The Ancient Citadel

by Ch1maera
🚩 CTFs HTB CTF 2025 osint
The Ancient Citadel / HTB CTF 2025
The Ancient Citadel

Description

Deep in her sanctum beneath Eldoria's streets, Nyla arranges seven crystalline orbs in a perfect circle. Each contains a different vision of stone battlements and weathered walls—possible matches for the mysterious fortress the Queen seeks in the southern kingdoms of Chile. The image in her central crystal pulses with ancient power, showing a majestic citadel hidden among the distant Chilean mountains. Her fingers dance across each comparison crystal, her enchanted sight noting subtle architectural differences between the visions. The runes along her sleeves glow more intensely with each elimination until only one crystal remains illuminated. As she focuses her magical threads on this final vision, precise location runes appear in glowing script around the orb. Nyla smiles in satisfaction as the fortress reveals not just its position, but its true name and history. A more challenging mystery solved by Eldoria's premier information seeker, who knows that even the most distant fortifications cannot hide their secrets from one who compares the patterns of stone and shadow.
Flag Format: HTB{street number,postal code city, region}

The Ancient Citadel

Along with the flavourtext, we are given the following image:

image of The Ancient Citadel

As the image of this castle is pretty unique, I know its going to work well on Google Images. Nonetheless, I go through the flavourtext (and the image) and pick out a few key details:

  • “in the southern kingdoms of Chile” —> the image of the castle we have been given is somewhere in Chile, so I can add this as a location to my Google Images search if needed.
  • On the image, we are provided with a house number: 104, so that’s something to consider as well.

Once again, I pop the image into Google Images for a reverse image search, with the keyword Chile and I get an automated response from Google’s AI engine:

Brunet Castle, located in Viña del Mar, Chile, is depicted in the image. The castle, constructed from gray stone, features a castellated roofline, a prominent central tower, and an arched entrance with a green metal gate. The number 104 is visible above the entrance. The building's architecture suggests a historic or possibly neo-Gothic style, with details like the textured stone walls and decorative elements contributing to its appearance. The castle is situated in an urban environment, as indicated by the surrounding trees and the presence of a street-level view. The image appears to be taken during daylight hours under natural lighting, capturing the details of the castle's facade.

Ok, so we are given a place called Brunet Castle, lets give that a search on Google Maps. Google maps returns the following location

Image of Google Images returning Brunet Castle

In the Google Maps data, we are given the following address: Iberia 104, 2571409 Viña del Mar, Valparaíso, Chile. Hold on, this matches our flag format! Lets format our address properly to get the flag.

Flag: HTB{Iberia_104_2571409_Viña_del_Mar_Valparaíso}

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