On Dec. 1st, some of us noticed something strange going on in Stella's non-challenge content.

On the "Leaving" site, there was a secret message embedded in italics: "H" "E" "L" "P". While we didn't think much of it at the time, there was much to follow.

http://www.ancientsocieties.com/leaving/

After solving the challenge, we get to see the image of a dog. However, some colors are distorted. When you look into the file with a text editor, you can find the text

On Dec. 2nd, Stella hinted that something might be going on later from the regular challenge solution page.

Later on beneath the email response vid, we found a short message, and the video subtitles contained an encoded stl.la:

http://www.ancientsocieties.com/email-replies-12214/

stl.la/papillon leading to http://www.ancientsocieties.com/idaebrcg

On this site, Stella told us of her wish to escape and we had a brainstorming session which ended with nice ideas from Jojo and Fabio.

On Dec. 3rd, Stella posted a shang information video. Using a table from that day's challenge, we managed to decode the words

“castle” “refugee” and “anneboleyn”.

stl.la/castle led to http://www.ancientsocieties.com/6psmrupjv7grrdsjqzuz/ with a password-protected pdf. The password was "refugee", and the contents were vignere-coded with the key "anneboleyn”.

It contained the following instructions:

**do not discuss this plan in the comments of any public page on my site. **

i’m planning on getting out of here on monday december 8th,

and i’ll need all of your help.

here’s what i need you to do:

i will give you a private internal email address used for reporting security issues at my dad’s hotel.

at an appointed time, i need you all to report multiple problems to security simultaneously,

especially problems in the fantasy suites.

get creative!

however, do not report anything fire-related,

because they will seal the penthouse behind 12-inch thick steel panels - with me inside.

the idea is to create multiple diversions that will have every security guard occupied,

to the point that they’ll need to call the goons outside my door away as a last resort.

tomorrow and friday, i’ll be giving your further details:

the exact time on monday to send in reports.

the email address.

a link to an internal scanner where you can listen to what’s going on.

thank you all, i obviously couldn’t do this without you!