I'm not saying we're compulsive, or that we have an addiction problem, but... this is the fourth night in a row my friend and I are working on the Wish You Were Here series by Enigma Emporium. I'm sure this is perfectly normal. If not, I blame COVID-19.
As always, spoilers ahead - caveat lector.
That's a big enough spoiler, don't you think?
The front of the fourth contains what look to be a series of quotes, overlaid on a a background of open, blurred books. First lines of novels? We shall see.
The back of the card shows us that the penpal sent this on June 29, 2018, which was a Friday. There are three stamps, each of which looks to be a book cover, from varying eras. On the left, we have a column of numbers, of varying lengths, some of which are highlighted in red. There are more lines of numbers than there are of quotes. On the right, where there would be an address, is a message in what looks to be a mix of Roman numerals and normal digits. First thought - roman numeral for the chapter, then normal for the paragraph and word - something that would be easy to keep track of across editions unlike pages and lines.
My charming compatriot opted to begin with the stamps. There are three, from left to right:
I began to wonder if I hadn't just miscounted. I tried using an online book cipher tool at Boxentriq to do the counting, knowing my eyes blur. That didn't get me much farther. Then I tried treating the titles as the enciphered code, and just looked at the letters in order. Nope.
As always, spoilers ahead - caveat lector.
That's a big enough spoiler, don't you think?
The front of the fourth contains what look to be a series of quotes, overlaid on a a background of open, blurred books. First lines of novels? We shall see.
The back of the card shows us that the penpal sent this on June 29, 2018, which was a Friday. There are three stamps, each of which looks to be a book cover, from varying eras. On the left, we have a column of numbers, of varying lengths, some of which are highlighted in red. There are more lines of numbers than there are of quotes. On the right, where there would be an address, is a message in what looks to be a mix of Roman numerals and normal digits. First thought - roman numeral for the chapter, then normal for the paragraph and word - something that would be easy to keep track of across editions unlike pages and lines.
- Protect & Defend by Vince Flynn
- My Gun is Quick by Mickey Spillane
- Mother Land by Paul Theroux
- "In life, unlike chess, the game continues after checkmate." - Isaac Asimov, Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain (1987).
- "The greatest victory is that which requires no battle." - Sun Tzu, The Art of War
- "You don't run out on people; you run out on yourself." - Truman Capote, Summer Crossing
- "Where there is no imagination there is no horror." - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet
- "I lived in books more than I lived anywhere else." - Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane.
- "Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so." - Bertrand Russell, The ABC of Relativity
- "They use everything about the hog except the squeal." - Upton Sinclair, The Jungle
- "The two most powerful warriors are patience and time." - Leo Tolstoy, Bethink Yourselves
Then we started looking at the texts, combined with the digits in the 'address'. The first thing my friend noticed was that Tolstoy's Bethink Yourselves didn't have 11 paragraphs in the first chapter, so we went instead with chapter-sentence-word. However, when we tried that, we found that Chapter I, sentence 11, word 9 was "They" - an odd end to a sentence. We then tried Chapter - word - sentence. Chapter I, word 11, sentence 9 gave us "It", which seemed far more reasonable. Our results followed:
Isaac Asimov, Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain - Chapter II, sentence 7, word 22: AfterSun Tzu, The Art of War - Chapter I, sentence 12, word 10:: MilitaryTruman Capote, Summer Crossing - Chapter 4, sentence 37, word 19: Ship.Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet - Chapter 12, sentence 14, word 9: TheNeil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane. - Chapter 2, sentence 6, word 10: YellowBertrand Russell, The ABC of Relativity - Chapter 11, : EternalUpton Sinclair, The Jungle - Chapter 10, line 15, word 24: HadLeo Tolstoy, Bethink Yourselves - Chapter I, sentence 11, word 9: They
This wasn't making any sense, so I started looking at the numbers on the left, which I recognized as ISBN. Keeping in mind the pattern from the last card, I kept highlighted the same letters in the title.
- 9781607784555 - The Golden Bowl by Henry James
- 0140268863 - The Odyssey by Homer
- 9781101872765 - Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner
- 9780679736370 - Sophie's Choice by William Styron
- 9780141181264 - Finnegans Wake by James Joyce
- 9780451419439 - Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
- 9781720760153 - Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence
- 1420956493 - Howard's End by E. M. Forster
- 1853262501 - The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence
- 0060934344 - Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
- 8187138750 - Animal Farm by George Orwell
- 9780060850524 - Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
- 9780061124952 - Charlotte's Web by E. B. White
- 9780140447897 - Metamorphases by Ovid
- 9780525444435 - Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne
- 9780679732266 - Light in August by William Faulkner
- 9781503207332 - Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Looking only at the colored letters we find the message: "They Are Called The Ouroborous". Well, I'm glad we figured something out - these puzzles are definitely getting progressively harder and I was beginning
We went back to the stamps. One hunch, that they were all written about the same location, was proven wrong - Mother Land takes place in Cape Cod, while Protect and Defend seems to take place in Iran.
I began to wonder if I hadn't just miscounted. I tried using an online book cipher tool at Boxentriq to do the counting, knowing my eyes blur. That didn't get me much farther. Then I tried treating the titles as the enciphered code, and just looked at the letters in order. Nope.
Isaac Asimov, Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain - Chapter II, sentence 7, word 22: AfterSun Tzu, The Art of War - Chapter I, sentence 12, word 10:: MilitaryTruman Capote, Summer Crossing - Chapter 4, sentence 37, word 19: Ship.Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet - Chapter 12, sentence 14, word 9: TheNeil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane. - Chapter 2, sentence 6, word 10: YellowBertrand Russell, The ABC of Relativity - Chapter 11, : EternalUpton Sinclair, The JungleLeo Tolstoy, Bethink Yourselves - Chapter I, sentence 11, word 9: They
- Isaac Asimov, Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain: After
- Sun Tzu, The Art of War: Military
Truman Capote, Summer Crossing - Chapter 4, sentence 37, word 19: Ship.Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet - Chapter 12, sentence 14, word 9: TheNeil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane. - Chapter 2, sentence 6, word 10: YellowBertrand Russell, The ABC of Relativity - Chapter 11, : Eternal- Upton Sinclair, The Jungle : Place
Leo Tolstoy, Bethink Yourselves - Chapter I, sentence 11, word 9: They
We tried again: Chapter - Word - Word. Nope.
- Isaac Asimov, Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain: Then He
- Sun Tzu, The Art of War: It The
Truman Capote, Summer Crossing - Chapter 4, sentence 37, word 19: Ship.Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet - Chapter 12, sentence 14, word 9: TheNeil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane. - Chapter 2, sentence 6, word 10: YellowBertrand Russell, The ABC of Relativity - Chapter 11, : Eternal- Upton Sinclair, The Jungle : Place
Leo Tolstoy, Bethink Yourselves - Chapter I, sentence 11, word 9: They
We were tired, then, and took a break, not wanting to use a hint unless we had to. We did realize, though, that the Tolstoy book wasn't Bethink Yourselves, but was instead War and Peace, despite some annoying links on Amazon claiming otherwise. We will hope that our brains process this as we sleep. Thankfully tomorrow is a holiday, happy Orthodox Good Friday!
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