[LVS|Zz] Minecraft 1.17!

Re: [LVS|Zz] Minecraft 1.17!

Postby Dax23333 » Fri Jul 16, 2021 9:13 pm

So the latest puzzle - it is time to reveal that one too.
Spoiler:
In this puzzle each shade of colour indicates a different letter. Other than that it is a substitution cipher going left to right and top to bottom as in standard text. Many fish pad out the message.

The message:
minnowHIhaddock
breamGOTOturbot
codTHEPLACEcarp
zYOUWERETOLDgar
guppyALflounder
oxeyeREgrayling
bramaADmackerel
perchYwhitebass

Hi go to the place you were told already

This means Extreme Hills Nether Hub - as this was previously used to divert a puzzler from the tunnel. So to Extreme Hills then? It's a long ride, but at the end you should be able to find a fish. Also, don't the words look kinda like an arrow?


Anyone puzzling along? We're nearing the cutting edge of the puzzle now - not much progress has been made past this, and don't you go thinking that we'll reveal stuff that hasn't been discovered already. You're all going to have to work for this.
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Re: [LVS|Zz] Minecraft 1.17!

Postby Dax23333 » Sun Jul 18, 2021 8:00 pm

Couple days since last one but it is now time to bring the world (that's you dear reader) up to speed with where the cutting edge currently is!

Feel free to continue puzzling, or open the spoiler to reveal the answer:
Spoiler:
The fish in Extreme Hills nether hub is in the ceiling of one of the wings (I forget which) just above the stairs. Rotating the fish requires a jump but if you make it look up then a secret door will open. This reveals a secret room which contains a suspiciously patterned floor and a book containing scrambled text. This is what it (mostly, some spaces were removed pasting it into the book sorry guys) says...

RMF WYYU BOWNYVW XLYO
WYYU
DBV XLYO NCZY ZYYS
BOZ WYBVHL DMV XVFXL
WYYU
BOZ WYBVHL NCZY XLY NCZY VYBEAW
RYBVO DMV UOMNEYZPY XVBGYEEYV XLYO
DMV PEMVR
RMF RYBVO XLYO
RYBVO NCZY XLY RYBVO XLYO XVBGYEEYV RMF
BVVCGY XLYO WYYU BOWNYVW
RMF RYBVO XLYO
XLY NCZY WYYU PEMVR RMF XVBGYEEYV
ZYYS NCZY NLR NLR
NLR XLYO WYYU VYBEAW
TFYWX DMV UOMNEYZPY

What could this mean?


The message in the above spoiler (shock horror - there was a message) goes into the following:
Spoiler:
you seek answers then
seek
far then wide deep
and search for truth
seek
and search wide the wide realms
yearn for knowledge traveller then
for glory
you yearn then
yearn wide the yearn then traveller you
arrive then seek answers
you yearn then
the wide seek glory you traveller
deep wide why why
why then seek realms
quest for knowledge

This message is obtained from the previous scrambled text by cracking the substitution cipher that has been applied. Certain common words such as "then" allow guesses for what the character in the ciphertext means in the plaintext. In this example we see "XLYO" is a fairly common four letter word in the ciphertext. It could mean "then" as that is common 4 letter word with 4 unique letters. We assume that t --> X, h --> L, e --> Y and n --> O and then use these to see if that makes sense elsewhere.

Patterns of letters also helps - q is always followed by U in English (with the exception of some infamous made up scrabble words), and not all letters can be double letters (as in, the two T in letter). L is the most common double letter, followed by S and then E, O and T. We see double letters in this message in "seek", "deep" and "traveller".

Cracking these is often a matter of finding which guesses work, and backing up the guesses by counting the number of times each letter shows up. The distribution of letters in English is well known, with lots of E, A, T and S but very few J, Z or Q so if your solution has this correct kind of distribution you may well be on the right track.

While this text has been revealed it doesn't really make much sense reading it. Nobody has puzzled out what it is hiding yet, once this is done it will be posted here.


So that's all for now, all the puzzle to date that has been solved. Mellorina has been leading the charge on solving these so far, tie in with him if you have any ideas!
Dax23333
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Re: [LVS|Zz] Minecraft 1.17!

Postby Dax23333 » Mon Aug 09, 2021 9:26 pm

Some more progress has been had! So once again world, I shall bring you up to speed.

First the message from the previous one...
Spoiler:
The previously decrypted message starting "you seek answers then seek far then wide deep" is actually another substitution cipher! Each letter becomes a word, and they had been deviously picked to make a sentence that at least initially made some sort of sense. Of course it rapidly descends into nonsense near the end but never mind that.

Using the same method of cracking as the first layer taking each word as a letter the following is revealed:

take a veiw from a frigid house on the highest peak the giants will lead you

A riddle - what could this mean?


Secondly the suspiciously patterned floor...
Spoiler:
The floor in the honey room found by rotating the fish in extreme hills nether hub is made of chests and pistons representing keeping and swapping - keeping and swapping the binary pattern of the same size found in the resource dimension nether tunnel.

The resource dimension tunnel, the room at the start of all of this:


The honey room floor:


When combined these will give a short message in ascii - what do you get?
Dax23333
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Posts: 380
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