Post by Deleted on Feb 22, 2019 8:06:13 GMT -5
READ ME FIRST
There are two mandatory steps for finding the key. First, one must discover the master riddle. Then one has to solve it.
Below is a detailed description of how to generate the master riddle. It is long and complicated. It leads to a five-sentence riddle.
I got as far as finding the riddle about a year ago. I had always assumed that, if one had the riddle, it would be fairly straightforward to move on and find the key.
I was wrong.
I have worked on the riddle since last June and have made very good progress on it, but I cannot quite complete it and have now given up.
For that reason I am posting this now.
I will wait until late March or early April for someone to finish Fandango. If no one is publicly identified as a solver by then, I’ll share all I know about decoding the riddle. My hope is that, by letting some of you take a crack at the riddle with fresh eyes, uncontaminated by exposure to my approach, the correct solve might be discovered.
If someone else can solve the riddle, I will be delighted and will make no claim towards the prize.
For now, I will be happy to answer any questions directly related to the initial solve, as long as they are respectful, but will not address anything else, in particular my thoughts on how to solve the riddle.
Good luck!
SUMMARY
One set of sub-puzzles assigns one of the five star-point colors to each of the 64 corners/stars as well as to the two additional stars that are not clearly identified with a specific corner.
A separate sub-puzzle leads to the construction of two Polybius squares that generate individual letters of the alphabet from ordered pairs of colors. The two squares are identical except for a 14-letter Caesar shift.
A final sub-puzzle establishes the route of the fox through the story. The sixteen illustrated panels are to be arranged in an ascending stack in the order they appear in the story, with the first panel at the bottom and the final panel at the top.
Using the single color assigned to each star, and the colors of the corresponding star points (5 per star) as inputs, a panel of letters, 5 across and 66 down, is generated by each of the Polybius squares, beginning with the lower left hand corner of the final (top) panel and spiraling downward in a clockwise direction to the same corner in the first (bottom) panel.
The five sentences of the riddle are read off from the two panels, moving back and forth between them when indicated.
Here is a list of the individual sub-puzzles. Every one of them must be solved to find the riddle.
1. Assigning colors to numbers
2. Assigning colors to panel sides
3. The clock puzzle
4. Establishing the two color-based Polybius squares
5. Establishing the route of the fox
6. Assigning colors to each of the 66 stars
7. Generating the two 5x66 panels
8. Reading the riddle off the panels
DETAILED SOLUTION
1. Assigning colors to numbers
Each of the five colors composing the star points is assigned a number based on the 4x4 grid on page 40. They are in order, blue, pink, orange, yellow, and red. (B, P, O, Y and R). Connecting the five digits in sequence with straight lines generates a star, suggesting that this numerical assignment is related to the star points as well.
2. Assigning colors to the panel sides
The signpost puzzle on page 44 leads to YELLOW, RED, and BOOK, suggesting we study the panel on page 30.
The orientation of the two books suggests that the left side of the panel be assigned yellow and the top of the panel red. This does rightly steer us towards assigning colors to the sides, but proves to be incorrect; the proper assignment requires a more detailed examination of the relevant panels.
On page 17, a number of visual clues as well as allusions from the border words point to “rose,” and the character instructs the fox to travel south, so it would be reasonable to assign R to the left panel.
Going back to page 30, the shadow of the blue pendant points west, suggesting that the right side of the panels be assigned B. This is confirmed by the character’s instruction to “Go West.”
An obvious theme of the same panel is geography, and the penguin (think Antarctica) on the orange book suggests that it is at the bottom. The fisherman is pointing with an orange finger and his instruction is to “head down East,” which fits with this. The finger, however, is pointing up. Perhaps the finger counts in the image (3,1,4) suggest moving 180 degrees, from top to bottom.
Taking the “last in line” (the last letters on each panel side of the panels with green borders, one can generate SEE RED YELLOW NEXT, which suggests the two colors are adjacent.
This all fits together with the following assignments:
Left: R
Bottom: O
Right: B
Top: Y
The three panels that direct the initial assignment of colors to borders are the 5th, 7th, and 9th. All are all odd-numbered. In contrast, three even-numbered panels, 4, 6, and 14, have border words alluding to flipping them both up and down and side-to-side. This is equivalent to rotating the color assignments by 180 degrees. We therefore maintain the original color assignments for the 8 odd-numbered panels and the rotated version for the other 8.
If one views the 16 panels as a stack that the fox moves through in a counterclockwise manner one-by-one as the story progresses, it would be helpful to have a vertical connector between consecutive panels. Panel 10, with its vertical pink bushes, suggests that we assign pink to these vertical connectors, efficiently utilizing all five colors.
3. The clock puzzle
The clock in panel 3 reads 4:05:03.
The clock in panel 12 reads 9:04:58.
The difference in time is very close to 5 hours, suggesting that the fox spends 30 minutes in each panel, but there are only 9 panels to traverse, not 10. The second hand provides the solution to this conundrum. If the fox moves to the next panel at precisely 5 or 35 minutes after the hour, then this works. In panel 3, he had arrived moments before, and in panel 11, in which he arrived at 8:35, he was just moments from leaving. We have no reason to believe that the color switch is linked to the movements of the fox. If, on the other hand, the color change occurs on the half-hour, then the upcoming color switch will occur shortly before the fox departs a particular panel. This will be critical later.
4. Establishing the two color-based Polybius squares
When two star points of the same color are found that intersect on a particular page, they pick out letters that generate words or near-words:
B: NUMBERS
P: OPE
R: RIDDLE
Y: TREUSRE
O: HIDFEN
The letters that are missing or wrong are: F, A, N, and D. This corresponds to the first half of FANDANGO, suggesting that we look for “the other half.”
The most logical order in which to put the words is:
NUMBERS
OPEN
HIDDEN
TREASURE
RIDDLE
The corresponding colors are in precisely the same order as those generated by the 4x4 grid.
The image on page 51 displays five eagles as well as two outstretched hands, each with five fingers clearly seen.
On page 37, the steps in front of the fireplace are in a 5x5 array.
Finally, there may be a rebus in image 23 consisting of:
POLLY (talking bird)
BE (the letters on the red shirt closest to the bird) and
US (the last two letters of Aeolus)
Taken all together, this suggests constructing a color-based Polybius square with the five colors substituting for the numbers 1-5 in the order specified above.
The next dilemma is which variation of a Polybius square to use.
In the first place, there are several variants employed to deal with the fact that there is one too many letters in the alphabet to be coded. This is quickly resolved by looking at the border words on page 15. On the right hand side the first three letters read “NO Q.”
The second question is how to fill in the letters of the alphabet. The sub-puzzle involving the 4x4 squares on pages 11, 17 and 40 leads to C-MASQUERADE-INHT/THNI-EDAREUQSAM-C.
This suggests inserting the letters of the alphabet in reverse order, rather than using the conventional top to bottom, left to right approach.
Finally, there is the matter of the dual Polybius squares. I never found a solid hint to suggest going down this road, and came to this conclusion only because I could only decode fragments of the panels with the initial Polybius square.
The word “seized” does appear on page 8, and one could argue that the fisherman omits “er” in his language, thus leading to a rebus along the lines of“seize”-“er.” This is the best I could do.
In any case, the degree of the shift is specified on page 23.
There are 64 colored tiles in the border. If one starts laying out the 25
letters of the square repeatedly, there is an excess of 14 (64-25-25) remaining. As a confirmer, yellow is the only border color absent from the floats, and the friendly crab is pointing at a yellow tile. Finally, there are 14 yellow tiles in the border.
The license plate (131491) generating ACADIA by assigning letters to their numerical position in the alphabet reinforces the notion of generating letters from numbers, or, as in this case, numbers coded by color.
While the colored star points seem to be natural inputs for the Polybius square, the second input remains undetermined.
5. Establishing the route of the fox
The cardinal directions, N, S, E, and W, are each assigned to one of the four corners of the panels. The upper and lower border words on page 23 suggest this assignment in a straightforward way, but there are three additional confirmers. The W in the capstone of the arch on page 32 contains a W near the top right corner, the end of the fox’s tail near the lower left corner of page 34 is shaped like an S, and the word EAST is hidden in the seaweed in the lower right corner on page 51.
In sequence, the fox is instructed, by four of the characters he encounters, to travel south, east, west, and finally, up. At the end of the story, after being dropped by the eagle, he travels (all the way) downward.
If we want the fox to travel to every corner in the book, he will need to move vertically from the last corner visited on each page to the corresponding corner going upward to the next page. This corresponds to a rising counterclockwise spiral. Connecting the stars with lines like this is reminiscent of the constellation images in panel 3.
Finally, it should be noted that on each panel, rather than completing an entire circuit, the fox travels a path looking like the letter C. If we look at the letters to which the porpoises are pointing on panel 2, we get a homophone for “see my C.” There are also many other scattered clues alluding to pi, which again correspond to a half-circle.
One group of clues suggests that we begin with a four-dimensional structure that has a corresponding three- and two-dimensional counterpart.
First of all, the woman in panel 14 bears a remarkable resemblance to Albert Einstein. Secondly, the speed limit sign in panel 13 is a homophone for 4-D. In panel 2, Neptune’s trident is pointing at the word “DEE,” corresponding to 3-D. Finally, “DEEP DOWN” hints at 2-D. The importance of this progression will become clear shortly.
We must also firmly establish a beginning and end point. The starting point is pointed out by the fox’s tail in the first panel. The end point is identified by the prominent green leaf pointing to the southern corner in the final panel
We now have the fox proceeding on an upward spiral journey starting at the lower left corner of the first panel and ending at the same corner of the last. At every corner he passes a star with five points of various colors. (There are two “oddball” stars that are not clearly identified with a specific corner.)
If we are to use the Polybius decoder, we need another input. We would suspect it is related to the colors of the panels’ sides, but we have two colors that meet at each corner. It is hard to see where to go with this. Might there be a way to generate a single color by combining two?
6. Assigning colors to each of the 66 stars
The answer is yes. Simply convert the colors back to their corresponding numbers and add them, remembering to incorporate the change indicated by the clock puzzle when indicated. If the sum is less than or equal to 5, we simply identify the new color with this number. If not, just subtract 5 from the sum. In this way we always wind up with a number between 1 and 5. This operation is referred to as modulo 5. Is there a hint that supports this approach?
Yes again. Look at the row of orange dashes on panel 3. There is a small number 8 on top of the first dash. 8 modulo 5 is 3, which is the correct number for O(range).
The following table summarizes how each pair of colors generates a single color using the modulo 5 approach:
1. B
2. P
3. O
4. Y
5. R
R+B= 6 ---> 1 ---> B
O+B= 4 ---> 4 ---> Y
O+R= 8 ---> 3 ---> O
P+B= 3 ---> 3 ---> O
P+O= 5 ---> 5 ---> R
P+Y= 6 ---> 1 ---> B
P+R= 7 ---> 2 ---> P
We now have a 3-dimensional rectangular array composed of a stack of 16 panels. At each corner we have the five colors of the corresponding star and the color corresponding to the corner. Using the Polybius decoder, we can now generate a 2-dimensional panel of letters that is 5 elements across and 66 down (there are 66 stars in the puzzle). We obtain the letters by inputting the corner color along with each of the five star points into the Polybius decoders.
If we layer on the journey the fox makes through time from one end of the stack to the other, we can argue that this is a 4-dimensional structure.
There is an extra star on pages 34 and 44, yielding a total of 66 stars.
The challenge is to assign the correct color to these stars. The one on page 34 simply gets assigned pure R, because it is in the middle of that side. Similarly, on page 44, the star on the upper left border is assigned pure P because the fox hasn’t quite gotten to the corner yet.
7. Generating the two 5x66 panels
At this point we have all the required information to generate the two panels. It is again worth emphasizing that if ANY of the sub-puzzles are not solved, the output in the panels will be gibberish.
8. Reading the riddle off the panels
Another clue is required to indicate when to switch back and forth between the panels. When the word “wind” appears in the text corresponding to an image, it is an instruction to flip to the other panel while decoding the stars on that page. The title of the book may be pointing us in this direction: the wind is key!
Finally, a careful inspection of the panels reveals that the “A” in LARK is slightly out of order. I colored it blue in the image. This makes sense because it since among the words “lost in time.”
The Riddle
A GOLDEN HARPY PREENS
NOW A LARK FORGIVES ME IN KIND
PRAY PROOF IF SENT
I MAY LOOK BAD
WE SPY A PINK POSY
Odds and Ends
If you gather up the letters to which Fandango’s nose is pointing, you can generate “To Dad from Sons.”
On page 7, the numbers 1653 correspond to AFEC. This will be relevant in the context of the solution to the riddle. Stay tuned.
The symbols on the treasure chest’s lock:
X
+
*
C
might refer symbolically to some of the required steps:
Crisscross the borders
Use an addition step (modulo?)
Pay attention to the stars
Have the fox make a C on each page before leaving, not a complete circuit.
On page 19, the license plate 62-18 yields 44. On pages 34-35, the difference between the two given years, 1947 and 1925 is 22. If one counts the stars from the back of the book to the front, star 22 and star 44 wind up on these two pages respectively, verifying that the riddle is read from the back of the book to the front. This also fits with the inverted compass on page 30 as well as with the long drop the fox experiences at the end of his upward travels.
On page 15, Neptune is blocking the north corner, both in the image and in the text, reinforcing that the fox’s journey starts in the lower left corner of the first panel.
On page 32, the directions of the red arrows on the border of the mat only match up in three of the four directions, again warning against completing the circuit. On the other hand, the rising rings are confusing, looking much like full circles. Perhaps they are supposed to be interpreted as Qs.
Regarding Ms. Einstein on page 40, I suppose that a case can be made that some type of relativistic time dilation is occurring given that the half-hour interval between panels doesn’t match up with the several day duration of the story.
On page 45, we encounter our first X among the letters generated by star 16. There is a big rock there, perhaps indicating that an X means a stop or a break. As it turns out, all of the riddle sentences that end in the middle of a panel, as well as the final sentence, are marked this way. Only the second sentence, which, unlike the other four, already ends on the final star of a panel, does not.
There seems to be a significant amount of homage paid to a number of recent treasure hunts. Beyond the explicit allusion to Masquerade by Kit Williams, the reference to both Isaac Newton (the falling apple) and Einstein harken back to this puzzle as well. The use of Polybius squares is an obvious reference to A Treasure’s Trove by Michael Stadther. The image fragment of the Vitruvian Man on page 11 brings to mind Maranatha. In the background on page 5, the trees seem to comprise a “Big W’,” reminiscent of It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World as well as the ending to the puzzle, crafted by Cliff Johnson, that was imbedded in David Blaine’s Mysterious Stranger. Finally, there is an amusing coincidence. The poem in Forrest Fenn’s The Thrill of the Chase is on page 132, which happens to be 66 + 66, the total number of lines in the two panels, and 66 corresponds to FF. This could not have been deliberate because Fenn’s book was not published until three years after Fandango!
Regarding the multicolored borders on pages 19 and 47, in each case there are 330 paired squares, corresponding precisely to the number of letters in the two final panels. In addition, the four corners of each look unusual, suggesting that at some point we work with corners/colors.
On pages 34 and 35 we see a bell and the word Kebo. Buried in the un-shifted letter panel in the letters corresponding to the nearby stars, we see both. This is most likely designed to let a puzzler know they are on the right track, notwithstanding the fact that they are not part of the final riddle.
The blue border letters spell PAEC FORTY SOUTH
PAEC could be read, after rearranging, as See PI or PACE.
The multiple references to pi may refer both to the half-circle journey by the fox through each panel and the 180-degree shift in the border colors.
Pace might simply indicate to “go here.”
Forty is a homophone for 4-D, suggesting movement through a 4-dimensional structure, and SOUTH may be a straightforward allusion to the beginning and end points.
Final Comments
The overall orientation of the puzzle can be confusing because you would naturally think that the beginning of the book is “above” its end. Just remember that the fox progressively rises as the story progresses and then takes the long fall back to sea level. You read off the sentences as he falls, so you are basically starting on the last panel and winding up at the first.
Don’t be put off by the weirdness of the riddle. The fact that some of the sentences seem a little nonsensical is a big clue regarding how to decipher them.
I have appended the following images:
1. The two Polybius squares
2. The two 5x66 panels (in two pieces): from left to right I list the panel number, star color, star point colors, and the two Polybius outputs. The riddle is flagged in yellow.