This article continues my coverage of an online promotion that HBO is conducting for it’s upcoming series, Game of Thrones. View my previous articles on the topic: Intro, First puzzle, Second puzzle. Please follow this link to visit the Maester’s Path website. (If you follow it through here, I’ll get credit for sending you!)

Today is Monday, which means it’s time for another update on The Maester’s Path promotion from HBO’s upcoming Game of Thrones TV series.

I happened to be home on Monday morning, and was excited by the chance to see what the new chapter in the Maester’s Path would be. I had missed breakfast, so I was sorta hoping this week would be the one where they do the “taste” sense. My hungry tummy eagerly looked forward to a box of direwolf cookies from the HBO marketing team. Alas, no such thing arrived. Instead, a new path was opened up on the Maester’s Path website revealing an interactive browser experience focused on observation. Here’s what you see when you approach “The Wall”.

(Oh, and… HBO Marketing team: direwolf cookies. Come on. Please?)

Apparently, there’s a massive wall of ice, 700 feet tall or something, that prevents all the nasty evil things from the north from overrunning the ignorant southern nations. A few brave people keep vigilant watch up there, and nobody but those guys even remembers what they’re doing.

Forgive me this little tangent, but this has got to be a fantasy cliche, right? The Evil trapped in the frozen northern lands seeks to break out. Only a few, dedicated groups stand watch while the ignorant south enjoys their time in the freedom and sun…. The Wheel of Time is guilty of harboring this trop as well, along with a zillion other epics from the genre. I’d just love if for once the evil place wan’t frozen, and if it was to the, oh let’s say…, the east. Wouldn’t that be a nice change of pace?

Anyway, once you make it to the top of the wall, you can use your mouse to freely move around in a first-person POV. There aren’t a lot of places to go exactly, but that’s okay. After last week’s complicated brain twister, I appreciated the straight-forward approach here.

The goal of this challenge was to look across the northern landscape (“take the black” they call it) and then sound a horn once you see danger approaching. Here’s how I suggest you go about doing this puzzle:

1. Walk around the landscape and find the horn and all the other stuff you can click on.
2. Once you know your way around, go to the lookout area and “take the black”.
3. Once you see some little black dots (Humans? Monsters? I have no idea) crossing the open ground toward the wall, hurry over to the horn and click on it

Timing is important! You must wait until the little figures charge the wall. If you see smoke rising, but no figures running, you’ll be too early. The quickest way to the horn is to turn around from the ledge and turn RIGHT when you come to the intersection. The horn should be on your right side.

All quiet on the northern front

See those tiny minions of evil? SOUND THE ALARM!

And finally, the Horn of Valere… errr…. sorry. Wrong series. 🙂

Until next week! Here’s hoping for some direwolf cookies!