The Wombat File Is Yours to Keep

Okay, so we know #3 (familiar to anyone who read Watchmen) and #1 was apparently spa/croupier.

Was #2 gold? #4 roller skates? And #5?

#2 was gold.
#4 was roller skates.
#5 was Portugal and...Morocco.

We *had* gold for #2 as our first-round guess, and my 3 teammates were fine with it, but I said that's ridiculous, wombat couldn't possibly say of gold "It is believed that many people ignored this order and were secretive about their possession of this substance throughout this period."

So what did you substitute for gold?

Gavin--

Rachel is again the champ here, as she came up with the answers to #2, #3 (entirely pre-clue, but perhaps we said untie instead of cut the knot) and got Portugual pre-clue and recommended the switch to Morocco on #5. I'm sure we all would have gotten #3 and let's just forget about #1 (Whiskey's foul breath is on our heels).

--Art

I meant I'm sure we would have all gotten roller skates...

The only town in Europe I could think of that had only three letters was Ulm.

I'm glad bootsy's answer was able to squeeze through during my scalability testing.

I wasn't sure whether the more apt metaphor was "flood the zone" or "brute-force password cracking."

We did say untie, alas; in better health, I might have noticed the difference. (All hail Rachel, the Ipso Factoid superstar!)

Gavin: lithium was our last minute change. Both Hackly and I are abashed about Morocco.

We're having wombat fritters for Xmas dinner, I tell ya what.

So when's round 3? (And will the deadlines be extended at all to factor in holiday cheer and those of us who will be staying with relatives with miserable internet connections?)