From

Dunno what that means

So Hugh confirmed my suspicion that humn's community metapuzzle answer was xIxIx

dcfyj's must be xIxOxOxIx for 9

@BeastlyGerbil you missed the word "easy" which excludes the bottom s and y

Thanks

there's a word "fad" that cuts one of the d's

er. sorry, cuts the f, not a d

Is that a word?

And plus @Mithrandir told me there would be either 14 or 12 letters

So we 12 alreaady

fad is a word, yes.

@Randal'Thor For the avoidance of doubt, indeed I have so far made no comment (and am not right now making any comment) on whether TEMPTATION is the answer to my clue.

@Alconja makes a good case for TEMPTATION. We just need to work out how "actor engaged in" gives TATION.

I felt like posting a somewhat easy puzzle while I prepare a harder puzzle... but seriously? 3-4 minutes for the first partial answer?

Well, hopefully it is at least a bit fun :P

@Sumurai8 curse you, you are making us actually make the board! :P

@Sumurai8 do you want the whites or blacks to win?

@BeastlyGerbil Sorry, the guard doesn't have it any other way. He will gladly throw you in the dungeons.

@BeastlyGerbil Well, that answer is strictly speaking in the question.

IS it?

Where is the Queen?

@Sumurai8 Buckingham Palace.

@Sumurai8 Gotta be quick round here. Lots of smart people around.

@Sumurai8 I linked you to a chessboard on my answer..

I let Black win for once, she almost never does, actually..

It does not seem to want to load for me hrmm

did you copy-paste the permalink?

@Sumurai8 fixed it, try now

Try now...

Link to the chessboard.

Then copy-paste the FEN on the edit option

Here

That looks like a sorry-state of affairs for any white-player. I should have been a little more sympathetic towards the white-side

I added it to your answer for you

Hrmm; that is not the right solution. It seems to feature 2 extra pieces.

Thanks, :-)

The rooks?

I added them, just because I felt-like it.

Plus, they don't interfere much in the answer

I may have answered first, but you got the board before I'd even started so you should get the checkmark

I answered 40 seconds after you did, probably because of my snail-paced typing..

Wait, let the OP confirm the board..

And also because I only put

'It looks like a chessboard. Explanation coming'

:P

@Sumurai8 Battlements?

Oh I forgot to upvote your answer. +1

@Sid ctrl+f

What battlements?

'So the Queen saw all that happening from the battlements, but guess what - she felt like she was in danger'

She moved to e1, right?

I simply placed her on the king's initial rank

Yes. You can also assume that she would no longer be in danger there.

Ask yourself how many moves are described in the ramblings.

A castle, then, bishop(s) coming in, then the knights, the queen moves, the pawns mate the king.

And what you know about each of the situations before and after the moves. I think there should be one, or close to one solution.

One solution?

I doubt that's possible since, you have a pawn on the 2nd rank to mate the king, bishop(s) and knight(s).

Edited my answer, check now

@Sumurai8 ^

Closer. You are still missing at least 2 of the clues in your board. Also I describe only 3 pieces, it's all you need.

I'll be back later. Gonna go home now.

woo 11k

grats

I don't know why I celebrate every 1k, just find it easier to target the next thousand than the next, say, 10k

And @Rubio grats on 5k

10k is the big one in terms of privileges.

Danke

After that it's just overtaking people on the rep leagues.

@Rubio to be honest you have just got 560 rep from the mirror answer :P (counting rep caps)

@Randal'Thor isn't 20k big as well?

I suppose 20k is also good, to help get rid of bad answers (speaking of which, @Gareth don't forget to monitor the Low Quality Posts review queue!)

Yeah I know. Still, that's a lot of rep for a single answer that I didn't expect to get much from

It was clever, even you have to admit that

But I think if you hadn't answered that, someone else would have thought of it.

Yeah

So you did very well to bag all that rep

@Rubio Such is life on SE. When an answer hits HNQ, the rep just keeps flooding in.

I'm secretly hoping for 25 more upvotes. I'd love that gold badge :)

I shot from 100 to 1000 on Lifehacks from a single answer without even trying.

I think I've had 1 question on HNQ. Thats it

@Rubio I find it funny that you got a populist badge just because the OP changed who got the checkmark :P

Lol. Yeah, I got a kick out of that :)

But the other answer deserved the check, so it's all good

And actually I had to wait for that answer to hit 10 upvotes before I got the badge. When the checkmark switched I think the finally accepted answer only had 5 or 6 votes

@Randal'Thor I'm beginning to think there's no answer to your gong question :)

@BeastlyGerbil Even funnier:

@Rubio I assure you there is an answer :-) In fact I'm surprised nobody's got it yet. Maybe the inactivity of the weekend has played its part - I'll wait another day or two to add the next hint.

@BeastlyGerbil Can you give me the final list of what letters you have left?

With the bottom two crossed out as well

In here the 'E' in the middle is part of a word

nen?

rote

thats a word? oh ok

But now I've only got 11 letters, and you said it would be 12 or 14

Your unmarked f. Three above it, there's an 'l'. How is that part of a word?

And the 'h' at 4c

not sure about l

wheres the 'h'?

4c.

wheres that?

start at the left. 4 to the right, 3 down.

okay

thats part of 'push' which is backwards

Ah right

is that intentional?

I honestly don't remember.

so the letters should be 'udccedfsrbasy?'

I spent two hours creating this, and then I printed it out and did it, and I only found a missing I.

There's no f.

Or y.

How about we create an updated image?

what oh yeah sorry about the last two they shouldn't be there

Okay on it

@Mithrandir done

udcceldsrba

thats only 11

Hang on, let me check this one.

Just checking, you do have the correct letters right?

Somewhere.

There are still 2 letters missing, and then there's the eye.

Let's see if I can find them.

Are they supposed to make sense?

Yes, after they're descrambled.

Ah so not much help there

8e - how is that part of a word?

The d?

part of land upwards

Oof. I think 'die' and 'push' killed it.

What letters am I missing?

Am trying to guess them from anagramming the letters...

Hang on. I'm going to see if I can switch one word to be a not-word.

?

Did you make a mistake?

Yes.

:P I somehow do that often.

Thats fine, can you fix it easily?

Probably.

@Randal'Thor Exactly.

I made a mistake with this depsite double checking, its easy to do.

@Mithrandir just tell me when its fixed then I can continue

@BeastlyGerbil SHould be only a few minutes, then I have to update the email.

The email?

The original image, that you click to get the bookcase.

Oh that one

@BeastlyGerbil The new image will be at FNt8r.png, I have to update the email. I updated the top right and bottom left.

Thanks will take a look

Okay top right, do I leave 'ded' all unmarked?

no.

that e is part of joke, and the first d is part of something, I think...

Missed joke.

@Mithrandir There's no d in "something".

:P

Let's say that DAE is a word...

Okay

This is what I have:

I counted 'haw' as a word.

Bottom left that is

Don't

That's a lot of Cs and Ds.

Okay...

Next one ^

udcdcdsrbahd

sad

eeer

Ah missed that

I mean, you missed that word, not that your attempt is 'sad'. o_o

:-D

baa starting at the b on the 3rd last row

you're not counting "baa" as a word, I take it

Noooo....

@Rubio Right

Hmmmm, that is only 10

lower right "a" is part of "has"

@Mithrandir ?

Wait, where'd the 'l' and 'e's go?

i think @Mithrandir missed words

the "l" that was 3 above the "f" that used to be unmarked - that's part of LOIN

Yep, and e is part of 'dae' which you said to include as a word

I'm killing this. :P

how is DAE a word? lol

@Rubio @Mithrandir made a mistake so he said imagine that is a word

@Mithrandir what should I do?

So say it isn't a word, and find an excuse to kill a d and replace it with an l

oh my.

Sorry, but @Mithrandir is no BmyGuest or Alconja :-)

so what letters are there after those shenanigans

@Randal'Thor That's right.

Where is 'say'

udcdcdrbh and we make one of the "d"s into an "l" leaving ULCDCDBH ?

Needs more vowels.

Killed a d and added an l

I'll replace the lower d in ded with an l

What now?

you unmarked two L's actually

the one from LOG and the one from LOIN

Ack

@Mithrandir so are the letters udccldrb?

thats only 8....

I need to hurry, I've only got 5 minutes

the "E" two below the unmarked "C" in the top row shouldn't be marked

there's no word that uses it that I see

thanks

and @Mithrandir if you swap a D for an L in ded, that doesn't help. LED is still a word.

@Rubio No, it's an acronym.

What now?

but i think the letters we should have now are: U D C C E D R B H and the extra L he says we should include

uuh

Both affected corners again.

LED is the past tense of LEAD. it's a word.

I have no time now.

Oh right. facepalm

It's getting too late for me to think.

Can you just tell us the letters?

We are basically there

But then we keep coming across a mistake which you correct then we have to start over

plus we need an extra I

ldhdicdbsuerac

Thanks

I'll fix the image at some point.

lol. that's, like, way off

is that with the extra "I" we're supposed to add from the other clue, or no?

can we assume that 'I' is a word

gtg

I'll check in the morning. Good luck.

if that's supposed to descramble into something

yeah

I don't see that it does.

Me neither

Bye

@BeastlyGerbil Bye. And that has the I.

And no, I is not it's own word.

And yes, it descrambles.

you need - a b c c d d d e h i l r s u puzzle apparently resolves to a b c c d d d e h r u (if you don't count RAD or BAA as a word) + the L you were trying to get back in there, and the extra I we were clued to add. no S's are left over. I think without changing DED to LED we had the right number of Ds left (3) and were missing an L.

so with the original letters, you'd be missing an S and an L (and that I).

unless I missed something.

off your latest grid ppSHv i get unuseds as: u d c c e d a s r b h e → a b c c d d e e h r s u ... an extra E, a missing D,L,I. assuming: GEO and RAD are not words, and LED is (cuz it is)... make it DED again, replace the E that's two down and two left from the top right corner with a L, and the bottom-right-most T with an I, and I think that would fix the word search. I think.

@Mithrandir can you reconfirm those letters? I have an amusing and fitting descrambler if one of those Cs is another A instead