The Sphinx's Lair

3:38 AM

Why am I here?

A puzzling easter egg hunt sent me but I must be lost

4

3:50 AM

@GarethMcCaughan AYESHA and NEFRA are both too short to be the answer.

mathematics geometry strategy game game-theory

0

Q: Can the fugitive escape?

A fugitive is surrounded by N police officers, with the nearest one at distance 1 away. The fugitive and the officers move alternatively. In a fugitive move, the fugitive can travel no more than a distance of d. In a officer move, the sum of distances travelled by all officers can be no more tha...

4:14 AM

@Amoz Oh wait a second, I finally understand what those numbers mean now!

Those numbers? You are smart you can help me

Dunno if I should really tell ya at this point ;-)

I don't know about any numbers but that easter egg hunt says "TOTHESPHSLAIR" and maybe "OFHEETLASYNTA"

mean anything to you

@Amoz Yeah, I got the "other" hidden message that Stiv was alluding to

@msh210 There are a few eight-letter queens listed in Noel Cox's book (which is available online), but none of them seem to fit the rest of the clue.

4:18 AM

It should be rot13(GBGURFCUVAKFYNVE)

yes but what does it mean

Well, it's definitely related to the numbers

surely the queen is "she" somehow

Ahhhh yes. I knew you were brilliant. No idea how yet but I see you could have a point

which would make "beau" the definition part

4:19 AM

I'll keep struggling

@Amoz if you wanna talk more about the puzzle we can make a new chat room

I just wanted to get past that block; that should get me something to mull over

What numbers were you referring to? The ones in that puzzle or something else

Yeah, the numbers next to the words in the table

I was wondering what they were for

Got it

4:37 AM

I have been working on the theory that the C4 contains I = "current" and SO = significant other = "beau," with the def then being "Haggard" or "Haggard queen." Don't really know of any queens that are or were exhausted though, and Qat hasn't given me anything useful to work off of

haggard most likely is H. Rider Haggard

bobble

I got my first tag badge!!! Bronze logical-deduction

@bobble Congrats!

bobble

I need three more grid-deduction answers to qualify for that one

No doubt the start of a fruitful journey

Q: Puzzle of the day ...help me out with this

5:08 AM

-2

A powerful sorcerer has hired Rickey Rat as an intern. The wizard gives Rick the task of carrying water from a well to the garden. The path from the well to the garden is up a staircase with 1000 steps. The wizard gives Rickey a one-litre bucket and tells him that the bucket was an old one he exp...

riddle mathematics calculation-puzzle

5:22 AM

@Stiv I've finally gotten the next step in your Easter egg puzzle, and I think I know what to do next with what I have. Can't access PSE right now, so I won't be able to update my answer until tomorrow, but I wanted to let you know that I've made pretty significant progress

6:17 AM

@HTM Good news :) I'll wait to see your answer then!

@Jafe My theory has been that 'Haggard queen' clues SHE. 'Current' might also clue 'AC' with 'beau' the definition, but I'm stuck on 'uncertain'!

(And I see now by backtracking through the messages that pretty much all of this has been suggested already!)

6:56 AM

yeah there aren't all that many short words for "uncertain" that i can find

i wonder if it could clue something like ER or UM... maybe not

7:37 AM

woman + is + er could be beau... let's see the arguments for and against

against: the definition isn't all that great, queen -> woman would need a def-by-example indicator, uncertain -> er is pretty iffy, "about current" is unused, as is "haggard", and also that is 9 letters and not 8

for: the 's -> is seems solid

7:57 AM

-1

Q: Rickey Rat puzzle

A powerful sorcerer has hired Rickey Rat as an intern. The wizard gives Rick the task of carrying water from a well to the garden. The path from the well to the garden is up a staircase with 1000 steps. The wizard gives Rickey a one-litre bucket and tells him that the bucket was an old one he exp...

logical-deduction

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

^ Anyone know what's going on with the triplicate 'Rickey Rat' puzzle? Is this the same user posting the same question 3 times for no apparent reason, or is there a contest we should be aware of?

1, 2, 3

Pretty sure it's 1 user with 3 accounts, cuz 1 question is closed he uses another account for the same question

Deusovi

8:18 AM

more likely a competition, I think

vedantu's daily challenge for today, apparently

Eep, we're gonna have to keep an eye on that...

8:43 AM

For any Sporclers out there, the site just dropped a new puzzle hunt yesterday, which may be of interest... They announced it purely by releasing a new badge. The quiz which must be completed first has attracted SO MANY confused comments from people who haven't worked out the first step or don't really appreciate what's going on!

sporcle.com/achievements/badges/under-the-radar

mathematics calculation-puzzle

9:24 AM

0

Q: General aptitude question

Thomas bought a train set with 25 toy engines that run at different speeds. The train set has five parallel tracks that can be built to race the engines. After each round, Thomas notes down the relative speeds of the engines instead of their actual lap times. What is the least number of races he ...

Anonymus 25- Reinstate Monica

^ One of the contest questions has just been deleted, and the same user has just posted another question...

I have commented to check on the source...

(I realise our role is not to police every puzzle that is posted to the site, but I get a bee in my bonnet when people treat us as a resource for cheating...)

10:18 AM

@Stiv I'm a Sporcler but I have no idea what's going on

10:37 AM

@Anonymus25-ReinstateMonica (Solve the puzzle then look at the 16 answers to find a hidden message... Follow all subsequent instructions!)

11:27 AM

@jafe I can confirm that WOMANISER is not the intended answer. (As I'm pretty sure you were already confident it isn't.)

11:57 AM

0

Q: Some hard ciphers

You are trying to recognize a theme for your portfolio, but luckily your friend has some themes! ...but encrypted in a cipher. So here are the encrypted lines of text: pi pi pi pi pi pi pi pi pi pi pika pipi pi pipi pi pi pi pipi pi pi pi pi pi pi pi pipi pi pi pi pi pi pi pi pi pi pi pichu pich...

cipher

Rajorshi Koyal

12:15 PM

Somebody please assist me with this cipher problem 7..

What have you thought about when looking at it?

Rajorshi Koyal

I am getting the letters properly unable to proceed further..

Oh wait a sec I think I got it..

The indices of first and last letters..

aha!

12:44 PM

What determines the encoded words' order?

Nothing, I suspect.

That's unfortunate if true.

Q: One king vs many. Can white force a draw?

4:30 PM

0

On an infinite chessboard there's a single white king and N black kings. The nearest black king must be K moves away from the white king. Given N, white dictates the value of (finite) K, then black places their kings. Question: Can white always force a draw without capturing any black kings? (by ...

mathematics geometry strategy chess game

6:27 PM

@Stiv OK, answer updated, I think we're on the home stretch now!

8:53 PM

@HTM Good to see! You're at the finish line! Just need a little burst of energy now... (BTW All those shows are Emmy Award-winning - that's how restrictive I made it for myself to find anagrams...!)

Q: Numbers with minimal sum at the vertices of a cube

0

The eight vertices of a cube are marked with numbers from 1 to 8 such that the sum of any three numbers on any face is not less than 10. What is the minimum sum of the four numbers on a face?

mathematics optimization number-theory

9:14 PM

@Stiv Ah, I wasn't sure how specific you intended the categories to be - I'll add that in once I figure out the final step