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Visual

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Transcripts

  1. 7#}) _{8 B9!B, # !7 9#)#}% 9@^@.            
#} (!I@ _{8 !^@ ^@!)#}% B9#I, _{8 9!7@ I{27@) IB@} {}@.          
#I _{8 !^@ B9#}I#}% 19!B B9@ @}87@^!B#{} 7@!}, _{8 !^@ ^#%9B.           
}@@)2@II B{ I!_, _{8 }@@) B9!B B{ I#}) 7@.             
# ^@IB 9@^@, IB@%!}{%^!}9#(!22_.            
{} I#})#}% 7@, # 9{}@ _{8 1#22 I@@2 B9@ }2@!I8^@.         
I{, # !7 }{B %8IB !}_B9#}%, # !7 ! 9@22 {I ! ({7@)_. 


!*( )@KJ9 #%SX VP{}& ^IB8712_ ?(2)

  2. AEDNI!DN

    This is not a joke = No. I did as nerdy!

    1. Painted rose causes distress(11)
    2. Area about old litre east is small area on cactus(6)
    3. Like every other seat meet(4)
    4. Sledge broke its head after page agreement(6)
    5. Couple of females replaced good heart to create misery(6)
    6. He heads off to cook revue operation(9)

    1. Jwh uvbl wyke, "Agooncoxblxui Qf Ho Kknbset, Rcixwlbvm ias Rvzfbrn."(1)(Cft lvpe if uml Nzahpzy!)

    2. bdpohnivyxbvpac

    3. qpduexlwswkjghgcrw


    ( 2 $\rightarrow$ 1 $\leftarrow$ 3 ) $\rightarrow$ Hint: 1996

    (Use hint once you discover brutally hidden two clues.)

  5. NIXNNNI NIXIXI NIXNXI NIIXNII NIXXNN NIIXXI NIXIIX NIIXXN

Chamber Q V G D T G X I V

That's it. That's all you got. Go ahead and unlock the twisted chamber of secrets!

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  • 3
    $\begingroup$ What, no ASCII art? :) The transcript to section 2 comes close, though. $\endgroup$
    – M Oehm
    Commented Apr 6, 2017 at 13:56
  • $\begingroup$ @MOehm Yeah. I wanted to add ASCII into this. But thought to keep it a separate affair ;) $\endgroup$
    – Techidiot
    Commented Apr 6, 2017 at 13:58
  • 3
    $\begingroup$ @Techidiot You write a puzzle book(manily ASCII characters). I am sure to buy it :P $\endgroup$
    – L.K.
    Commented Apr 6, 2017 at 15:30

3 Answers 3

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Individual answers

1:

The numbers in the top left are the same as the months that have circled numbers. Indexing into the months by their circled days, then reordering into the order in the top left gives MELODIOUS.

2:

The second letters (clued by (2)) of each line when decoded as M Oehm did spell INFERNO. (discovered by M Oehm)

3:

The two strings have the same length, ignoring spaces.

 THISISNOTAJOKE

 NOIDIDASNERDY!

Taking the letters in the upper string corresponding to the letters in the lower string (luckily, there aren't any ambiguities) gives an answer of NASTIEST.

4:

The cryptic clues' solutions are: DESPERATION*, A+RE+O+L+E (solved by dcfyj), SAME (alt), PLEDGE (solved by Ankoganit), SU(p→FF)ER (solved by Rubio), MAN+O_+(EUVER)* (solved by Ankoganit). Not sure what to do with those.

5:

Decoding 1 with both 2 and 3 as Vigenere keys gives "Its good band from" and "The area agoura hills", with some gibberish at the end.
Linkin Park is a band from Agoura Hills, so decoding 1 again with LINKIN PARK as the Vigenere key gives "You know what, "Steganography Is So Tactful, Enigmatic and Reputed."(1)(Use left as key Yzjxerl!)"

Decoding YZJXERL with SISTER (from the capitalized letters) gives GRREAAT.

6:

The I and X look suspiciously like Roman numerals for 1 and 10. But what could N be? Well, this looks like binary, but we don't have a way to encode 0 by itself at the moment - it has to be "nothing"! Replacing each letter by the string of 1s and 0s it encodes, then converting to ASCII gives an answer of AMESHUNT. (not a word, but confirmed as correct in chat - JAMES HUNT with J missing, perhaps?)

(According to Wikipedia, N was indeed used as "zero", standing for "nulla" or "nihil". The first known occurrence of this is in 525.)

Putting it together

Taking the first letter of each answer and the entirety of the last answer gives the phrase MIND GAMES HUNT. (This means 5/6 cryptic clues were unused.) Decrypting the box with that phrase gives a final answer of ENTANGLED.

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  • $\begingroup$ And, we have the conqueror of the Treasure :) $\endgroup$
    – Techidiot
    Commented Apr 7, 2017 at 9:17
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Partial answer to Section 2:

The message is a substitution cipher where lettersare represented by symbols. Spaces, full stops and commas are presevred, everything else is a letter. There seems to be some inconsistency with F/S and M/V, but I think the message reads:

   Mind you that, I am hiding here.
   In case you are reading this, you have solved step one.
   If you are thinking what the enumeration mean, you are right.
   Needless to say, you need that to find me.
   I rest here, steganographically.
   On finding me, I hope you will feel the pleasure.
   So, i am not just anything, I am a hell of a comedy.

The second letters – note the enumeration (2) below – spell INFERNO.

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  • $\begingroup$ Nice. A little bit of ASCII and you caught it :-) +1 $\endgroup$
    – Techidiot
    Commented Apr 6, 2017 at 14:32
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I have one of the cryptic clues for Pt.4 but can't figure out the others so I'm gonna go ahead and make this a community answer, so people can chip in with the rest.

  1. Painted rose causes distress(11)

    DESPERATION (distress), anagram (causes? causes distress?) of "painted rose"

  2. Like every other seat meet(4)

    SAME (def. "like" -> 'every other' letter of "seat meet")

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