After successfully making it out of the library in one piece, dAnkan herds you around a corner, up a hill, and to a door with a complicated lock.
“You are now beholding the home of some of KTH’s most colorful creatures… and a few whose colours are closer to the median. This dwelling, which they’ve named META, hosts various oddities and activities, but right now, we’re only interested in the legendary microwave wall because I need to heat up my sandwich,” dAnkan explains in a hushed tone. “But to do that, we first need to get inside, and as you can see, security is something these quackologists take very seriously.”
“But! What about the tou…” begins a somewhat grumpy participant at the edge of the group before being interrupted.
“No buts!” dAnkan replies sharply. dAnkan looks at the lock with a thoughtful expression before decisively pressing a combination, which yields no result. The door remains locked after the second and third attempts as well.
“Hmmm, RIGHT!” dAnkan suddenly shouts. “Just like with the principals, KTH has thought this through and provided us with a way!! Eeeeeven if I seem to have forgotten the damn code!”
dAnkan grabs a box lying next to the door.
“Well well well, whould you look att that! This is META’s very own cipher box; it is able to encrypt any text you input into it.”
You take the box from dAnkan and start examining it from every angle. It looks like an ordinary wooden box with a small display where you can enter text. But something seems a bit strange about the box.
“Why does this box smell strongly of vinegar?” you ask dAnkan, but you receive no response. Instead, another participant speaks up.
“How do we even start? How is this box supposed to help us? We want to decrypt a password, not the other way around.”
“No, but that’s the clever part about this box, it’s the cipher key we’re after that’s the password to this here door!” dAnkan replies cheerfully.