The third of the phase 3 Metashima quests kicked off on 11/08/2022. This one was a race! A limited number of POAPs were available to claim across 3 time windows to complete the quest. The fastest questers had to zoom through a series of puzzles to make it to the end where they would unlock another useful nugget of information about the nature of Metashima.
Quest #3 Race Start!
Following the pattern of every quest so far, the start of the race was marked by a message from ADA in the discord channel #｜🔓・attention. The message was straightforward, giving us a discord command to !start our race.
First Corner! x1!
Entering !start in the discord general chat granted the role Velocity x1 and access to the channel #｜⚪・x1! In here we were presented with our first challenge, a cryptic clue from ADA asking for “the number of I”. It was assumed the answer to this would be a discord command as this is how most quests have functioned so far. Predictably general chat quickly erupted with lots of numbers!
This one seemed to have stumped a lot of people, with numbers ranging from 1 to 944. The latter, !944, was the solution. ADA was asking us for the total number of Shima with an “I” DNA. The I DNA types in the lightning collection are I4 and I6. A quick lookup on an NFT marketplace showed that there were indeed 944 “I” DNA types. OpenSea, if you’re reading this, Verify Metashima.
DRS Train! x2!
Entering !944 in the discord general chat granted the role Velocity x2 and access to the channel #｜🔴・x2! Here a pictorial puzzle awaited questers:
Taking the letters of each emoji (and taking 2 tree emojis as “trees”) gave us the answer “supierhtrees”. Then, using the key below the respective emojis gave the answer as indicated in the picture below. As more questers gained access to x2, the chat exploded with various spellings of the word “superheroes” (even !ironman and !flash made an appearance) but the solution became obvious as !superheroes.
Pit Stop! x3!
Entering !superheroes in the chat granted the role Velocity x3 and access to the channel #｜🔵・x3! Here we found a riddle, in a similar format to the one used by imitator Belinda Colis for Quest #1. Given the Metashima questers were familiar with this kind of clue they flew through this step clocking some seriously impressive times!
The answer to this was the letter E as e is at the beginning of eternity and end, and at the end of the words space and time. Therefore, to access the next stage of the quest, the command !e had to be entered in the discord general chat.
Final Lap! x4!
As with previous stages, entering !e granted questers the role Velocity x4 and access to the channel #｜⚫・x4! Here we had another clue from ADA, an image containing a scrambled string of letters “nsbhreegoyttsi”, unfortunately typing !nsbhreegoyttsi yielded no results, so it became obvious that this must be decrypted in some way.
The discord began trying various possibilities out, !birthstones, Nope. !yesternights, Nope. !histogens, Nope again. The racer who used cool logic in a combination with ruthless speed to get the answer first was Metashima expert and community legend, Ed Graves AKA Ed the Drunk.
The answer was !thestorybegins. Asking Ed how he got to the answer, he simply said “I put it in anagram-solver.net and it was literally the only answer it came back with.” Using all tools at your disposal definitely pays off. Other anagram solving websites are available.
Chequered Flag! x5! 🏁
Entering !thestorybegins in the chat granted the final role, Velocity x5 and access to the channel #｜🏁・x5 and #｜🏁・claim-prize. In the x5 channel, we were given further instructions by ADA (on claiming our POAP prize in the respective channel), congratulations and a graphic for the unlocked symbol! There was a clue on which quest could be next _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ OR _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . A 10 letter word or a 12 letter word?
The Podium 🍾
As the quest was a race, special mention must be made to the talented questers who finished first in their respective races:
- Race 1: Ed The Drunk 🏆🥇
- Race 2: PrinceNano 🏆🥈
- Race 3: Tongar 🏆🥉
Quest Conclusion
Following tradition, the Metashima twitter posted the unlocked symbol as a prize for the entire community. We’re really collecting them now! A growing popular theory is each symbol & quest represents a DNA, what do you think?
Again a heartfelt thanks to the Metashima team and also the community contributions that made this write up possible. See you next time!
