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Posted (edited)

PSA: This quest is meant to be a mixture of both a lottery, and a traditional quest. There's no effort required to join! Skip the story if you're lazy, rules summarized below

Clarification: Each player answer are separated. You don't have to take what others had chosen into account

=========================================================================================

You walked along the shores of Golemus, and chanced upon a message in a bottle. In it detailed a map, to a field of fog within Necrovion

There, awaits you is a lone, dreadful spirit, one that seemed to care little about the world around him. He gazed at you with his hollow eyes, and your mind fills with a deep voice:

- I am a cursed being, condemned here by a long forgotten god. He scattered my life essence, and buried it in this enchanted desert, forever chaining me to this wretched land

He murmurs some spell, and an eerie, holographic smoke rises out of the ground, forming what seems to be a grid, barely visible within the fog

- My energy are buried within these squares, one piece at a time, seemingly at random, a total of 39. I am able to muster enough strength, once every hundred years, to attempt digging at a single spot
- To that end, I've resorted to find outside help - he snaps his finger, and two dowsing rod appears
- These rods operates by filling it with your own vital energy. Worry not, it takes an insignificant amount that shall recover in time, albeit limited that one may only uses it 8 times. These rods are able to scout the land, telling me of the vibration from within. With it, I shall be able to determine, if there's something hidden beneath the sand where you had scouted
- For every piece of me that you found, I shall take it into consideration. You are not the only one in my employment, and my treasures limited. I wish not to simply have idiots running around, and I am unable to guide you the exacts, so if you managed to scout every single row once, and every column once, I shall take it into consideration as well, albeit only half as much
- Unused vital energy are also beneficial towards my recovery, so if you simply do not want the chore, I shall gladly take the energy itself as well. A piece of energy enough for an attempt, is worth to me half as much as if you were to find something there

He then points towards an enigmatic message etched onto a nearby stone:

czlopzxqegjp UKWCIII 140420 210420 abcdefghijklmnop
- The god who imprisoned me, left this behind. It is supposedly the key to the location, but I had long given up on deciphering such nonsense. If you were however, to give a plausible explanation, I shall remember it, and consider it for up to twice the normal amount. Should long after, your theory is correct, I shall "consider" you greatly, uncaring for what else you have offered, nine times as much. An additional time, if you were the first to come up with it.
- Now go, into the fog

Upon entering the fog, you can see vast emptiness segregated by the smoke. You can see where he had dug, and the faint traces left behind where there were once energy

Now, what shall you do?

==============================================================================================

  • There are 39 pieces buried in the desert (8x8 grid), some were shown
  • You can choose at most 8 squares
  • Choosing exactly once every row or column grants 0.5 points each
  • Finding a piece gives 1 points each. Choosing a dug site obviously gives none, but can satisfy the row and column criteria (albeit the spirit probably wouldn't be happy, but it's his mistake :D)
  • Not choosing grants 0.5 point each
  • An enigmatic message: czlopzxqegjp UKWCIII 140420 210420 abcdefghijklmnop may reveal the location
  • Attempting to solve the message grants up to 2 point (0 - 2 in steps of 0.25)
  • Getting the right solution automatically set your point at 9 (10 if first)
  • First come - first serve for draws

Note: It seems that the maximum point is 11, if he deems your solution exemplar, but wrong, and you were to get the perfect score on the grid. Old thing must have lost his mind, but he does seem like he'd honor his words...

Rewards:

  • 1 anni crit per 2 players, up to 3, based on score rank
  • All players on top 50% receive 5 plushies
  • 1st: 2 GC
  • 2nd: 1 GC
  • 3rd: 1 GC (yes, same as 2nd)
  • Extra rewards for those who submit a good attempt at deciphering the message. Rewards for those given at my discretion.

Note: You can change your grid selection at anytime before the anniversary ends. This game is intended to balance between attempts to solve the puzzle as well as just luck for the less serious players. There's no harm in just choosing a bunch of squares randomly!

map.png

Edited by Demonic God
Posted

Updated the (missing) rule that you may change your selection at any time! This game is meant to be a mixture of strategy, solving a secret message, and luck!
You could easily gain the maximum point by getting some extraordinary luck, losing only to the first one to submit the solution, or someone who outlucked you by also getting the maximum point with the wrong solution!

Posted (edited)

Here are all submissions:
Tissy:

  1. r2c3
  2. r2c4
  3. r2c6
  4. r3c3
  5. r3c4
  6. r3c5
  7. r4c3
  8. r4c4

Nathan:

  1. r1c2
  2. r2c1
  3. r3c3
  4. r4c5
  5. r5c4
  6. r6c6
  7. r7c7
  8. r8c8

Taurion:

  1. r2c8
  2. r2c4
  3. r8c1
  4. r5c7
  5. r3c3
  6. r1c7
  7. r4c2
  8. r6c6

Steno:

  1. r6c2
  2. r6c3
  3. r6c4
  4. r6c5
  5. r7c2
  6. r7c3
  7. r7c4
  8. r7c5

Tyche:

4A, 4C, 4E, 5B, 5D, 5F, 6A, 6E (waiting for clarification
Dark Demon:

  • r4c1
  • r2c4
  • r3c5
  • r2c6
  • r2c8
  • r3c7
  • r5c6
  • r8c3

MaGoHi:

spacer.png

A reminder again, that you do not need to solve anything to join in the fun! You can change your answer as time come freely as well!

Join in the fun, and take out a random guess :D

Edited by Demonic God
Posted (edited)

r1c7, r2c4, r3c5, r4c8, r5c3, r6c6, r7c2, r8c1

These are made on the assumption that the first row were the highest on the grid.

Edited by Aia del Mana
Posted

There were few (well, only Aia) that attempted to decipher the message. Though her solution wrong, her effort was stellar and her theory interesting. Albeit, as it does not match the revealed tiles, hence I shall award her 1 pts for her effort!

I shall calculate everyone's score later, but here's the solution for the puzzle

  • An enigmatic message: czlopzxqegjp UKWCIII 140420 210420 abcdefghijklmnop may reveal the location

This line itself contains the key for the message. This, is a message, along with the relevant data, for the Enigma Machine!

You can plug in the relevant data here. The machine model would be the Enigma I (top), and plugging in the relevant config, we get:

notpo sttit le - not post title

The post title is AnNi2020. This isn't simply a stylistic choice, it is the key to the map! You can see that it's exactly 8 letters long, the board is 8x8, and... the message is not post title. The answer is simple, convert AnNi2020 to binary, and revert it. You will get the following map!

mdtreasuremap.PNG.20b8f49bde96de5342f6cc02de614e40.PNG

I'll calculate everyone's score and announce the winners later!

 

 

 

  • 5 weeks later...
Posted

Here are the result... few, that took some time!

This result is machine-graded. I wrote a custom code to automatically grade each submission... because judging it manually has so many potential problems, so the result should be accurate (I hope!)

Tissy:
    r2c3: 0
    r2c4: 1
    r2c6: 0
    r3c3: 1
    r3c4: 1
    r3c5: 0
    r4c3: 0
    r4c4: 1
    All row bonus: 0
    All col bonus: 0
    Total: 4

Nathan:
    r1c2: 0
    r2c1: 1
    r3c3: 1
    r4c5: 0
    r5c4: 0
    r6c6: 1
    r7c7: 0
    r8c8: 1
    All row bonus: 0.5
    All col bonus: 0.5
    Total: 5

Taurion:
    r2c8: 1
    r2c4: 1
    r8c1: 1
    r5c7: 0
    r3c3: 1
    r1c7: 1
    r4c2: 0
    r6c6: 1
    All row bonus: 0
    All col bonus: 0
    Total: 6

Steno:
    r6c2: 1
    r6c3: 0
    r6c4: 0
    r6c5: 1
    r7c2: 1
    r7c3: 0
    r7c4: 0
    r7c5: 1
    All row bonus: 0
    All col bonus: 0
    Total: 4

Tyche:
    r1c4: 1
    r3c4: 1
    r5c4: 0
    r2c5: 0
    r4c5: 0
    r6c5: 1
    r1c6: 1
    r5c6: 1
    All row bonus: 0
    All col bonus: 0
    Total: 5

Dark Demon:
    r4c1: 1
    r2c4: 1
    r3c5: 0
    r2c6: 0
    r2c8: 1
    r3c7: 0
    r5c6: 1
    r8c3: 0
    All row bonus: 0
    All col bonus: 0
    Total: 4

MaGoHi:
    r3c4: 1
    r4c4: 1
    r5c3: 0
    r5c4: 0
    r5c5: 1
    r6c3: 0
    r6c4: 0
    r6c5: 1
    All row bonus: 0
    All col bonus: 0
    Total: 4

Aelis:
    r1c6: 1
    r2c7: 0
    r3c8: 1
    r4c8: 0
    r5c8: 1
    r6c7: 1
    r7c6: 1
    r8c6: 1
    All row bonus: 0.5
    All col bonus: 0
    Total: 6.5

Ledah:
    r1c6: 1
    r2c7: 0
    r3c8: 1
    r4c8: 0
    r5c8: 1
    r6c7: 1
    r7c6: 1
    r8c7: 1
    All row bonus: 0.5
    All col bonus: 0
    Total: 6.5

Trolla:
    r1c5: 1
    r2c8: 1
    r2c4: 1
    r3c5: 0
    r4c3: 0
    r4c5: 0
    r6c3: 0
    r7c4: 0
    All row bonus: 0
    All col bonus: 0
    Total: 3

Ungod:
    r3c3: 1
    r4c4: 1
    r5c5: 1
    r4c5: 0
    r5c4: 0
    r6c3: 0
    r6c6: 1
    r6c3: 0
    r7c7: 0
    All row bonus: 0
    All col bonus: 0
    Total: 4

Aia:
    r1c7: 1
    r2c4: 1
    r3c5: 0
    r4c8: 0
    r5c3: 0
    r6c6: 1
    r7c2: 1
    r8c1: 1
    All row bonus: 0.5
    All col bonus: 0.5
    Attempted Solving Bonus:1
    Total: 7

Posted

Based on the result above: prizes and placements are as follow!

1st: Aia. She earned the second highest (after Aelis and Ledah, at 6.5) points, and barely managed to clutch victory by her submission, putting her ahead of the 2nd place of a mere 0.5 point! Congratulation!

2nd/3rd: Aelis and Ledah, coming in close second at 6.5 points each! Ledah gambit to (almost) copy Aelis paid off! Speaking of luck, eh?

The following players (after the top 3) placed within the top half of the game:

Nathan, Tyche, and Taurion will receive an additional 2 plushies for placing on the top 50%!

Thank you all for participating

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