Pawn Takes Pawn Guide – Zork, Achievements, Codes, Cyphers & Full Solution

Phase 3

Video Guide

Postcards

Moving forward with the Zork easter egg, many people were mailed different postcards numbered 1-15. Some people received similar cards, while others got different numbers but only in the range of 1-15.

These postcards had random names on them along with a map schematic and pictures of various treasures found in Zork. The images of all the postcards with other treasures could not be found – perhaps they were not all mailed as of writing this article.

The map layout turned out to be the map of Zork. You could easily overlay the postcards (when combined) on top of the map of the whole Zork underground empire, and it fit perfectly.

Along with the map layout, the postcards had random names on them, and these names started with a “/” that indicated that these were URLs. There were a total of six URLs discovered once all the postcards were combined.

The six URLs are:

1. www.pawntakespawn.com/sacredbeetle
2. www.pawntakespawn.com/hallowedbones
3. www.pawntakespawn.com/sanctified
4. www.pawntakespawn.com/preciousmetal
5. www.pawntakespawn.com/magnificentblue
6. www.pawntakespawn.com/triquest

These URLs contain various chapters. These chapters form a written story about the great underground empire that is within the world of Zork. The URLs mentioned above are written in order from one to six incantations.

Each of these pages contain part of the story, and the letters of the words in these links are circled in red. When you combined all the words, you make up a sentence. For instance, if you go to www.pawntakespawn.com/sacredbeetle. You will see that the first circled letter is “C” in the title “THE BELLICUSE KING.”

So that letter “C” is your first word. Moving forward, you have “O” in “Quendor” in the second line of the first paragraph, and then the next one is “N” in the third line of the same section.

The following are the pages seen on respective URLs:

• www.pawntakespawn.com/sacredbeetle



• www.pawntakespawn.com/hallowedbones



• www.pawntakespawn.com/sanctified



• www.pawntakespawn.com/preciousmetal



• www.pawntakespawn.com/magnificentblue



• www.pawntakespawn.com/triquest

You need to note down all of these going across all the links in order, and you will get the following long sentence:

“Construct map from printed intelligence, travel as the crow flies, bring six pictured treasures to the trophy case, and recite incantations.”

Zork Map

Before moving forward with this, you should assemble the whole Zork map according to the layout seen on the combined postcards. You can find a high resolution copy of the Zork map here. Once assembled, you will get:

Incantations

If you read the formed sentence, you will notice that it says “Construct map from printed intelligence” that suggests using the map of Zork to come up with something. It also states, “…bring six pictured treasures to trophy case and recite incantations.”

These pictured treasures are also part of the postcards. When completed, the postcards also have different pictures. The pictures are of the same treasures that were collected during your Zork playthrough. The six treasures out of all of those collected are (as seen on the postcards):

1. Scarab
2. Skull
3. Bag of Coins
4. Pot of Gold
5. Bracelet
6. Trident

We will come back to Zork later, first we need to come up with the incantations that we will use inside Zork. You can see the incantations numbered from one to six in the form of green sticky notes on each URL.

These incantations are written in the form of the locations found in Zork. One full line is equivalent to a word. For instance, in incantation #1, the first line is Maze(7), Forest Path, Grating Room, Shaft Room, Frigid River(3).

This whole first line is a single word, and the first location that is Maze(7), is a part of the entire letter. This means that if you assemble the map of Zork according to the layout seen in the combined postcards, then you can move from Maze(7) to Frigid River(3) to make up the first letter “M.”

Here are the second and third lines drawn from Incantation #1:

Once you’ve done the same with all six incantations, you will end up with the following words:

1. MACHINATION
2. INSIGHT
3. TRIBUTE
4. SPECTRUM
5. AVARICE
6. TEMPEST

These six incantations will be used in the Zork game.

Back Into Zork

After identifying of all six incantations, you need to head back into Zork and put all the pictured treasures into the trophy case. By now, all the treasure should already be in the trophy case.

If we go back to the original sentence that was created from the circled letters, it states, “…bring six pictured treasures to trophy case and recite incantations.” This means that we need to recite the incantations while the treasure is inside the trophy case.

But before reciting these incantations, you need to get into Zork and type “reconnoiter,” and you will see a message pop up that reads, “You utter the word ‘reconnoiter’ and the world seems to subtly shift. You get the feeling that a host of new possibilities have become available to you.”

We know we have to say this specific word from the last URL (/triquest) as at the bottom, it states, “Say ‘reconnoiter’ in the great underground to unlock the use of your six incantations.”

Upon reciting each incantation, you will receive a word in return. Each of these incantations is associated with a single treasure piece. Typing each incantation will give you achievements as well.

The following table shows the incantations, associated treasure piece, and the returning words.

The Reward

The next step includes decoding the QR code (as seen beside the treasure pictures above) that leads to another URL where you can redeem your reward using these words that you got in return. The new URL is www.pawntakespawn.com/invisibletruths. This URL was decoded using the parts of QR codes that came with some of the postcards.

The full QR code was decoded even without receiving the rest of the QR code from Treyarch. This was achieved by one of the discord members of GeekyPastimes, HaxorSnake.

When you go to the site, you will be asked to enter six “keys,” and these six keys are the six words that were returned upon reciting the incantations in Zork. After putting all these keys in the blank spaces, you will get a final achievement – “Advanced Pawn.”

This achievement will have another link that will take you to your redeem code, which can be used on Call of Duty’s official website. Once you’ve redeemed the code, you will be rewarded with an epic truck skin called “Iron Curtain.”

The best part about this last step is that anyone can get their redeem code by going to the site, even if they haven’t completed the full Zork game!

Once you’ve put in the keys, you will notice there are three pictures on the same URL with a note. These pictures are presumably the perks that are going to be included in the new Black Ops Cold War. The perks are assumed to be Dead Silence, Blind-Eye, and Ghost, but it is just an assumption.

List of All Achievments

After the successful completion of this easter egg, you should have 36 achievements. There are a total of 37 achievements, but that is only if you have received a postcard mailed to you by Treyarch. Below is a list of all 36 achievements that you should have:

If you have received a postcard through the mail and a redeem code, then you can go to the top right corner of the achievements list and redeem it. This code is unique for every person they mail the postcards to.

After redeeming the code, you will get the final and 37th achievement called “You’ve Got Mail.”