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 Forum index » Archive » Archive: General » Old News & Rumors
[pre-ARG] akalesh-ascendant
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Giskard
Sassypants


Joined: 07 Oct 2003
Posts: 2066
Location: Chicago

 		Re: Solves to remaining Akalesh puzzles
Sin Vraal wrote:
I solved Beethoven, 90% of the next one (thanks to Strifey for figuring what to do with my results!), and then Strifey and I plowed through the last two in tandem like the good ol' days playing RiddlePlanet.

Note to PM's - don't name puzzle pieces in a manner able to be guessed, eh? I guess it's just desserts for a broken sudoku Rolling Eyes

See attached spreadsheet.


You've missed this post I think, Darkphan?
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 07, 2005 8:01 am
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drizjr
Unfictologist


Joined: 28 Nov 2003
Posts: 1700

 		So it's done then?
Kudos to SinVraal, strifey, and all the contributors to solving this trail.
For those of us who can't download excel; could you please give a recap of the solves?
At least that way, I can see all the pretty pages. Smile
Thanks.

PostPosted: Sun Aug 07, 2005 2:45 pm
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rowan
Unfictologist

Joined: 12 Apr 2004
Posts: 1966

 		Puzzle 6[b]
Spoiler (Rollover to View):
The (mostly) final word list was: Machiavelli, Luther, Bellini, Kepler, Caravaggio, Calvin, Botticelli, Michaelangelo, Bacon, Titian, Raphael, Medici, Nunes, Da Vinci, Eyck, Orta

[Nardi and Rudin were not used. There are also 2 more letters (M & U) that are not part of the final solution, but that do not seem to be part of any name that can be found]

Now if you take the unused letters you get: abuyusufyaqubibnishaqalsabbahalkindihtml

Abu Yusuf Yaqub ibn Ishaq al-Sabbah al-Kindi was a 9th century Iraqi philospher.

http://www.akalesh-ascendant.com/abuyusufyaqubibnishaqalsabbahalkindi.html


7[b] is a picture of arabic writing.
Spoiler (Rollover to View):
The picture "translates" into the following English letters:
If you assign the first symbol "a", second symbol "b" and so on, you get this "translation":

abcdedfghaijklce
hgaikjchbefihekm
ncfgdhgdbjeifigkh
fecjcihefdcdbed
hedcjckfigcdkecj
hifdbecihgjbedc
hgihkfgihiffdeb
hkfihedcbekhcbk
hdebihkhecjkbcgk
ciciedkhfdbhikg
cbhjckhbdiebick
hgebhcbkdcbcfk

If you take the frequency* of each "letter" you get:
a 3
b 18
c 25
d 18
e 20
f 14
g 12
h 25
i 19
j 9
k 19
l 1
m 1
n 1

Now, you just have to take the number you get for the frequency, and map it to its corresponding letter of the alphabet: cryptanalysisaaa

This gives us the answer: cryptanalysis
http://www.akalesh-ascendant.com/cryptanalysis.html

* See Sin's note below about another typo that appears in this puzzle.


8[b] is a picture of symbols and numbers
Spoiler (Rollover to View):
The symbols are from the Mayan calandar. You can use this page to decode it.

The date decodes to Friday 15th March -43. This is the day that Julius Caesar was assassinated making the answer: caesar

http://www.akalesh-ascendant.com/caesar.html


The End[b]
Spoiler (Rollover to View):
This is a picture of text with what looks like every other word letter missing. If you check out the source code, you see that the picture is called "msg1.gif".

Sin made the guess that if this is msg1.gif, there is probably a msg2.gif - and so there is: http://www.akalesh-ascendant.com/msg1.gif

If you put them together it reads:
Welcome to the end of the trail, for
now.

The purpse of this branching trail
was to give you, our players, a
glipse of how Akalesh is laid out.

Multiple trails to solve, multiple
stories to follow and interact with. If
one doesn't interest you, just wait.
Give the next storyline a shot! Play
as many, or as few, storylines as you
wish. The decision is left to you.

When Akalesh launches, you will be
immersed in a universe with a variety
of characters - each one with their
own life, habits, and mentality.
Some may or may not factor into
the game...they may just exist! The
universe of Akalesh could be taking
placy right outside your door...even
now.

Thank you for participating in our
trail, and check back...we may just
have more surprises in store for you!


edit: fixed a couple of errors based upon incomplete info and me just being silly
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 07, 2005 3:36 pm
Last edited by rowan on Sun Aug 07, 2005 8:48 pm; edited 2 times in total
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blaqueice
Decorated


Joined: 15 Jun 2005
Posts: 287
Location: Vancouver, Canada

 		what about the (A) trail?
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 07, 2005 4:37 pm
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shambles
Veteran

Joined: 23 Jun 2005
Posts: 129
Location: Galway, Ireland
Phaedra wrote:
shambles wrote:
Phaedra wrote:
addlepated wrote:
shambles wrote:
Methinks they fear your awesome powers of deduction... Rolling Eyes

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!


Ozy?

Oh, it's you. Nvmd.


Question Watchoo talkin' bout, Phaedra? Who's you? Gawd maybe I just need more sleep...


Addlepated's reference is to Shelley's Ozymandias, the same poem from which our own Ozy_y2k takes his name.

The line addlepated quoted is the supposed words of Ozymandias, so hence the "Ozy?" The "you" is addlepated.

Capisce? Smile


Of course! How exceedingly obvious!

*shambles' brain quivers, jellylike, before imploding squishily

Drool

Dunce = me, apparently.
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 07, 2005 6:25 pm
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Sin Vraal
Decorated


Joined: 28 Nov 2002
Posts: 219
Location: NJ

 		sigh
drizjr wrote:
So it's done then?
Kudos to SinVraal, strifey, and all the contributors to solving this trail.
For those of us who can't download excel; could you please give a recap of the solves?
At least that way, I can see all the pretty pages. Smile
Thanks.


No no no.

There are two trails that split from the music - furelise and beethoven.

We solved through the Beethoven path to its end, but the broken sudoku prevented us from getting to the end of the second path.

Instead, because of a poor gif naming convention used by the PM's (msg1.gif) it was really easy to go to msg2.gif which was obviously the end of the second path.

We have not, however, finished the second path legitimately - there's probably 2-3 puzzles left including the sudoku.

So that's what we're trying to do.

PostPosted: Sun Aug 07, 2005 7:03 pm
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Sin Vraal
Decorated


Joined: 28 Nov 2002
Posts: 219
Location: NJ

 		No no no
No no no #2.

Rowan - you got a few things wrong:

1) cryptanalysis as a puzzle has two flaws that aren't in my spreadsheet:
a) there is an 18=r that should be a 16=p, except that both 18's (for 'b' and 'd') are accurate counts. I think it's a typo in the puzzle. I think when Strife figured out this answer from the frequency analysis, he corrected the typo but didn't tell me to watch out for it, and I stupidly didn't count myself as I put the solution into the spreadsheet I posted.
b) there are no "padded a's", just one extra a which I think must also be a typo - I reckon that there shouldn't have been an extra unique character floating around.

2) the Arabic didn't translate to the letters I used, it was just a convention giving the first unique symbol an 'a' then the second one a 'b' and so forth to do what I thought would be substitution, but turned out not to need it.

3) In the one I labeled The End, it's every other letter missing, not every other word.

PostPosted: Sun Aug 07, 2005 7:05 pm
Last edited by Sin Vraal on Sun Aug 07, 2005 7:21 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Sin Vraal
Decorated


Joined: 28 Nov 2002
Posts: 219
Location: NJ

 		yea
blaqueice wrote:
what about the (A) trail?


See my note 2 above this. We're still trying to solve it.

PostPosted: Sun Aug 07, 2005 7:11 pm
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rowan
Unfictologist

Joined: 12 Apr 2004
Posts: 1966

 		Re: No no no
Sin Vraal wrote:
No no no #2.

Rowan - you got a few things wrong:

1) cryptanalysis as a puzzle has two flaws that aren't in my spreadsheet:
2) the Arabic didn't translate to the letters I used...<snip>


Okay. Since I didn't try to recreate these solves, I just went by the info that was available in the spreadsheet. I obviously made a few assumptions that were faulty.

Sin Vraal wrote:
3) In the one I labeled The End, it's every other letter missing, not every other word.

And this is just me typing one thing while meaning something else.

I'll make notes in my previous post to clarify.
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 07, 2005 8:42 pm
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Sin Vraal
Decorated


Joined: 28 Nov 2002
Posts: 219
Location: NJ

 		Re: No no no
rowan72 wrote:
Sin Vraal wrote:
No no no #2.

Rowan - you got a few things wrong:

1) cryptanalysis as a puzzle has two flaws that aren't in my spreadsheet:
2) the Arabic didn't translate to the letters I used...<snip>


Okay. Since I didn't try to recreate these solves, I just went by the info that was available in the spreadsheet. I obviously made a few assumptions that were faulty.

Sin Vraal wrote:
3) In the one I labeled The End, it's every other letter missing, not every other word.

And this is just me typing one thing while meaning something else.

I'll make notes in my previous post to clarify.


Heh no problem - I was posting to help clarify, not to poke at ya =)

PostPosted: Sun Aug 07, 2005 10:17 pm
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miss_seph
Unfettered


Joined: 05 Aug 2004
Posts: 395
Location: New Zealand

 		The kudos for this puzzle goes to TaoZero - I don't think anyone could have solved this if Tao hadn't picked out the Japanese name from the letters.

To Tao: Dude, you should have posted!!

Spoiler (Rollover to View):

According to Vraal's spreadsheet, there are 6 sets of letters, only one should be right:
OTUACKARGWAEIUMAYESSNEA
OTUALKARGWAEIUMAYESSNEA
OTUACKARGNAEIUMAYESSNEA
OTUALKARGNAEIUMAYESSNEA
OTUACKARGWAEIUMAYESSWEA
OTUALKARGWAEIUMAYESSWEA

Using Taozero's name find, TOKUGAWA IYEASU, we know only 4 of these strings have a 'W' for it:
OTUACKARGWAEIUMAYESSNEA
OTUALKARGWAEIUMAYESSNEA
OTUACKARGWAEIUMAYESSWEA
OTUALKARGWAEIUMAYESSWEA

Removing this shogun guy's name from each of these left:
CAREMASNE
LAREMASNE
CAREMASWE
LAREMASWE

Playing with these + TOKUGAWA IYEASU, I came up with only one thing that worked:
TOKUGAWA IYEASU'S REAL NAME - this uses string #2 of the 4 above
This was easy to look up and gives the answer:
http://www.akalesh-ascendant.com/matsudairatakechiyo.html


*falls in a great heap on the floor* Thankgod THAT"s over
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 08, 2005 8:53 pm
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Sin Vraal
Decorated


Joined: 28 Nov 2002
Posts: 219
Location: NJ

 		hm
PNG stenography. Who likes? I'm not up for playing the "find the steg program and guess the keyword" game. Anyone actually good at it?

PostPosted: Mon Aug 08, 2005 9:47 pm
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miss_seph
Unfettered


Joined: 05 Aug 2004
Posts: 395
Location: New Zealand

 		Re: hm
Sin Vraal wrote:
PNG stenography. Who likes? I'm not up for playing the "find the steg program and guess the keyword" game. Anyone actually good at it?


I found a PNG steg program, which desteg's too. Doesn't reckon the pic is stegged.

In the interests of sharing resources: http://www.scorbett.ca/projects/viewProject.php?pid=22#download is where I got the app from. it's a cute little java app
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XBL: SephNZ

PostPosted: Mon Aug 08, 2005 9:48 pm
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Sin Vraal
Decorated


Joined: 28 Nov 2002
Posts: 219
Location: NJ

 		Re: hm
miss_seph wrote:
Sin Vraal wrote:
PNG stenography. Who likes? I'm not up for playing the "find the steg program and guess the keyword" game. Anyone actually good at it?


I found a PNG steg program, which desteg's too. Doesn't reckon the pic is stegged.

In the interests of sharing resources: http://www.scorbett.ca/projects/viewProject.php?pid=22#download is where I got the app from. it's a cute little java app


Well couldn't do it with Invisible secrets either, or at least i didn't know the password.

I didn't find any hidden text opening it in Notepad neither.

Anyone know how to do the picture pallette lightening thing to see if it's done up in the background like invisible ink?

PostPosted: Mon Aug 08, 2005 11:11 pm
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OrlandO
Boot


Joined: 20 May 2005
Posts: 64
Location: a lume spento

 		Histaeus uncamouflaged
The password that works with Uncamouflage is
Spoiler (Rollover to View):
"herodotus"
ie, I made a lucky guess: the historian who reported the Histaeus story


The hidden file is
Spoiler (Rollover to View):
whatami.jpg
.

This leads to Puzzle 9, if I am correct?:

Spoiler (Rollover to View):
http://www.akalesh-ascendant.com/human.html

whatami.jpg
 Description   
 Filesize   42.45KB
 Viewed   70 Time(s)

whatami.jpg
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 09, 2005 6:35 am
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