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Billy has been following a treasure hunt since he moved. Now, he's stumped! He just uncovered a clue:

CLUE: )?006¶5*) 6)05*† )-

Where does he go now?

Hint 1:

I didn't pick the name Billy Leg for no reason!

Hint 2:

What's the full form of Billy? Maybe we can also think about a full form of Leg!

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    $\begingroup$ Have you seen Code Puzzles: What Not To Do? Some of the advice given there might be useful. $\endgroup$
    – Deusovi ♦
    Commented Sep 8, 2020 at 17:05
  • $\begingroup$ @Deusovi -- It may be helpful for someone to catch on to the hints in the puzzle. $\endgroup$
    – Voldemort's Wrath
    Commented Sep 8, 2020 at 17:17
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    $\begingroup$ Why the 4 downvotes? $\endgroup$
    – Voldemort's Wrath
    Commented Sep 10, 2020 at 11:41
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    $\begingroup$ You might have people who hate you here that is why. $\endgroup$
    – user62973
    Commented Sep 10, 2020 at 21:30
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    $\begingroup$ I wouldn't go assuming this is anything personal. It's probably because this puzzle didn't really have an accessible 'in'. Presented with only a short ciphertext and a very niche literary reference, people just did not know where to begin. I would recommend at least adding a literature tag as a hint before self-explaining, and maybe even offering different clues that would point towards the Poe story (ideally within the text from the start, then just point to them on first hint). Hey, you win some you lose some. Keep going :) $\endgroup$
    – Stiv
    Commented Sep 12, 2020 at 7:37

1 Answer 1

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If we look at the ciphertext and the name Billy Leg, we can ascertain that this is the

Gold Bug Cipher from Poe's short story (involving William LeGrand). This is essentially a simple substitution cipher.

So we can decode this as

SULLIVANS ISLAND SC (Sullivan's Island, South Carolina; which is where the Poe story takes place)

So he needs to go to

Sullivan's Island, South Carolina next!

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    $\begingroup$ Searching for Billy Leg without any additional literary knowledge gets you nowhere close to the clues that this is from a work of literature, unfortunately. $\endgroup$
    – Bewilderer
    Commented Sep 11, 2020 at 17:37
  • $\begingroup$ @Bewilderer -- If someone had read the story, they would also have recognized the characters used in the cipher. $\endgroup$
    – Voldemort's Wrath
    Commented Sep 11, 2020 at 18:19
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    $\begingroup$ @Voldemort'sWrath I'm not sure that's the case, considering that a lot of people looked at this and nobody solved it. (I've seen the cipher before and didn't recognize the characters.) Either way, if someone hadn't known of it, they would have absolutely no way of finding this. $\endgroup$
    – Deusovi ♦
    Commented Sep 11, 2020 at 19:38
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    $\begingroup$ @Voldemort'sWrath Don't be disheartened by the negative feedback on this one, I think the main problem with this one is just that the intuitive leap on the name was a step too far. However the idea was great and your other puzzles are awesome, so don't give up making your puzzles, they are wonderful :) $\endgroup$
    – Sciborg
    Commented Sep 12, 2020 at 3:40

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