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[la!uep]

Great progress catherwood, and thanks for sharing!

Looks like the heart is urdu #5

That "14" is odd because the 1 is flipped horizontally while the 4 is flipped vertically rotated 180 degrees. I couldn't find those in other scripts, although only looked here.

ETA can't yet see how this could relate... the third result I get is this.

ETA2: *crickets* sooo, it's been a couple of days and not a word... six?? is that all we'll hear about it? want to fill us in? guide us further? looks like catherwood's turn if we don't hear from you soon?

[sixsidedsquare]

Has it really been a couple of days? How time flies. I was amazed how many cather got so fast, she does have a knack for this sort of thing. You're very close, just need the last one and it is among the ones listed here:

[GreenWindmill]

[Rogi Ocnorb]

Good job.
I kinda stopped looking for stuff when the link for "alphabetum" under "Latin/Roman" tried to drop a trojan on my machine.
And, I agree. catherwood is kinda savant in this area.

[la!uep]

Ahh grisly murders! If they happened only in Agatha Christie's novels, well, we wouldn't have Agatha Christie's novels.

So, catherwood or Windmill, got anything to tickle this bored brain?

[sixsidedsquare]

Yup, that's it. Here I thought I'd be safe for a few days saying a number for a google result, but the one I was referring to jumped to 2 (the perfect murder one) in that short a time. Reinforces that it's normally best to avoid specifics when using volatile media in a puzzle (like wikipedia pages or google results).

And cather, perhaps the puzzle this reminded you of was one in that Pirates of the Caribbean trail a while back: http://www.volvocars.com/thehunt/uk/Pages/4321S2053W.aspx

So who's up now? Cather or GreenWindmill?

[la!uep]

I could also do as six and dust off the last one from my archives, if you all want? This is the one with funky letter arithmetic, but it's actually quite straightforward. However, I'd rather earn the right to post it if cather or Windmill have anything.

[GreenWindmill]

I can't possibly take credit for that solve - Catherwood all the way!

[catherwood]

thanks for the props, i'm flattered. But also thanks for the backup, as i did kinda run out of steam for finding those last two glyphs.

I don't make puzzles. I could recommend digging thru some other puzzle sites, such as http://www.greylabyrinth.com/puzzles if you get desperate for more...

[la!uep]

Thanks for the link catherwood. Sure, there are dozens if not hundreds of puzzles to try out there. Just tried a few of them on that site and some of them are just absurd, pointless. In contrast, the quality of both puzzlers and puzzle creators here is top notch. But what I like most about this thread is seeing you geniuses go through the solve process, or perhaps getting a rare peep at the creative process. The little excuses we make for something that didn't go well are priceless.

Come on GreenWindmill, don't be shy!

[la!uep]

Alright I'll just post this but I'm rooting for Windmill, so I'm not giving any hints (at least for a couple of days, but I doubt it'll last that long). I wish I had thought of a subtler way to hint about those rules there in the top of it, but that's all I got. It still doesn't explain everything out so I guess it's not too bad of a compromise.



777 444 3 3 555 33 # 33 2 777 8 44

[Rogi Ocnorb]

Here's a random collection of stuff related to the puzzle:
(Paste it into notepad to line it up since the code and spoiler tags hate each other so much.)

[Molnar]

But the dawn is brief and the day full often belies its promise.

[sixsidedsquare]

I think you've got your results mixed up there Rogi. Notice that each equation only uses numbers up to the number of letters in the corresponding names. So first I'd imagine you replace those with the letters then do the arithmetic, like this for the first one:

SHELOB
123+456
= SHE+LOB
= 18*7*4 + 11*14*1
= 504 + 154
= 658
= 8 (modulo 26)

I'll get to working through the others, unless someone else beats me.

Oh, and for anyone that didn't catch what Rogi meant about the background image and header:

[la!uep]

Good job everyone.

Rogi, the missing 'e' letters not only provide very slight obfuscation for the quotes, and just a small intitial incentive for practically anyone who began to work on it ("oooh it's LotR! kewl!!"), but also make the hinted pronouns (he, she, her) just a tiny bit more ambiguous. Like, 'hr' could have been 'here'. These days I wouldn't have hinted (bolded) the right pronouns, which would leave the first quote unresolved between 'Sauron' and 'Shelob' (a mistake someone still made when this originally aired, even with the bolded hints). Then it would need to be resolved after all the others were set and the corresponding letter could be worked out in reverse.

Thanks, six. I searched myself for the equations trying some quote answers and knowing the solution I wanted, with a little help from Excel. The spreadsheet I made is attached in case you're interested.

So, unless there's been an incredibly fortuitous coincidence, I believe it's Molnar's turn. Welcome back!