Cryptos

[kuang]

You've already worked out the the second clue, by spotting the *th column

The item you're looking for isn't the painting itself, but something in it..

..and you will need to use a cipher, but a simple one fortunately!

[domino]

You've already worked out the the second clue, by spotting the *th column

The item you're looking for isn't the painting itself, but something in it..

..and you will need to use a cipher, but a simple one fortunately!

*my computer is about to suffer a trauma injury*

a=z 5d=irmrrzfx

mirror cipher 5d=cuaiinir

Aggghhhhh!

off to drink some now! Thanks Kuang.

not the *th *-1th column

*feels very sheepish*

[armadillo_pie]

Eap

I go off to a conference for 10 days and come back hoping that someone has cracked this level, but alas... it seems we're very much right where we left off.

Regarding the Poe connection, I sent an email with that question to our crypt keeper. Here's that exchange:

Q: I was wondering if you might let me know if the title of the page "Amontillado, anyone?" and the fact that Edgar Allan Poe wrote a short story entitled "The Cask of Amontillado" in which an enemy was buried alive in the wine crypt, is merely coincidental, or if there's a clue in that?

A: Just a literary allusion. Nothing to write home about.

So, there you have it.

I, too, have been trying action commands hoping to trigger the door or summon help in some way. I even looked up the local police, emergency and fire response information, but didn't find anything useful.

I just took a look on the map of where this place is supposed to be, and one street over what do we have?

We have Playfair Road. I'm hoping this is just a coincidence and not suggestive of a Playfair cipher.

[Jase]

Can't really be a playfair as we have nothing encrypted to go on ... so still stuck and *PHEW*

[fred]

l35 playfair

Please play fair. Can't see that encryption toy in use here, thank goodness. Somehow we need just to say something that either causes something to happen to open the door, or just to cause us (like a command) to go through the door which has opened on its own (or the command of someone else, like the absent Nakamoto?). 1) lights on; 2) Nakamoto absent; 3) door shut tight. Those three things and the cell phone for googling. That's what we have -- and the fershlaginner (polite expletive) clues. Once again, I get

1)Douglas for xmas tree; 2) Smith for economics; 3)3 for lithium; 4) 7 for nitrate (growth hormone); 5) 92 for uranium (thermonuclear)

I don't know what to do with [smear]. Could be 'war' or 'disaster' or 'accident' or whatever. It's all too wide open to get a handle on, so we'll have to wait for one of us to stumble on it by chance.

[Cryptos]

You're looking for a destination.

[armadillo_pie]

Thanks, Cryptos!

I think I have left the building...

Before I start celebrating, I'm waiting on a reply from Cryptos. My "destination" is within the Cryptos realm, but it may not be where I am supposed to be, if that makes sense.

Once I know that I'm where one is supposed to arrive from the vault, I'll post a hint on where I am. If I'm completely off, I'll let you know.

[Jase]

did you get it armadillo?

[fred]

I take it from AP that there is no L36 page, not even a holding dummy page. If not, how can we know whether we've put up the right URL or not? And, we are told in the description that we escape from the cell, not the building. Cryptic, to say the least. I have "come". If I could find "go" we would have our oxymoron, of sorts.

[armadillo_pie]

Level 35 cracked

Cryptos replied and confirmed that I am in the right place. I'm now working on how to give a hint. Back soon.

This would be so much easier if I had actually solved the puzzle, but I didn't. I sort of guessed. When I saw Cryptos' hint, I asked myself, "If I'm not trapped in the vault, then where should I be?" That, plus the earlier reply I got from my first message to Cryptos, took me to the right place. Be specific.

@ Fred -- Just to clarify, I did not say that there wasn't a page at the destination. A valid URL will return a page

[fred]

OK. I gather you just weren't sure it was the right page. Anyway, congrats on solving this one. I said it would be by accident. Can you say anything about the method of solving? We've been going back and forth between anagramming the initial letters of the clue words and trying to get at the content meaning of the words and phrases. Maybe a mix of both? Are any numbers actually involved. It still seems a pretty open field to me, and I don't feel as lucky as you were. Congrats again.

[kuang]

Well done DOn't run too far ahead until we catch up

In hindsight, can you determine how the answer would have been derived from the puzzle?

[armadillo_pie]

I've tried to reverse-engineer the puzzle, but I don't really see any logically ordered connection at all. Not knowing how the puzzle is solved prevents me from knowing how it fits into the solution, so I'm really hesitant to comment on it much. The most I feel I can say is

The last line in the puzzle may have been intended as a gerund, but it could be something else that would have more of a direct connection.

I know that someone else has solved it. Perhaps that person cracked the puzzle and would like to share the method?

[Jase]

i still have no idea

[fred]

L 35 got it

Got it! And, no foolin' this time. It required a major flight of fancy and hitting about the seventeenth of about seventeen permutative possibilities. Since I've been begging for help for a couple of weeks, I will say that the letters for one proper part of the answer are in the puzzle, within the stuff we've been massaging all this time. I'm close to an algorithm. More soon, I hope.

OK. Get the full acronym for the words in the puzzle. Then play it in the key of C on your piano -- that is, white keys only. That accounts for the pattern needed to get the letters you need for part of the answer, but it does NOT explain how to get to this conclusion by way of the puzzle. I only worked it out after the fact, and it may be another monstrous coincidence.

A bit later:

Oh, never mind. I've been clued into a pattern that actually makes some relevant sense, though the connection is still pretty tenuous, in my view. I certainly shold have spotted it, but I didn't. Shame on me. Tear a stripe from my puzzle-solvers merit badge sash.