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[thebruce]

No hint seems to be directly tied to another, other than continuing that number series, no expansion on how to solve, rather than some other indirect tip for which we can't seem to find a use

characters and symbols... only brought me back to the periodic table, atomic numbers and whatnot. But no further luck there, nothing that seems to produce 14,4,10,etc...

Even by letters, N,D,J,F,F,H,etc...

The visual shapes have patterns, but we no starting point for any sequence/word, let alone the intended shape.

tips:
folding, character (development) symbolism, predictable patterns, no substitution or playing with story, "truth" in the chaos, no math, letter for letter top to bottom, "context" is still in store, think inside the box(es), keep it simple...

how the heck does that all fit together? What unused assets are we actually supposed to be using?
unexplained oddities:
Two blog posts of 416 characters, the 2/(4)/13 diagram, the 26x16 grid, two phrases of 32 characters (2x16) each, two other letters from The Organization mentioning elements and program acronyms...

too many odd things that stand out, it's hard to tell what's applicable here.

None of the hints we've been given seem to support the idea that this is a "simple" puzzle


ETA:
I've updated the puzzles page on the wiki with all the tips we've been given so far
http://felicity.wikibruce.com/Puzzles#Unsolved

[booba]

Completely lost.

IF. IF. IF.

If we're were done with Dante, and IF, IF to turns out to be "LIGHT OF TRUTH" Shakespeare could be next???

Painfully to pore upon a book
To seek the light of truth; while truth the while
Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look. (1.1.73)

ETA:
I suppose the diagram could the two symbols for Earth and Fire??

[jessie1326]

[lhall]

I'm diving in on this one! Hopefully putting some fresh eyes on it will help unlock the mysteries...please forgive me for asking lots of questions as I get up to speed.

[thebruce]

For group brainstorming, public google doc spreadsheet of the grid is available at
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ag-pJ9to6xmzdGkyOVB6bkJZaFJadjBqUmxFZmJ5anc#gid=0

[lhall]

My inventory of instructions:
Keep it simple
Stay inside the boxes/grids
There's no math involved
"Letter for letter, top to bottom until my message is clear" ?? Not sure on this one, it seems to be a direction to follow patterns in the grid.
Uses a predictable pattern
No substitutions, no "playing with the story"
"Let the reader find truth in the chaos"
Drama unfolds/interpret - either a reference to the plays, or what thebruce pointed out ("Could we be looking for vector-type patterns? A starting point and angle (+x, +y), which is reflected for the 2nd half, or something like that? ") or both
Where are the number strings coming from? "Character development and symbolism for my story that still needs telling" (character and symbol could just be saying letter/number, or could refer to something else completely)

Initial thoughts:

What's known - we're receiving sets of paired numbers, and applying them to the first blog post grid reveals a word, and the pattern that the word follows.

So it seems that we're looking for sets of paired numbers.

To me, it looks like "drama unfolds/interpret" could be either (or both?) a reference to the fact that the patterns both appear as reflections, or a hint to look at character names from the literature/plays referenced (in my mind, character development and symbolism supports that, as well as the nod to rabbits in the original note, since the blog post refers to Beatrix Potter).

But trying it with VIRGIL may or may not have worked...

VIRGIL = 22,9 - 18,7 - 9,12 = AGOTSPEL or YTISOJLE - this doesn't feel quite right, because the number pairs didn't line up into a perfectly clear pattern, and following the pattern that appeared obvious meant there was no top right part of the V…

Still, at least AGOTSPEL could conceivably be part of a sentence. (Though the hints being single words only might speak against that.)

Another try:

PETER (as in Peter Rabbit) = 16,5 - 20,5 - 18,? = GRNTOL or SOKITW. If this isn't a cipher, this is probably wrong.

I think it's worth trying with a couple of other names, but if it doesn't yield anything, I'll try a different tack. However! I'm at a roadblock because I don't know if there have been other things referenced or if there are specific names that we should be trying to encode and decipher. (The original string, incidentally, becomes NDJFFHJJNLJDLFNHLJJL. Not useful.)

Can we find either TRUTH or CHAOS in the grid, that would fit a regular pattern?...



Another thing:

Could top and bottom (from the hint) be birds and rabbits? Free and capture seem to be instructions for keeping or scratching out letters, which would be supported by the pen. Too many cryptic crosswords…


Back to it...

[lhall]

Any thoughts on what else might contain the strings of numbers?

The two PDF letters don't have anything that jumps out at me (need to read more about the elements and metal connections), and it's not clear if they're there only for story purposes or if they actually contain something.

If they don't contain anything, then my best theory is that the strings are names or symbols from classic/classical literature and plays...but there's not much evidence to support that.

Plus, given that the hints were just random strings when they go from numbers back to letters, I'm not sure if it's the right approach.

Bah.

I've also been trying to play with the 123->4 pattern from the Waco dropbox envelope, on top of the grid and based on the established patterns, but it's yielding nothing so far.

The more I look at it, though, the more I think the "freed bird" is the 4 on that thing, and the rabbit is...whatever it's pointing at. Does that make sense in the context of the rest of the clues/evidence/blog/anything?

[thebruce]

1-2-3-4, d'oh, I didn't even think of that. Not that it helps my thinking at all, but I always saw it as 2-4-13...

Yeah, if this is supposed to be "simple", it's certainly stumping a whole load of puzzle-minded people.

[lhall]

Also, poking around a bit, I get the Beatrix -> Dante and Virgil -> Aeneid thing, but there's nothing else that seems like it would be a connection to classical literature ("my Steve", Peter) that I've come across. Is there anything else that's cropped up, that I'm just overlooking?

It could mean that all of our references are meant to be derived from those sources.


Also, I've been told that the BadBunny app screen and audio file from http://felicityvelius.com/?p=56 don't turn up anything...what do we make of the fact that Peter is spelled "Petter"?

[thebruce]

Another unexplained oddity

[lhall]

[jessie1326]

Trying to talk this out last night with a friend, he pointed out that the "lucky numbers" can't be coming from a straight letter-substitution of some kind, or we'd be able to reverse engineer them back into words.

I really like the idea that we may be searching for what Bruce called a "vector" clue. I've also been counting the number of letters in the words of various things, hoping that it might produce some lucky numbers. nada.

Also, one thing that has bugged me about the solve we have so far is that it uses the second blog post (chronologically speaking), and not the first. I suppose it's just another as-yet-unexplained oddity...

I really try to avoid being too meta when things get rough, but I feel like we're on (or past!) the verge of needing a giant neon sign that points to the first step. I know I personally am getting pretty worn down just staring at the grids and hoping something magically appears.

[lhall]

[thebruce]

Welp, BIG update - hopefully this will give us the nudge we need...
http://felicityvelius.com/?p=64

(emphasizing content for possible tips)

[lhall]