This really is fun - Hincks Gazette Volume 1, Issue 3

Yesterday really was great, loved getting back into puzzling. So, after confirming that Volume 1, Issue 1 really does require the whole Elevator kit (which I’ve done but didn’t write up, maybe eventually) I jumped into Volume 1, Issue 3, which involves Quail Mail gone horribly awry. We need to decode someone’s mail for them. 

Hincks Gazette, I appreciate, has, so far, always told you where to start with the word ‘start’ somewhere in the title or header for the section. In this case it’s movie titles, given as hints about the plot itself. For example, Best Part of this Franchise, I was leads you to Star Wars. In order, the moves are:

• Back to the Future
• The Lord of the Rings
• Pirates of the Caribbean
• Titanic
• Harry Potter
• Shrek
• Toy Story
• Star Wars

The puzzle also gives you “times.” Which are really clues to the letters you need in the form of wordnumber:letternumber. The result spells Connect the OTS. After staring at the puzzle, and then going online to make sure I wasn’t missing a ‘d’ somewhere, nope, that’s intentional, the only place with that much text is the ‘Dear Hincksy’ section. Where there are, happily enough, multiple words with ‘ot’ in them. Having done that, scratched my head again, connect them how?! Oh, they’re all by numbers (although the one near X for 10 baffled me for longer than I care to admit. Insufficient caffeine). Connected in order, and twice for the merlot, they form a star. Where does the word ‘star’ appear? On the Thrift ad on the opposite page. Holding the paper up to the light, you see that the points of the star are on five of the images. 

• Purple - Grapes
• Material - Wood
• Result - Death/Dead
• Location - Park
• Smaller than city - Town

I got that far, then got stumped. A quick check reminded me of the puzzle on the other side - the days. A quick flip gets you:

• Monday - Township
• Tuesday - Deadline (yes, I was staring at “deathline” for far too long before that made sense. More caffeine, please)
• Wednesday - Grapevine
• Thursday - Woodwind
• Friday - Parkway

Back to the mysterious message: rUESdONDFRIaWEDNhtTH. Using the appropriate letters from the words associated with each day of the week, we get: Read Down Paragraph Two. Paragraph two of the opening article gives us: ADOPT, the correct answer to Issue. 

Thanks Hincks Gazette for restoring my faith in my puzzling prowess. I’m now off to get more caffeine so I stop forgetting that newspapers have two sides, and deathline isn’t a thing.