The Veteran's Clues

**The Veteran's Clues**are five riddles in the'*New Age'* Extension of *The Walking Dead by EDStudios.* They are a series of clues to the Veteran's final secret which were left to his granddaughter, Hope, in his will, and led her on her journey to find it. Each clue leads to a location important to Edwards' change throughout his life in the apocalypse.

The clues - and subsequently the Veteran's memoirs themselves - are revealed to be his own interpretations of the manipulation techniques once used by Gaunter O'Kyle.

## Overview

### The First Clue

*"In the maze of towers that bears the Holy Angel's name, there is a dwelling of God. Find me in the underworld, and I shall lead you to the Brothers in the Valley of Death,"*

Hope finds the first clue in an envelope given to her by Drew Stanton. She reads the clue once she returns to Veteran Ranch from the war with the Republic of David. Using a map, she manages to find the church that Edwards had sought shelter within during the Battle of Archangel. Beneath the floorboards in front of the altar, she finds the second clue. That evening, she leaves Veteran Ranch with Six and Florence.

### The Second Clue

*"I sit in the shade of the brothers, waiting in the dirt. I am only visible at the zenith of the sun,"*

Whilst staying at the Graveyard Inn in the Deadlands, Hope struggles to find the location of the 'Brothers'; however, she and her group finally find it thanks to Denver: a pair of dead trees on a hill which once provided a travelling group a place of rest. Hope discovers a rotten bench nearby, with the third clue buried underneath the leg of the bench when the midday sun reveals the spot.

### The Third Clue

*"In the pines, where the sun never shines, I shiver the whole night through. I am resting amongst the bones of somewhere that someone once called home,"*

After recovering the third clue, Hope assumes that the next clue is located within the ruins of a hut within Bennington National Park, where Edwards stayed for a year after the events of Port Collier. However, she is wrong and the group only finds the decaying wood, covered in bushes. Later in the evening, Junior realizes the first sentence of the clue is from a popular folk song from the old world and deduces that the 'pines' in question are actually coffins. As a result, the group travels to the old graveyard near the ruins of Greencole. There, amongst the graves, is the chest containing the fourth clue.

### The Fourth Clue

*"I am found in the home of the Power of the Sun and the Speed of the Wind. Don't forget your lunchbox,"*

Upon reading this clue, Hope immediately remembers her grandfather's story about Lunchbox Boy, a corpse he and a friend discovered decades before and he buried. Hope and the group drive down to the industrial train station and discover the bones of the Boy in a grave. The Boy has been buried with a chest, within which is the fifth and final clue.

### The Fifth Clue

*"I am at the end. South along the bones of metal, east until the ashes that make it are in view. Check number 4 and all will be revealed,"*

### The Secret

After uncovering the lockbox in the ruins of the Clarkson School, Hope reads her grandfather's letter and discovers that he had been facing a conspiracy by the end of his life and instructing Hope to put an end to it to secure the Commonwealth's future. Therefore, the whole journey had been her oppotunity to learn essential skills for surviving out in the world.