from him— he’ s been trying to get me to attend for years. I wasn’ t exactly keen on driving 14 + hours to an event, especially since I had never actually played in a scenario. But I was sold on the idea of solving puzzles— and the fact that it was being put on by Ohana PB.
The first night, the Red Assassins and the Blue Illuminati faced off in Chutes and Ladders, Candy Land, and Connect Four. This was definitely not what the teams expected when they were told to“ show up for the craziest battle of your life” in a 3-versus-3 challenge. The commanders, XOs, and one of their strongest players each came to represent their team for the battle. Imagine the looks of 6 grown men being presented with preschool level board games in order to decide sides. Everyone was convinced there had to be a twist— there’ s no way it could be that simple.
The first full day I wasn’ t sure what to expect since I did not know a single person on my team and Zac just pushed me in their direction and left to meet with the referees and figure out the best field positions for pictures. When we received our first cipher, I was glad that I took Zac’ s advice and brought a notebook. Immediately, I looked for the most commonly repeated letter knowing it would be“ s” or“ e”. From there I decoded short words and then made a key to solve the rest faster. My team couldn’ t believe that I was seemingly pulling
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