The first card opens on a split background - Black and Tan - with a blue/black sigil in the center, surrounded by an Ouroboros. There are astronomical/alchemical symbols for planets in a six pointed star, with three sets of numbers - some of which do go above 26 so no simple approach there. There is a many jointed line in grey across the card - unlike prior puzzles it does not at first glance correspond to anything on the back of the card.
On the back of the card, we have a message from our new pen pal, “Agatha Shapira,” with a friendly Hello, Detective written over a picture of our presumably-now-deceased former pen pal. There are four sets of blue and white numbers, none of which go above 26, and only one that goes above 12. There are four stamps under the January 19th postmark - a duck (12), two horses (both 15), and a bat (11). My first thought is Latin names? Then the message itself explains that good old Agatha is just a normal every day, beer drinking gal. Serial murder just pays the bills.
We dive in.
I start with the stamps on the Latin name hunch:
- Duck (12): Anas platyrhynchos
- Horse (15): Equus caballus - no 15. Harumph
- Black Bat - multiple scientific names but this image apparently comes from a notebook available on Barnes and Noble ;)
And then I run it through A=01: LOOK. Look where? The refusal of anything to jump out under black light is annoying, but it does help me read the blue numbers.
What about the images on the front? Black light yields nothing (darn it). In the outer points, clockwise, starting at the top: Mars, Sun, Jupiter, Venus, Moon, Saturn. The inner ‘ring’ around the triangle: Mercury, and then two that aren’t planets but alchemical elements - salt (?) and sulfur. Which means that the numbers are likely from the periodic table. We set to work:
- 5 - Boron - B
- 24 - Chromium - Cr
- 31 - Gallium - Ga
- 55 - Cesium - Cs
- 73 - Tantalum - Ta
- 98 - Californium - Cf
- 109 - Meitnerium - Mt
Nothing coming easily. They ARE all in numerical order, with various gaps, so we could either scramble them, but there aren’t enough vowels, or look at the gaps: 19, 13, 24, 18, 25: SMXRY. Nope. After a quick trip into Lise Meitner, who was awesome, we go back to the ring itself. Again, the outer ring is Mars, Sun, Jupiter, Venus, Luna, Saturn, but that could also be read as Iron, Gold, Tin, Copper, Silver, Lead. We can look at that as their elemental names and/or their elemental numbers: Fe (26), Au (79), Sn (50), Cu (29), Ag (47), Pb (82). They’re too high for the straight A=01, and don’t readily spell anything. Also, what does the split mean?
Hmm, she mentions facebook... wonder if she has a profile? SHE DOES. And it’s constructed well enough that I think it’s a normal person... until I click her video. Apparently our dear old pen pal Jason is still alive, and we can save him... if we’re willing to snoop into the FBI. These people... Also, I really like her eye makeup, and would kill for her hair. But I digress...
It doesn’t show up well on my iPad, but her phone profile has a QR code embedded in the profile background. A link takes us to a google search, with “Key Phrase two is Azure”. I love The Enigma Emporium She mentions being an animal lover: her photos contain camels, ducks, sheep, and dogs. Her most recent post has her in Kenya.
Looking at the date stamp and the actual cancellation stamp on the cards, there are annual posts on January 19:
- 2017: Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy - Isaac Newton
- 2018: If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things - Albert Einstein
- 2019: The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched--they must be felt with the heart. - Hellen Keller
She also has some interesting information in her personal details, but it doesn’t work out to a straight A=01 either. We also find her email, for when we find the other key phrase.
Eventually, after pouring over the codes and the facebook page, we hit a wall. A quick hint from Enigma Emporium points out that no number is greater than 13... the alphabet is split like the card. So, add 13 to one set of the numbers. Assume blue because it’s second in all of them.
The first sends us to her favorite quotes section, which we’ve already found, but haven’t solved yet. The next sends us to her locations - she’s been a ton of places. All over the world. Staring at them long enough yields: Key Thre(e) is BEATLE. Another sends us to the header, where we found the QR code for the google search. The last one says quote authors, which presumably refers to the three quotes above which are on the same date as the stamps. I’ve added them to the quotes above.
Frustrated, we look for a couple of more clues, and are surprised yet reassured that we are actually supposed to come back to a couple of the puzzles when we’ve done ALL OF THE OTHER PUZZLES AND CARDS. That is both awesome, and irritating as I have zero self control/patience. I love it. We do see that the numbers on the front can be done at this time, so we go back and have a look. We run into the same issues, and look for a specific hint. We were making this FAR too hard. It’s not elements. It’s not alchemy. It’s a rot/mod cipher. Bloody hell. A massive thank you to dCode, and we have EXECUTE COMMAND TSUNAMI.
And with that, we have solved as much as we can with the first card alone. Many thanks to The Enigma Emporium for yet another wonderfully fun evening of puzzles. You’re contributing to my sanity during COVID, which I greatly appreciate.
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