The Hunt

Once upon a time, there lived a boy named Mahesh. He was poor; he lived in a hut made of mud. He lived on his own. His house was in an old abandoned town, near the Gomati river in India. In the season of monsoon, occurred a flood in the town. It caused huge destruction, and the poor boy's house was blown. He tried to jump on floating objects for survival. Soon he was safe as he was found by few fishermen there. He lived in an orphanage for two months. Later he was adopted by Mr. Crewe and Mrs. Crewe. Both Mr. and Mrs. Crewe were historians. Mahesh also wanted to be like his parents. After completing his education, Mahesh became an archaeologist.

On one of his archaeological survey, Mahesh found a plank of wood with words "legendary ship - The Fantasy" carved in maritime pidgin English language. The Fantasy was one of the oldest cruises that got disappeared in the sea. Therefore, many archaeologists were trying to find the ship. Mahesh tried to read the words written on the plank and carried out his survey to find the location of the ship. His survey suggested that the ship might be in Madrid. Therefore, he went to Madrid with his partner, who was a computer genius named Henry Scott. Henry helped Mahesh track the location of the ship. They were about to find the ship when they got stuck in quicksand. After struggling up, both Mahesh and Henry just kept on getting stuck deeper and deeper in the quicksand. Eventually, they both gave up and soon they were sucked in. At last, they fell in the prison room.

They searched for that room but couldn't find anything there. Mahesh looked here and there, trying to escape the room. Suddenly he realized that the quicksand was a secret pathway that had brought them to the kingdom of King Liptom. As he had read the history of King Liptom, he knew that his guards and few servants used to jump in quicksand to enter the kingdom through the secret prison room. Therefore, he started searching for the door to get out of the room. Soon they found a hidden door behind the walls and came out.

They started going to every room in king Liptom's palace, but they were interested to see the throne room. Soon they saw the queen’s throne room. As per Mahesh's knowledge about King Liptom structures, the king's throne room is near the queen's room. They could immediately find the king's throne room. It was a sight to behold for Mahesh and Henry. After searching for hours in the room, they found a model of the Fantasy in a glass bottle. There was a paper hanged to the cork of the bottle. It said, "Captain Hillard". After a while, Mahesh could recollect that the remains of Captain Hillard were in Aden [now known as Yemen].

The next morning, they started their journey to Aden. After a lot of searches, they found the remains of Captain Hillard in the museum. There they got to know that Captain Hillard had died by waterborne disease. So, Mahesh could guess that Hillard would have died after the Fantasy sank. As per Mahesh, the Fantasy was a sunken ship and the nearest water source was the Arabian sea.

Now it was challenging for them to carry out a search in the Arabian sea. But, with the help of the Navy of Aden and Henry, he could successfully locate the position in the sea where the search was required to be carried out. To their surprise, they could reach the remains of the Fantasy. They gathered the precious remains and after thanking the Navy they proceeded to their Hotel room in Aden.

He was excited to investigate those remains. The next day morning he started his research, but it was not fruitful. He got nervous. When Henry saw the remains, he passed a comment on the numbers written on the various remains. Once again, Mahesh decided to decode it, but he couldn’t do it. So, then he looked for a number code genius. The set of numbers the remain had were "3,8,9,14,1" "4,25,14,1,19,20,25" "6,15,18,2,9,4,4,5,14" "3,9,20,25". The code genius, Gustan picked the numbers and after a few days, he cracked the code. He informed Mahesh that he decoded the numbers into alphabets, and he felt that the decoded text could help him. The decoded text was “Dynasty Forbidden City “. Mahesh then started looking for information to give it a try. He found out that this place had a connection with China.

They decided to go to China to find this place. After a lot of inquiries with old generations in China, he could gather that he was required to visit the Heritage building of China. To carry out his research, he requested The Chinese government and luckily, he got permission immediately under the supervision of Chinese authority. Then Mahesh lived for 4 days near the heritage building, and he carried out a search day and night. He searched the whole building, but it was unsuccessful. On the last day of his stay, he noticed something unusual about the painting of the queen of the Ming dynasty. So, he searched behind the painting. He found one small box which belonged to Empress Sui, who was travelling on the Fantasy. In that box, he found a chit on which “Rio Grande” was written in Chinese. The Rio Grande, at that time, was one of the busiest ports in Brazil. When Mahesh visited the port, there was a grand feast going on. The Director of the port knew about the hideout secret place in the Rio Grande. The director took Mahesh there. Mahesh looked around and, on the wall, he saw that the word “Axum” was written.

Mahesh found information about Axum. He found that there was a palace of king Liptom in Axum. He thought to visit the palace. As they arrived in the palace, he started looking for the next clue. They searched each and every room one by one. When they entered the treasury room, Mahesh saw something interesting in a silver box. There was a golden cup that had a rolled piece of paper. When Mahesh opened it, the word “Sabah” was written.

Mahesh searched for the word Sabah and he came to know that it was the name of a place, now known as Borneo. Next Day, Mahesh and Henry started their journey to Borneo. Mahesh inquired the local people of Borneo about the Fantasy or King Liptom or Captain Hillard or Empress Sui. They finally found out that there was a shipbuilding site where the Fantasy was built. There was another ship that was built when the Fantasy was built. They went to that site, and surprisingly, they saw a ship that looked just like the Fantasy. The ship was preserved as it was the first cruise designed at that site. Mahesh called an archeological team of Borneo to help him search the ship. Finally, after a long search, they found that each letter of the word " C O M B I N E " was inscribed on the spokes of the ship’s steering wheel.

Mahesh didn’t understand the clue, but his partner, Henry, gave him the idea. Henry said, " What if you combine the first letter of all the clues?" Then Mahesh said, "ok. Let’s try it ". He took out a writing pad and started writing all their findings. They started their journey to the “Madrid” basis of the wooden plank. They found remains of Captain Hillard in “Aden”. Then they went to the “Dynasty” Forbidden city”. Later, they visited “Axum” and “Sabah”. When he combined all the first letters of these places, the word “MADRAS” was formed. He knew that this place was in India. Mahesh came to Madras port [now known as Chennai Port]. As they reached the port, all of Mahesh's work got stolen and was sold to the media. The first thing Mahesh saw, as soon as he reached the hotel room and switched on the television, was his work was being shown on the news channels.

An archaeologist who hated Mahesh was Steven Hawk, who got information about the hunt and started following Mahesh. Mahesh didn’t lose hope though his work was stolen. He went again to the port and searched the place where the Fantasy had arrived during its journey and where the anchor of the Fantasy was hooked. The nail used to hook the anchor had a picture of the Luz Church carved on its flat head. Mahesh and Henry went to the Luz church where they got information that Captain Hillard had stayed there. Mahesh went to the room where he had stayed and searched everywhere but found nothing. The structure of one mirror in the room was extraordinary and suspicious, but Mahesh could not search the mirror as it was the time to close the place. The next day he entered the room and searched the mirror. He found that the mirror had a hollow structure. The nail he found at the port was still in his pocket and there was a lock to open the mirror. He thought to put the nail in the lock to open the mirror. He pushed the nail in the lock, and it opened. Steven came to know about the secret of the mirror as he was following Mahesh. He wanted to claim a reward for this work. The next day Mahesh was under the weather, and he couldn’t go out. It was a chance for Steven to sneak in the mirror. He bought a small nail and tried to open the mirror, but Steven's nail couldn't open the mirror. Mahesh realized that the entire world now had known about his mission He also understood that Steven was following him. Therefore, he ordered the guards of the place to put cameras in the mirror to secure the place. So he could view what was happening in that room. Mahesh left for the church and opened the mirror with his nail. He was shocked, but at the same time, he was thrilled as he had reached the treasure. It was not only one or two chests of gold, but 3,000 chests of gold. He had finally found the treasure after Nine months of hard work and Steven was arrested for sneaking in the treasure room with no official authority. Mahesh and his partner were offered 10 percent of the treasure. Mahesh's parents were very proud of him. Later, it was discovered that the real name of king Liptom was Rajendra……