Friday 11 November 2011

"Puzzles"

After my last post, I continued to do what I had done; wander. The ground is too hard to allow me to rest comfortably, regardless of what I do to attempt to cushion myself. I kept walking; kept waiting for salvation.


And I found it; no, I found something. A door, slightly ajar. I staggered over to it; but before I could do so, my leg gave way, and I found myself sprawled on the floor. The laptop is damaged, but not broken. My digestive system did not take quite so kindly to the sudden jolt, and I soon found myself... forcefully evacuating my stomach, you could say. It seems that my time in this place has largely been a conga line of injuries and traumas. Ugh.


After dragging myself (and the laptop) to the door, I climbed inside; the sweet aroma of food danced through my nostrils. I didn't even know what it was, but I was ravenous all the same. The room I was in contained a plate of food (which I wolfed down without even comprehending what it was), and some support to bind to my leg to allow it to heal. After doing so (quite inexpertly), I turned my attention to the last item on the desk before me, and the rest of the room around me.


On the desk was a single sheet of A4 paper, along with a single, black biro pen. The room is mostly bare, apart from the table, the chair I was sitting on and a safe next to a door on the far side of the room. The door is looked, with it's keyhole exposed. The safe is not too large; the door of it is largely composed of an alphabet and numberpad. I'd call it a "keyboard", but it's not arranged in a QWERTY fashion. It's laid out in alphabetical order, and arranged like so.


A B C D E F G H I
J K L M N O P Q R
S T U V W X Y Z 1
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0


That looks about right, I think. As I examined it, I heard a noise coming from... somewhere. I think, in hindsight, that it may have come from the safe itself.


"Greetings, Paragon," the voice said; A. "You are suffering, my child; so I shall help you, as I have helped you." A dry chuckle. "But giving everything to those who do nothing is the way of despair, even for beings as patient and caring as I. If you succeed, you shall live. If you fail..." Another chuckle, this one far more sinister. "Well, let us not dwell on that."


There was a brief pause. "The aim of the game is quite simple; the consequences, too, are simple, as earlier outlined. You will have-" and there was a sudden burst of static here - "to solve this little puzzle of mine; you may seek outside assistance through the blog. The puzzle is as follows. You may wish to write this down."


There was another pause as I grabbed the pen and placed it over the paper, writing down what they said. "Riddle me this. (6-2-26-18-2-1-18 6-18-1-17-6 14 16-5-12 19-2-5 21-18-25-3) (2-9-18-5-25-12 10-2-5-5-22-18-17 19-2-5 7-21-18-22-5 6-14-19-18-7-12 2-19 16-2-8-5-6-18) (6-2 10-21-14-7 6-2-5-7 2-19 26-18-6-6-14-20-18 10-2-8-25-17 7-21-18-12 6-18-1-17)? The challenge begins now."


 Naturally, they read the numbers/hyphens/brackets out; but blow me if I'm going to actually type them all out. And, first things first, I am totally stumped. Hm... they said that I could access outside help via the blog, which is this... could I get some help through the comments, I wonder?

10 comments:

  1. My first assumption since no number is larger than 26 is that each number is a letter of the alphabet. This gives the first 4 letters as FBZR. That's pretty meaningless but if you run it through an ROT13 cypher that gives you SOME. I don't have the time to crack the whole thing at the moment but that should put you on the trail.

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  2. Oh, this is what they meant.

    So, I should be converting all the numbers to letters? I don't know what ROT13 is...

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  3. "SOMEONE SENDS A CRY FOR HELP OVERLY WORRIED FOR THEIR SAFETY OF COURSE SO WHAT SORT OF MESSAGE WOULD THEY SEND" Er I may have made a mistake but this is pretty specific so I doubt it.

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  4. I believe that's a question. What would the answer be?

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  5. How would you ask someone for help without giving away too much information that could make you vulnerable...It really is something to ponder.

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  6. I worked it out myself, only to find that someone else had done much the same.

    I put the punctuation in though. "(SOMEONE SENDS A CRY FOR HELP) (OVERLY WORRIED FOR THEIR SAFETY OF COURSE) (SO WHAT SORT OF MESSAGE WOULD THEY SEND)?"

    I think I'm almost there... think, think, think.

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  7. A response.

    Forgive me if my imagination is falling short today.

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  8. No, what kind of cry for help message would the person worried for their safety send?

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  9. Would there be a timeline to this challanege? I belive the answer is simple enough, but I won't help unless your life depends on it, it serves you better to determine the answer yourself.

    See you around
    -Cage

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